Bouchaine Vineyards
Winemaking at Bouchaine Vineyards in Carneros, Napa Valley is a dynamic process where diversity is created by tailoring vinification and cellar practices to the individual vineyard lots. Nonetheless, there is a basic procedure that defines our philosophical approach and establishes a reference for operations uniquely suited to each fermentation lot. The goal is to extract and retain all of the color and flavor that is delivered in the grapes.
Chardonnay
Pinot Noir is our first love. As a wine, it is at once precocious and capricious. It develops much faster than Cabernet or Syrah and can strike fear in a winemaker one day and elation the next. Making Pinot Noir is more like raising kids. We set the boundaries and the house rules then sit back and enjoy or endure the ride as the case may be.
The quality of the vineyard and the fruit composition at harvest are the most significant elements in wine quality. As winemakers, our job is to encourage the grapes to give up as much as they can during the fermentation and to retain as much as possible until the wine is consumed.
Harvesting ripe fruit is not as straightforward as it might seem. We do analyze for sugar and acid but of equal importance is the flavor of the grapes. More specifically, at Bouchaine, we taste for the diminishment of green flavors as well as preempting supra- ripe character. Sometimes the optimum harvest window is only a day or two.
Pinot Noir is delivered to the winery where it is then de-stemmed and partially crushed to leave a few of the berries intact. Occasionally, a judicious helping of stems may be added back to add spice to the wine if desired. The crushed grapes then soak for two or three days to assist in color and soft, sweet tannin extraction prior to inoculation with yeast.
During the fermentation the tanks must be thoroughly mixed each day to monitor progress and help control temperature. When optimum extraction has occurred (7 to 10 days) the wine is drawn off of the skins to a “free run” tank and the wet skins taken to the press where the remainder of the wine is extracted and lead off to a “press wine” tank.
After a brief settling the wine is moved to appropriate barrels where the malolactic fermentation is encouraged and the anxious vigil begins. For the next four or five months, the wine passes through childhood into adolescence. During this period we are repeatedly called upon to judge whether or not the wine is going through a phase, is ill, or in danger. Patience, attention, and rare intervention bring the wines to the place in late winter when the quality is assessed with an eye towards making the blending decisions that see the wines through their adolescence. The wines generally receive one racking and are blended and put back down to barrel to wait for the final racking, filtration and bottling that occurs mid to late summer.
As Mike Richmond and team as well as consultant and long time friend, wine consultant Larry Brooks, often say, ‘We strive to make Pinot Noir with perfume AND power.’ Bouchaine wines are crisp, well balanced, and elegant, and demonstrate the signature varietal characteristics of grapes grown in the Carneros region.
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