DoctorCAD
Well-Known Member
Went to Livermore, CA last week and stopped at a small (100% organic) winery for a tasting. They were not very busy so they asked if we would like to do some barrel tasting of their 2008 wines.
Interesting, to say the least!
The wine was great, and will only get better as it ages in the barrels. They were selling futures on that particular batch.
The most interesting thing to me, a home winemaker, was the total lack of sanitation. We are taught and warned to sterilize, sterelize, sterilize. They opened the bungs by hand, dipped wine thiefs right off the wall, puored into used glasses, made blends of 2 wines with the same wine thief and put the bung back in with no thought to sterilization. Guess it isn't as important as we make it out to be.
I did talk to their head winemaker about filtering, his advice was to only filter whites. No reasoning, but he has been doing it that way all of his life.
Interesting, to say the least!
The wine was great, and will only get better as it ages in the barrels. They were selling futures on that particular batch.
The most interesting thing to me, a home winemaker, was the total lack of sanitation. We are taught and warned to sterilize, sterelize, sterilize. They opened the bungs by hand, dipped wine thiefs right off the wall, puored into used glasses, made blends of 2 wines with the same wine thief and put the bung back in with no thought to sterilization. Guess it isn't as important as we make it out to be.
I did talk to their head winemaker about filtering, his advice was to only filter whites. No reasoning, but he has been doing it that way all of his life.
