Our Life in Wine

How did my wine get into this bottle you ask? Now that we're in the thick of harvest season, we wanted to take the opportunity to walk through the process of harvest & winemaking - and explain why it takes so darn long to release a wine.  But we promise, its worth the wait.   

Grape Harvest: Winemaking begins with grape harvesting. Grapes are typically harvested in the late summer or early fall, depending on the climate and the grape variety. In Santa Barbara wine country, the earlier ripening grape varieties, such as Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir and Lyons Vineyard Viognier, are usually harvested in late August or early September. Mourvèdre, which ripens later, typically ends our harvest in late October, with many other red grape varieties picked in between.  

Harvest dates are determined by taking samples of a few clusters from each varietal throughout the vineyard, and testing their juice to see when the grapes have reached their optimal sugar and acid levels. To help us decide when to pick grape berries, we also taste the berries themselves, because we want the fruit to taste delicious and full of flavor.  

When a target pick date has been estimated, we need to determine the exact day to harvest based on the workload of the vineyard crew, other picks on the calendar, as well as the availability of equipment in the winery given other batches of grapes that have already begun fermenting. As a result, sometimes decisions are influenced by both logistics and grape readiness.  

On the day of harvest, the crew arrives at the vineyard between 2am and 3am and picks until around 6am or 7am (depending on how much we’re harvesting that day).  The grapes are harvested by hand: we walk down the rows clipping clusters and filling buckets, which are then dumped into half-ton picking bins.  When the bins are full, they are fork-lifted onto a truck and driven straight to the winery.  This night-time picking under the stars keeps the fruit cold and fresh.  Imagine the difference when you eat an apple, orange or even table grapes when they’ve been sitting on a hot counter vs when they come straight out of the fridge.  When kept cold, the fruit retains more acidity and vibrancy; and when kept warm, it becomes bruised and mushy (a technical term).  Likewise, when wine grapes are kept cool, they produce wines with much more liveliness and complexity. 

Crushing and Pressing: After the grapes are harvested and brought to the winery, they begin their winemaking process.  Red grapes are often crushed to release the juice, sometimes keeping a portion as whole clusters and a portion of the berries pulled off of the stems (destemmed).  Fermentation vats or barrels hold the crushed mixture of juice, skins, and seeds, which is left to ferment. White wine is made by pressing grape clusters and separating the juice from the seeds and skins before fermentation.

Fermentation: During fermentation, often yeast is added to the mixture to convert the sugar in the grapes into alcohol. Some winemakers choose to let the grapes spontaneously ferment via the pre-existing yeasts that are present in the vineyard, winery and on the grapes themselves. As a result, the former can be more reliable since you're ensuring a specific dose of yeast is present, until all the sugar has been fermented away.  The latter is a nice way to incorporate the natural terrior of the vineyard, but sometimes results are less predictable. Both use natural yeast cultures and are perfectly healthy decisions.  The fermentation process takes place in vessels such as stainless steel tanks, oak barrels, or concrete vats. Red wines are fermented with the skins and seeds, giving them their characteristic color and tannins.  White wines are fermented with only juice, but sometimes are left to rest on the dead yeast cells (called lees) to provide creaminess and body to the wine.

Aging: After fermentation, the wine is aged in oak barrels, stainless steel tanks, or concrete vats. A wine's flavor and texture can be greatly affected by the type of vessel used for aging. Oak barrels impart flavors of vanilla, toast, and spice, while stainless steel and concrete preserve the fruity and floral aromas of the wine. A neutral vessel (one that doesn’t impart much flavor but allows the wine to breathe, rest and age) can help harmonize and integrate the flavor components and smooth out the tannins. The length of aging also makes a difference in the extent of the vessel’s impact on the wine. It is common for red wines to sit in barrels for 12 - 18 months before they are bottled.  With Lyons Vineyard wine we typically age our reds in neutral French Oak between 10 - 15 months, depending on the resulting wine we’d like to create. 

Blending: After aging, the winemaker may choose to blend different wines together to create a unique flavor profile. This is especially common with red wines, where different grape varieties are often blended together to create a more complex flavor.  It is also possible to use one variety to help balance out another, creating a wine that is more harmonious.  We like to do both – release single varietal wines to showcase the beauty of Grenache, Syrah or Mourvèdre on their own; or blend the 3 together to create a "GSM" to show how the components can combine to create such a flavorful and interesting wine. 

Bottling: Once the wine has been aged and blended, it is bottled and corked. The wine is then left to age further in the bottle before it is ready to be sold. Typically wine should rest in bottle at least 3 - 4 months to get past the bottle-shock phase, where sometimes the agitation of moving it from its resting vessel into a smaller bottle can mute the flavors or knock off the balance.  It typically returns to its glory a few months thereafter, so most wineries wait to sell it until it will show its best. 

Given this long process - you can see why it's taken us a while to get our first vintage of wines released to you all!  The time from harvest to having the bottle in your hand can be 18 months to nearly 2 years for red wines.  Stay tuned!