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. 

Read More About The Journey

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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!

Read More On Brix

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Hear it from the Winemaker

FIND THE PERFECT BRIX FOR YOU

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🍇Time on the Vine and Nature's Variables:🍇

Harvest season is upon us-the moment of the year that all of our efforts and preparations have led up to! Harvesting doesn't happen on an annual day of the year though. Mother Nature decides when the grapes are ready and harvesting varies every year! Typically in July-August the grapes begin to ripen. They transition from small green clusters to colorful bulbous beauties. Witnessing it is as magical as it seems as a grape can change colors dramatically even just over night. Hues of translucent gold and purple-ruby sweep the fields as the grapes bulge into their best selves and then, and only then, are they ready for the picking. Until this moment, we wait for Mother Nature's green light.

So what natural occurrences can happen that define when we harvest?

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HOW WE DECIDE WHEN TO HARVEST

LATE & EARLY HARVESTS

Some grapes are picked early or late on purpose. Select early-picked grapes are typically used for some whites and sparkling wines for their high acidity. Other grapes can be picked almost a month later for wines like Cabernet Sauvignon. A late-harvest grape typically is sweeter and less acidic the longer it stays on the vine.

Early Harvest Wines:

BRIGHT ∙ ACIDIC ∙ CRSIP

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Late Harvest Wines:

RICH ∙ BOLD ∙ BALANCED

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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.

Read More On The Magic

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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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soil health and sustainable farming practices.

What Does It Mean To Farm Sustainably?

A sustainable winemaking process can be defined by many things, but what it really all comes down to is a few simple things:

Sustainable wine grape growing is the journey of continually improving one's ability to minimize farming's environmental and social footprints.

Here's what we are doing:

Doing The Dirty The Natural Way: Soil Rehab & Revitalization

Before Noisy Water ownership, the soil at The Forbidden Desert Vineyard was over tilled, over plowed and became so overworked. When this happens, the soil stops feeding the plants nutrients and can cause the vines to slowly die. In an effort to give back to the farmland that has and will give so much to us, we utilize a few different sustainable farming practices: 

Weed removal methods such as disking and undercutting can cause copious amounts of soil erosion, so we opt to just let Mother Nature take the wheel and let cover crops/weeds grow and then we mow/mulch them back into the soil. This feeds the soil with plant material and nutrients and restructures and secures the topsoil.

🍇 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!

Read More on The Magic

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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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