Lancaster Estate
Winemaking
Vinification
The new winery, constructed in 2001, was designed by Eugene Silva, an architect who specializes in designs and materials that blend organically into the landscape. The winery building is a rustic blend of natural building materials and tones that have gently integrated into the site.
As the winery lies in the heart of the estate, less than one hour elapses from the time the grapes are hand harvested, to the time they are hand sorted, destemmed and transferred to fermentation tanks. This short duration ensures that grapes maintain the highest quality and minimizes deterioration in fruit composition.
Prior to fermentation, the must is cold soaked in temperature-controlled, stainless-steel tanks for several days. This traditional process gently extracts deep color, rich flavor and phenolics from the skins.
Following a gentle cold soaking, the must is slowly brought to a warmer temperature to encourage fermentation to begin using native yeast. We believe that these indigenous yeast strains enhance authenticity of the vineyard’s expression.
Following completion of primary fermentation, the wines are subjected to an extended maceration. This additional skin contact encourages greater extraction of flavors and structural development. Once the maceration process is complete, the finished wines are separated by attribute and varietal, and then staged for blending and barrel aging.
Barrel Aging
Construction of the winery was considered complete with the excavation of 10,000 square feet of underground caves. Carved deep into the heart of No Name Hill, the barrel chai provides natural cool ambient temperatures and consistent humidity for aging wines.
The estate-bottled wines are aged in French oak barrels for 22 to 27 months. To encourage balance, integration and complexity, eight different coopers are used to provide barrels, each with varying levels of toast.
Following aging, and prior to bottling, the wines are gently clarified, yet remain unfiltered to maintain purity of expression and character.
