Far Niente Icebergs Vanish...'til next year

Posted 08/20/2008 at 02:08 AM by Dirk

What comes to mind when you think of icebergs?

Practical: They are best to avoid when in a boat. (Titanic)
Philosophical/Physics: Ninety percent of it is out of sight. Environmental: Global warming: Pretty soon the North Pole is going to be underwater if all that ice keeps melting.
Wine: That wine is really cold!

Ice melting events aren't normally associated with wineries, but ice happens. Actually, it happens at bottling for a very good reason. It is called "cold stability." Just as we want people to be reasonably stable, we want our wines to be stable, too.  I was thinking about it because of the ice at Far Niente.

Have you ever left a bottle of Chardonnay in the fridge long enough that it formed little crystals in the bottle? Those are called tartrates (from potassium and sometimes calcium which combines with the tartaric acid) and are the sign of a wine that is not stable...It is perfectly natural.

Some people mistake those crystals for glass in a way that can make any marketing person start to twitch. So what do twitchy sales people and icebergs have to do with each other...cold stability is what.

We choose to chill the wine (if 33 degrees is "chill") for about a week before we get on with bottling. A cold tank is like a gigantic cold beer bottle in that the moisture in the air beads up on the tank. Unlike your beer, it freezes on the tank. After a week, the tanks look like they have white iceberg belly bands. If you ever see a picture of our tanks, and they have ice on them, it was taken during the summer bottling season.

Sure the cellar cools down some from all that ice, but it is the sound that defines the season. Everyone upstairs knows when a tank has been emptied because they hear the crash as each layer of ice peels off the tank and bangs into the floor.

I am not sure what sounds you associate with a winery, but it probably wasn't ice related. The last of the ice has vanished, but it will be back next summer when Stephanie and the crew are preparing the 2008 Chardonnay for bottling.

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