Written September 17, 2009 by Assistant Winemaker, Jason Gerard:
And so it begins…
Fall is arguably my favorite time of year. Football season has just kicked off, the weather and scenery in Napa Valley are stunningly beautiful and of course, most importantly of all, it is time to harvest the much cared for grapes and transform them into World Class wines.
The process has just begun for us, as we have harvested and fermenting a unique variety for Napa Valley, Malbec. Two tons of Malbec fruit were picked less than a week ago off of the top of Pritchard Hill and brought down to the winery to be the first wine made for the 2009 vintage of Tom Eddy Wines. This vineyard lies in the Vaca Mountains and is without question one of the finest with the best view of Napa Valley I have ever seen. On a clear day, San Pablo bay shimmers off to the left and the town of St. Helena is plain to see nestled on the valley floor to the right…..incredible to say the least.
The Malbec fruit arrived early in the morning last Thursday (Sept.10) and after careful cluster sorting to remove all leaves and other undesirables (known in the industry as MOG – Materials Other than Grapes) the fruit went into a small, open top fermentation tank. The open top on this tank allows us the ability to do ‘punch downs’ as opposed to ‘pumpovers’. Punch downs are a more gentle way of wetting the skins that float to the top (known as the cap) of the tank during fermentation as opposed to using a pump which pumps the fermenting juice from the bottom of the tank onto the cap. This more gentle, punch down process helps to minimize the extraction of harsh and bitter tannins from seeds and skins to yield a softer, more elegant wine. It is slightly more labor intensive but also saves me money on a gym membership…..who needs to hit the weights when you can balance on a plank of wood and continuously shove a giant metal plunger into fermenting grape skins and juice?
Throughout the approximately 2 week fermentation process, the yeast continually eats the sugar to release alcohol as a metabolite. This process produces a fair amount of heat, so between this high temperature and the production of alcohol, the extraction process becomes very powerful indeed. Color and tannin are extracted from the skins, and I must say this Malbec has some of the best color I have ever seen in a fermenting wine, proof of its thoroughbred upbringing.
Malbec is relatively scarce here in Napa Valley. Normally used as a blending tool it’s rarely known to stand on its own outside of Argentina. It is one of only a handful of varieties used in the renowned French growing region of Bordeaux but in general it makes up only a small amount of these French blends. It is an exciting varietal with a lot of unique qualities that we feel allow it to stand on its own as long as the growing conditions are superb and the winemaking impeccable. Our goal is to make this into a Single Vineyard reserve style wine so that all the fans of Tom Eddy wines will have something fun, unusual and of course delicious to try in the future.
We hope you are as excited to see how this wine turns out as we are and mid-way through fermentation I can say I have the highest hopes that this wine will be one of a kind. More to come as harvest progress. Jason