Organically grown grapes – no herbicides, no pesticides, natural compost and other organic fertilizer only.
Tilled soil under the rows – worked with ploughs several times a year to keep the soil aerated, rich and biologically active.
Native grasses planted between the rows to add to a self-sufficient ecosystem and inhibit erosion.
De-budding and de-shooting by hand to ensure that each vine is focusing all of its energy on the selected shoots and grape bunches, limiting the number of bunches produced by each vine.
Leaf-thinning by hand of each vine to allow each bunch greater exposure to sunlight and keeping the bunches ventilated thereby reducing disease.
Bunch-thinning by hand where necessary to eliminate any bunches affected by sour rot or bunches ripening unevenly.
Hand-picked grapes – at harvest time rigorous selection in the vineyard choosing only the ripest, healthiest bunches – leaving the rest on the ground to nourish the vineyard Grapes are picked at the coolest hours of the harvesting day and put in small baskets and brought to the press quickly (within an hour of picking). These practices ensure that the grapes come to the press whole (no broken grapes leaking juice) which reduces oxidation and fungal disease risk.
The combination of these practices lead to very low yields per acre, and therefore highly limited production.
In the cellar
Use of naturally occurring yeasts only (the yeasts which develop on the skins of the grapes as they mature in the vineyard vs addition of commercial yeast to the juice after pressing to encourage fermentation)
Barrel-fermentation and aging – for a year or more prior to bottling.
Stirring the lees in the barrels several times each month by hand to encourage natural aromas and protect the juice from oxidation.
No fining or cold-treatment of the wine.
Use of the absolute minimum of sulfite to conserve the wine.
Minimal use of new oak barrels to avoid the classic “wood” tastes found so often in white wine which mask the true flavors and aromas of the grapes.
Corks are from the only organic cork tree plantations in Portugal, the labels are made using water-soluble ink rather than oil-based products. All of this costs more but is part of the philosophy.
The wine-making facility
Allow for a process, from the arrival of the grapes to bottling, which involves minimal mechanical intervention – minimal pumping (use gravity to move the wine – eg. From settling cuves to the barrels).
Allow for ease of cleaning – cleanliness in the wine-making facility is critical in ensuring no wine contamination which can cause corked wine or other off-flavors.
Be environmentally friendly – No synthetic chemical cleaning agents are used, only high-pressure hot water.
The press
"While there are a lot of things I find special and unique about this place, the press is perhaps the most unique aspect of how we work. We press the grapes by hand! This probably deserves a little more explanation.
When I embarked on the project of renovating and restoring the “chai” (the winemaking building) it was literally falling apart. It was piled high with old equipment and various junk, water leaked through the holes in the roof every time it rained, all the electrical connections were burned out, the pipes rusted through… Going through it with flashlights for days on end we sorted through all the junk, gradually emptying it out. Little by little we revealed two old presses, between 50 and 100 years old. They were beautiful examples of mechanical prowess, hulks of metal, oak and concrete, solid as old ships, simple in design. They had clearly not been used for decades.
My thinking on pressing initially had been to get one of the new pneumatic presses which are considered the most qualitative of the modern electric presses. I thought we would give the old ones a lick of paint and keep them as decoration, and a quaint reminder of the past. However, one day I was showing the old presses to Vincent Carême, a close friend, an invaluable advisor and, I believe, one of the best winemakers in the Loire. He looked at the more recent of the two and said, with a smile, “you know, I bet you could use this press”. This was the beginning of a months-long adventure of restoring the old beauty. It involved carpenters creating reproductions of some of the old wooden pieces, of finding some old-timers to come and look at the press who remembered how it worked, showing us the various stages of pressing, and of sanding, cleaning, oiling and painting. When we finally had restored it and for the 2008 harvest were using it for the first time, the word got out about the crazy American and his old press. We had local people, winemakers and ‘civilians’ alike stopping by just to take a look at the strange, archaic spectacle.
While there may be some novelty value in the whole “press story” there are actually technical and quality elements that come into play. Using a press of this kind means that we have no choice but to press slowly and gently and simply can’t build up the pressure that modern presses can, therefore we only get “first press” juice. In my mind, this gives us the best of the grapes. It also means of course that we get a lot less juice (probably half) than if we used a modern press. This makes the wine, unfortunately, even more scarce." -Peter Hahn
