1. The Set Up
At Tamarack, we ferment most of our wine in 1.5 ton stainless steel fermenters, and it is with these relatively small vessels that give us the ability to bring in a single load of grapes from a vineyard, and divide them into smaller parcels called “lots”. Fermenting in lots allows us to experiment with various yeast strains, maceration techniques, and different barrel regiments.
2. Some Assembly Required
After we combine the vineyard lots, we start to get a closer picture of what the blends are going to look like. If one vineyard is really standing out, we might look into a vineyard designate bottling, or a small lot of one varietal (like our Sangiovese) might be phenomenal to the point that it would be foolish not to bottle it by itself as opposed to blending it out into another wine.
3. "Well how about this..."
We have numerous lots of the same varietal in the barrel room, and somehow we have to figure out what wine we are shooting for, and what we want to round it out with by including minor proportions of other grapes. This is by no means an easy task. We conduct blending trials a few times during the vintages life, starting with a general blend, and tweaking it as we go along.
4. Write That Down
A winemaker is only as good as his senses…and his legal pad. Notes are essential in this part of the process. Merlot seem a bit too tannic? Did we have some smooth Cab Franc? Maybe some jammy Syrah? Let’s try to blend it to what we like. It truly is amazing what a small percentage of a different grape can change an entire wine.
5. Winemakers and Their Opinions
Opinions are like belly buttons; everyone has one, and no one cares. Unless your opinions sell wine. Now, while the organization of Tamarack is hardly democratic, it’s probably the nicest dictatorship you’ll ever see. Ron is the end all, be all, of our wine blends, but that doesn’t mean Danny doesn’t get to have his say. All in all, these two pump out some awesome wine.