Our new cellar, built in the winter of 2019, is hidden underground like a hobbit’s cave. Being subterranean helps us manage temperature and humidity, which stay fairly constant throughout the year.
Winemaking
The grapes we harvest undergo various treatments on their way to becoming wine:
- We pick by hand, though “gentle” isn’t always the right word—clusters often fly through the air for a couple of meters before landing in the crates.
- We destem and crush with a steel machine that makes a lot of noise. It’s not a gentle process.
- Some of these grapes ferment in plastic bins. We “mistreat” them regularly, especially the red-skinned ones, with a tool that stirs the must for a long time to oxygenate it.
- Voracious yeasts feast on the sugar, eating it all and transforming it into alcohol.
- Stainless steel tanks — For freshness and purity
- Concrete vats — For slow, even aging
- Neutral tonneaux — For subtle oak influence without overwhelming the grape
- Georgian qvevri — For our Pirona Albana
By the end, very little of the original grape remains. When the process is complete and the sugar is gone, we add sulfur and seal everything in darkness, without oxygen, for weeks and weeks.
Aging
Depending on the wine we want to make, we use:
The Qvevri
A special mention goes to the Georgian amphorae we use to make one of our Albanas. We have two, holding 350 and 600 liters, and for us they have something magical.
The Albana is crushed and destemmed, and the must goes directly into the qvevri with its skins. It stays there for 31 days (more or less) without being touched. The cap of skins acts as a natural seal for the must, which ferments slowly beneath.
We listen to the sighs of fermentation with our ear pressed against the terracotta. When the 31 days are up, we rack without pressing the skins, and the wine moves to steel for the winter.
