Winemaking

As a winemaker, much of my thoughts and actions are given to solving the problem of sugar in wine. Residual sugar in one wine can be the bane of a good vintage. But sweetness can also be another wine’s glory. In my experience, the industry standard of fermenting wines to dryness is the imperative ninety-five percent of the time. To taste a Cabernet Sauvignon that you expected would be gum-tinglingly tannic and instead tastes like a chocolate covered raspberry would be off-putting to most because a sweet Cabernet Sauvignon is not the industry standard. The profile for many wines is dryness – in other words a lack of sweetness, the absence of sugar.

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA WINERIES GO ORGANIC, SUSTAINABLE AND BIODYNAMIC From large to small, northern California wineries are starting to color their operations green, whether by organically growing their grapes, practicing sustainable activities or creating biodynamic environments.

Laely Heron (Click Image to Enlarge) Laely Heron's life reads like that of a character in a James Bond flick. Raised by adventure seeking parents, Laely spent her childhood moving from one exciting place to another -Algeria one year, Singapore the next- with over a dozen different places of residence by the time she graduated high school. College found Laely at the University of Colorado but wanderlust soon took her to Bordeaux to study oenology. The end result was a young woman with a nose for the unique customs, flavors, and scents that differentiate cultures. Not surprisingly, a wine career ensued. Adventurous, entrepreneurial, talented, ambitious and, let’s face it, stunningly beautiful, the only thing missing is a secret identity and a pistol in her boot and Laely Heron could very well be a Bond girl. Action flicks aside, today Laely Heron is pushing the envelope in the wine industry as she endeavors to reshape the image of the “cult“ winemaker as one who makes high quality, ambitious, and affordable wines. Thanks to Laely for chatting with IntoWine.

We’ve all had the occasion to find a little sediment in our wine now and again. Or maybe you’ve noticed that the wine in your glass is not necessarily transparent, that the wine is cloudy. Depending on the treatments the wine received before, during, and after the fermentation process, a bit of residue in the your glass can be a positive or negative sign. On one hand, a little cloudiness or sediment can denote a laissez-faire winemaking style. The winemaker, in other words, attempts to retain as much character in the final product by not fining or filtering the wine before bottling it.