WINEMAKING
The job of a winemaker is to express the qualities of the fruit he is working with. He can’t improve on the raw materials, but he can certainly alter them, or at worst, destroy them.
 
Our job, then, begins in the vineyard; we work hard to grow fully mature fruit, free of pesticides, and to pick it at the correct confluence of acid levels and sugars. Balance is the key, of course, a concept which is something of a rarity in these days of ultra-fruity, mega-concentrated cabernets (whose aging ability is not proven). Laurel Glen wines are balanced from the start, and that’s why they have a well deserved track record for being long lived wines.

Mountain grapes ripen slowly in somewhat sparse growing conditions; hence, the berries are small and, given a higher ration of skin to juice, can tend to be tannic (tannin, that rough feeling in the mouth comes directly from the skins).
  
This background informs our winemaking. We utilize open top fermenters, and punch down the cap by hand to gently extract flavor. We eliminate the bitter and astringent seeds from the fermenting must and rack by gravity whenever feasible. We keep fermenting temperatures from exceeding 30 degrees Celsius, let the wines ferment on their own “natural” yeasts (no added yeasts), ferment at the pace they naturally favor, and add no S02 to the must. All this keeps excessive tannins from developing and maximizes the natural flavors and aromas of our fruit.
 
Our wines are pressed gently into new Taransaud French oak barrels, where the malolactic fermentation takes place.   The unusually long barrel regime of 22 months is designed to maximize the maturity of the wine and to balance the tannin levels, not to add oak flavor to the wine: the intensity of our wines guards against over-oaking. During its time in barrel, we rack 8 – 10 times to introduce oxygen, and remove sediment: the wine are thus well-developed and clean, and prepared for a long live in the bottle. Salud!!