Noisy Water Winery

A Journey To The Bottle

Now that harvest is underway, we are beginning the journey to the bottle. White grapes are harvested before red grapes, but grapes that will be used to make sparkling wine are harvested before anything, because of the lower sugar requirement. Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc are up next while Pinot Noir, Malbec and Merlot follow. Finally, the more robust red grapes like Cabernet Sauvignon and Petite Sirah are last, as they have the highest Brix level, perfect for making bold red wines. 

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The Full Journey:

1. The Press: This is when we squeeze the grape juice out. Once the grapes are pressed, the skins, seeds, and stems clump together into "cake", which can be returned to the vineyard soil as a fertilizer. White grapes are pressed right after harvest, but red grapes aren't pressed until after primary fermentation, which is the next step.
2. Primary Fermentation: Now in juice form, we wait until the yeast converts the sugar in the grapes into alcohol. Red Wine is then pressed and pumped into barrels for aging, while white wine skips step 3 and begins the bottling process.
3. Aging: During this period, months can pass before the wine is ready. This is also when malolactic fermentation occurs. The naturally occurring malic acid gets turned into lactic acid, giving wine that signature buttery, creamy or nutty mouthfeel.
4. Racking & Bottling: When the aging comes to an end, we will start tasting the wine and making sure the final product is just right. Before bottling, the wine is racked, filtered, or both to remove sediment and clarify the wine. Then it is bottling time!

EARLY HARVEST WINES

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LATE HARVEST WINES

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Finding The Perfect Brix

Brix is a common term used in wine making-so what does it mean? Brix is the measurement of sugar level in a fruit. Sugar plays a huge role in making yeast, which is what makes wine contain alcohol! The amount of sugar in the grapes determines how much alcohol will be in the wine so as you probably would guess, finding out the sugar levels of each variety of grape is one of the key factors that lets us know when it is time to harvest. The pH, skin color, fruit acids and seed ripeness are also factors we evaluate before harvesting!

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Hear it from the Winemaker

FIND THE PERFECT BRIX FOR YOU

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🍇 Port Wine: Here's The Scoop: 🍇

Port has been made for centuries dating back all the way to 1174! Traditionally port wine was made in Portugal’s Douro Valley when the English started sourcing their red wine in Portugal after they boycotted French wine in the 17th century. To help preserve the wine on their journey in giant ships back to England, the Englishmen added brandy to the red wine to fortify it and make sure it wouldn't spoil during the ship's journey. As a result, it accidentally made one of the world's most unique and diverse beverages. 

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HOW ITS MADE

During fermentation, when the alcohol level of a wine reaches a certain point, it is fortified with brandy. This brings the fermentation process to a halt, preventing the grape sugar to convert into alcohol any further. The nuances of fruit in the young wine are captured in the process, leaving behind a port of its own uniqueness.

PORTS FOR YOU

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🍇 Oxygen: Wine's Best Friend & Worst Enemy🍇

Oxygen can make or break wine, so the winemaking process is tedious and requires constant attention and awareness. Oxygen is needed particularly during the fermentation process as yeast need it to survive! A by product of the fermentation process is CO2, and can actually become very dangerous during, as it can cause a person to fall unconscious if breathed in.

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DID YOU KNOW?

White wines don’t want a lot of oxygen contact prior to fermentation because it can cause browning. So we use dry ice to blanket the juice in the tank and then start fermentation. Once fermentation is started, co2 blankets the juice and prevents browning. Some white wines come out darker due to the aging process, like oak aged Chardonnays.

For quality control purposes, we taste the wine on the job but begrudgingly have to spit it out as no one wants a boozy winemaker running forklifts or making their wine. 

Perfectly Crafted Wines Made With The Just The Right Amount of Oxygen

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🍇 How Does Wine Get Its Color?🍇

The color is the first characteristic of wine that we notice, and the color can hint at what you might expect for its aroma, flavor and texture. But never judge a bottle by its appearance, because the wine color is not always indicative of the color of grape it is sourced from!

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Did you know that many white wines like
Champagne or Zinfandel are produced from red grapes? The color of wine is influenced by many factors. Here's a few:

When making white wine, the grapes are pressed and the skins of the grapes are immediately removed from contact with the grape juice. Whereas when making red wine, the skins are left in contact with the juice, naturally dying the juice a red/ purple/ garnet tint.

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The intensity of the hue is determined by the amount of time the juice is left in contact with the skins, what time of year the grapes are grown and even the thickness of the grape skins!

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The pigment of grapes, made of phenolic compounds, can express itself in a number of hues, depending on the specific type and the pH of the surrounding plant tissue. 

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Climate can also influence the color of a grape! Soil that is high in calcium can produce thicker-skinned grapes, providing intense wine color hues and a sturdier structure to the grape.

How Many Hue's Do You Have In Your Wine Rack? Need to fill in the gaps?!

Start Here

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🍇 Yeast: Why it's Essential to the Winemaking Process 🍇

Yeasts are single-celled fungal organisms. Without them, there would be no alcohol. Not wine, nor beer, or any spirits distilled from various fermented carbohydrates. Yeast converts sugars into alcohol, which creates carbon dioxide and heat. This is how the dough in bread rises, how malted grain turns into beer and grapes turns into wine.

So how does it work?

Yeast cells cozy up in warm temperatures and a sugary environment that’s not too acidic. Not too cold, nor too sour, but just right.  Apart from sugar, yeasts also need nutrients like nitrogen and vitamins. As long as these conditions are met, yeasts will ferment fresh grapes into delicious wine.

2019 Wild Ferment Old Vine Pinot Noir

More Dry Red Wine For The Season

🍇 Bung Holes: What they are and why we love em' 🍇

A bunghole is a hole bored into a barrel and capped with a large cork-like object called a ‘bung’.  It is essentially the hole which lets you get quick and easy access to the wine inside.

Fun Fact:

How do we know when it's time to retire a barrel? Well, we stick our nose in it! After a barrel has been emptied and cleaned our winemakers and crew smell all the barrels. It's a day full of smelling bungholes 😉

Jump Into Summer With Some of Our Favorite Barrel Aged Wines:

🍇Grafting Grape Vines🍇

Grafting is a propagation technique that allows us to alter the grape variety of the existing vines, which already have a developed root system, without uprooting and replanting the vines. This can be an economical way of changing a whole vineyard rather than re-planting. We start grafting vines before the bud begins to grow, so in late February for early varieties and early March for later varieties.

There are many grafting techniques that can be used. This one is called the cleft graft. It is for larger diameter vines and the scion must be dormant. There is a five step process for the cleft graft:

Forbidden Desert Vineyard Varietals: