This time of year, when vineyards are quiescent, many of us use the downtime for bottling. At Vinmetrica’s sister company Little Oaks Winery, we are making final preparations for bottling in early Spring. This involves several activities, and a little coordination for proper timing. So we thought we’d share a little about what we do as bottling draws near.
This year we’re bottling our 2022 Viognier, 2022 Rosé of Sangiovese, and our 2021 Sangiovese. We’ll be producing about 180 cases all told. The grapes are from Monarch Hill Vineyard in nearby Escondido, our main source of quality grapes for 10 years now. The Viognier and Rosé, about 80 gal each, were fermented sur lie for 4 months, then cold-stabilized for 2 weeks before racking and storage at 55ºF. The ’21 Sangio was fermented in poly tanks, and after MLF completed, aged over the past year in 50:50 new:neutral Hungarian Oak barrels. We are pleased with the results, made possible in no small part by attention to monitoring important parameters.
