Dito began his winemaking journey in 2014 after many meticulous months of learning the ropes under other winemakers. His first taste of making wine behind the scenes had him hooked. Soon after, he attended multiple Viticulture and Enology classes to better understand the wine as well as the grapevines and soil.
A few years into his craft, he adopted a young talent by the name of Michael Mosca to assist him in day-to-day operations. Michael quickly fell in love with the process just as Dito had, and the two of them honed their skills together. Michael eventually became the assistant winemaker and continued to walk in Dito’s footsteps when it came to the excitement for the artistry.
Dito’s dedication to winemaking soon erupted into a passion rather than just a hobby. Not long after, he began entering his wine in competitions and won the award for Winemaker of the Year at the San Diego County Fair. He and his Petite Sirah took home around ten awards that year. He pays close attention to the science behind the wine, but also modifies it into an art. This has continued to result in bold, beautiful wines that stand in a class of their own.
As a winemaker, I wanted to give you a glimpse into what it takes to make the bottle of wine you are going to be enjoying. We take great pride in following a meticulous and carefully designed process with the grapes in our vineyard as well as the steps we take to make the wine. There are several “secrets” and additional steps we take depending on the varietal and what we are tying to accomplish with the wine, but these steps below will allow you to see the great care and detailed process we follow to make sure that each bottle of 2156 Estate wine is both outstanding and consistent. Enjoy…
1. Decide When It’s Time to Harvest the Grapes
2156 Estate Vineyard’s harvest is always in multiple stages. Many different plantings make our vineyard management much more intensive. Our various types of vines mature at different times. Certain blocks of Tempranillo (Tempranillo in Spanish means “early”) just happen to mature early while certain blocks of Cabernet Sauvignon seem to want to hang around forever.
How do we know when to pick? Our winemaking team, led by Winemaker, Dito Diez and Vineyard manager Jeanne Diez, tastes and walks every vineyard many times, watching for flavor development. Harvest usually occurs sometime between September and early October depending on the growing season. During that time of year, we sample each of vines in each varietal to determine if they are ready for picking.
In addition to analyzing by sight, smell, and taste, we check the sugar and acidity levels in our lab to determine the exact day we want to harvest.
2. Pick the Grapes
Once we determine that harvest is underway, our vineyard team, led by Director of Vineyard Operations, Jeanne Diez, hand picks the grapes, typically harvesting around 1 ton a day with the ability to nearly double that if additional hands are brought in. We transport the fruit in small bins to our crush pad as quickly as possible and the processing begins.
3. Destem the Grapes and Drop Them into the Fermenter Tank
We place the sorted grapes into the de-stemmer, where the berries are separated from the stem. The berries then travel through the tubing and the grapes fall into a fermenting tank. This gentle handling optimizes the quality of the fruit going into the tank which minimizes any bitterness that might come from the stems, seeds, or skins. We work hard to sort the fruit to ensure only the best fruit makes it to the fermentation tank.
4. Maceration and Fermentation
Once the grapes arrive in the tank, we cool the juice, skins, and seed (collectively called “must”) to approximately 50°F and allow the juice to “cold soak”. During the cold soak, which typically lasts 2-3 days, we gently punch down the juice in the tank to allow extraction of the skins into the juice. We believe this extraction at the beginning of the fermentation process allows for wines with better color, and softer, richer tannins.
Once the cold soak is completed, we warm the tanks to allow yeast fermentation. During this process, yeasts convert the sugar in the juice to alcohol and carbon dioxide. At 2156 Estate Vineyard, we use both natural yeasts (i.e. those that are present on the grapes from the vineyard), and pure cultured yeasts to carry out the fermentations. We believe the combination of both types of yeast fermentations provides an additional level of complexity and individuality.
Each day, the fermenting juice is gently pumped over 2–3 times per day to continue the extraction process with the skins. The wines are analyzed for sugar and temperature daily, as well as being tasted by our winemaker to monitor the fermentation progress. When Dito determines that the wine is ready, we move on to draining and pressing. The whole process, from the arrival of the grapes at the winery to the draining and pressing of the must, generally takes approximately 14 days.
5. Drain and Pressing of the Must
The majority of the liquid in the tank at this stage is now wine, and it can easily be drained from the tank and become what we call “free run”. Once the free run is removed from the tank, we remove the skins from the tank and press them to remove the remaining wine. This residual wine, which amounts to approximately 10–15% of the volume, is kept separate to determine the quality of this fraction.
6. Malolactic Fermentation
Once fermentation is complete, we move the wines to small 60-gallon French oak barrels. At this point, we may inoculate the wine with malolactic bacteria to encourage malolactic fermentation. Malolactic fermentation is a natural fermentation that converts malic acid (which naturally occurs in grapes) to lactic acid. This conversion reduces the acidity of the wine and makes it more stable for long-term storage and aging. Typically, the malolactic fermentation is complete 4–8 weeks following the initial yeast fermentation.
7. French Oak Aging and Racking
All of our wines are aged in French oak, with most wines typically being aged in at least 50% new French oak barrels. We use a variety of barrel coopers and source barrels from many different oak forests in France. Some of the coopers that we use include Radeux, Saury, ARI. Each cooper has its own special technique for the production and seasoning of the barrels, and therefore each producer’s barrels have their own distinctive flavor profiles. We approach the barrels from the different coopers almost as a chef would approach different spices in the making of a special dish with each having its own flavor characteristics.
During the barrel aging, we will periodically rack the wines to clarify them and help them evolve. While the wine ages, solids (yeast, solids, tannins, tartrates) will fall to the bottom of the barrel. Racking involves the decanting of the clear wine off the top of the barrel, leaving the sediment and solids behind. This process happens approximately every 3 months, and may also include a minor amount of aeration to help evolve the fruit and soften the tannins.
Our red wines stay in the barrel for approximately 20–22 months to allow the wines to develop and graciously integrate the flavors of the oak into the wines.
8. Bottling and Aging the Wine
The last step in the winemaking process is the bottling and labeling of the wine, which may occur as long as 2 years after the grapes have been harvested. Once the wine is bottled, we typically allow the wines to age for an additional 6–12 months in the bottle before the wines are released for consumption. This additional aging allows the wines to further develop, soften, and evolve to the delicious and complex style that is a trademark of 2156 Estate Vineyard wines. Many of our wines will continue to develop and improve with additional years of cellar aging, and we hope that you will continue to enjoy them for years to come.
