When making our Pinot Noir, we first hand sort the fruit before removing the berries from the stems. We place the whole berries, without crushing, into the fermenter, where they will "cold soak' for four days to extract a maximum of fruit character. The grapes will then begin the fermentation process where they are gently "punched down" two times a day.

The relatively cool fermentations are closely monitored and decisions to increase or decrease punch downs or to implement delestage or other techniques are made based on what we are tasting and observing as the grapes ferment.

Once we feel we have achieved proper extraction and the fermentation is complete, we drain the tanks directly to barrel where the wine will go through malolactic fermentation and will continue to age for approximately 14 months or until the wine has achieved proper maturity. As with our Chardonnays, our Pinot Noir is neither fined nor filtered prior to bottling.