You have to be quick on your feet to make sparkling wine. Harvest starts earlier than for still wines and the time frame is considerably more condensed because there just isn’t as much time to pick the grapes. Harvesting is done during the cool nights to eliminate the need to chill the juices and reduce energy consumption. Pauline Lhote, the Director of Winemaking at Domaine Chandon in Napa, describes the pace. “We process fruit every single day. When a block is ready, we have only a couple of days to pick it. If today were a harvest day, we would be pressing, and tonight, we would start doing flotation to clarify the juices. By later tonight or tomorrow morning, the wine would already be inoculated.” Chandon is, of course, all about sparkling — 98% of its wines have bubbles. Its winemaking and production team of nearly 45 employees turns around 30 sparkling wines in this fast-paced environment, from the large case production for its brut and rosé blends

Harvest Report: Chandon California Announces Start to the 2022 Harvest

Napa Sparkling Wine Harvest Begins, Having Successfully Weathered Frost, Hail and Drought Winemaker Pauline Lhote Says Water Conservation and Fire Safety Were ‘Top of Mind All Season’ and Praises 2022 […]