It was a very happy day when this giant piece of steel arrived at the Bodega. At first glance, it may not scream TERROIR! but it soon will.
It is one more step we have achieved towards our goal of making terroir wines in Argentina. It may not be a very pretty step, but it is a very important one. This piece of steel is the backbone of a new gravity-fed winemaking system. This addition adds to a list of changes that are happening at the winery to complement the work we are doing in the vineyards.
In the last two years, we have been doing some tests comparing gravity winemaking. The difference is significant.
The willingness to handle the grapes in a very natural and gentle way is the main reason for using gravity. We already talked a bit about the benefits of gentle handling in our previous post – the new deluxe destemmer, but in short: more grapes remain intact, and that results in extended fermentation time and a great concentration of colors, flavors and aromas.
The thing is, most wineries are built on level ground, so moving grapes from a receiving area to a fermentation tank requires some sort of conveyor – often a pump that sucks the must to get from one place to another. Not exactly smooth…
Instead, some wineries use gravity to transport grapes from one stage to the next. In our case, it was not possible to rebuild the winery on a hill, so we have built a system that we fondly call “the spider”.
“The spider” lifts the grapes into a small 10,000-liter tank to begin their long, slow fermentation. The grapes are broken down by their own weight, and the juice flows by natural gravity. When needed, we do a pigeage or gentle stomping. Which means: the taste of the wine respects its origin.
The truth is, we can find the most interesting sites, hand-harvest earlier, use our beloved tachos, feed the vines organic nutrients, plant the rows of vines at an optimal angle, and use indigenous yeasts, but if our winemaking practices don’t follow that terroir philosophy, we might as well throw it all away.
Small achievements are more effective than big promises. Let’s go!