Our philosophy in winemaking begins in the vineyards of the Livermore Valley. Michael and Rhonda establish long term commitments with the various growers in order to ensure consistency in quality with the grapes we use. Gentle processing of the grapes begins with hand harvesting in early morning hours and brought to our winery and kept cool until crush. The grapes are sorted at crush with the thought…if it doesn’t look like a grape you would like to eat…it doesn’t go into the crusher/destemmer. A cold soak is done on the grapes and the grapes are allowed to warm up and naturally begin fermentation before innoculation with a chosen yeast. The Chardonnay sees 6 – 12 hours of skin time before destemming. Fermentation of the red grapes is done in open top fermenters with punch downs two to three times a day depending on the stage of fermentation. Pressing off the skins into tanks for blending and settling is done at dryness. Racking off the gross lees into small oak barrels for aging is done 24 –48 hours after. Average age in oak is 20 months. Gravity racking is done during the aging process approximately four times before bottling. Most of the wines are left unfiltered at bottling. The Chardonnay is minimally filtered and unfined.
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770 Cedar Mountain Drive, Livermore CA 94550 - Winery: 925.606.7411 - Fax: 925.606.7308 - rhonda@woodfamilyvineyards.com