It is no secret that making great wine requires an enormous amount of work and hinges on factors that are not always in our control. Growing grapes is where the process starts and from the technicalities of soil management, to the proper harvesting, all the way to putting wine into barrels for aging and then bottles for selling, The entire process requires true craftsmanship and artistry.

My friends at Flowers Vineyard and Winery, on the Sonoma Coast of California, invited me to witness the process and while I had a little bit of an idea of what was required, I really found out that there is so much more than I thought to the task of getting a good bottle of wine to the table.

For a vineyard manager, the labor of keeping grape vines healthy is a year-round effort. Soil management, pruning, and keeping pests away are just a little bit of the work that goes into producing beautiful grapes. Flowers’ position on the Sonoma Coast is very special and provides the perfect cool nights and hot days that grapes love but also some gusts of sea breezes that provide flavor in a very good way. All of these things make up the “terrior” that will give identity to the wine. Once the grapes are perfectly ripe (the winemaker will test the grapes over a few days to check for taste and sugar content) the harvest team comes in to start picking the fruit. The work is very physical because the workers have to bend over to get to all of the grape clusters, the sun is extremely hot and the bins of grapes that they carry through the rows of vines are heavy. The harvest team works very quickly because once the grapes have hit their peak, the fruit must be picked immediately.

From harvest, the grapes go through a sorting process where workers view every cluster to pick out any fruit that might have mold or damage. Next they are put into huge tanks to begin the fermentation process. Over the course of a few days, the grapes will begin to break down, releasing their juices and developing complex flavors. During this time, the winemaker will “punch down” or stir up the juice with the skins and seeds so that the flavors will continue to evolve. Keeping the skins and seeds with the juice for a while develops color, flavor, and tannins in the wine. The juice will also go through an aeration process that incorporates oxygen into the tank, giving more power to the yeasts that are working inside the wine. At these various points, the winemaker will continue to taste the wine. It is very new and a little bit viscous at this time but there are already some nice characteristics developing and the winemaker can get an idea of what is happening. After several days, the juice is finally separated from the solids and drained into new oak barrels from the Burgandy region of France where it will stay for whatever length of time the winemaker feels is necessary. He will use what is called a “thief” (a long glass cylinder) to take a little of the wine out of the barrel to taste it at different intervals. Once he feels it is ready, the wine will either be put straight into bottles for selling or will go through the blending process.

Blending Wine:
The process of blending wine is really an art form in itself. Sometimes winemakers will blend different varietals together and sometimes they will put together the same kind of grape (usually all from the same vintage), to get a certain taste and structure to make the wine even better than when it began. At the Flowers Winery, I was invited to sit in on a blending session to make a Pinot Noir “Cuvée” (the French word for “blend”). We started with a core wine that was a wine from a certain block (a particular section of the vineyard) of grapes as our base. We also had four or five other pinot noirs to begin testing with the core. It is amazing that some people are so good at this because it really uses all of your senses.

Obviously smell and taste are key factors here but also the texture of a wine, or how it feels in your mouth is important. Color can also be a deciding factor because really, we are all influenced visually. There are really no right or wrong answers when blending wine once you have started with a good product. After that, it is a little bit of science, a little bit of instinct, some skill for sure, and in the end, it is art. Taking little amounts of this and that wine, writing down each measurement, tasting and consideration—it is a lot like cooking—it is fun but to make it an occupation and to do it well, with soul and skill is true craftsmanship.