Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Food & Drink

After the Grapes Are Picked: Winter Winemaking Roles

Mark Stock
By

You can hold the title of winemaker, but the role is going to ask much more of you than just making wine. The winter months technically make up the offseason, falling after the hectic harvest stretch. Yet, there’s plenty to do, in vineyard rows, quiet cellars, or on the road with business cards at the ready.

Brad Ford makes wine for Illahe Vineyards in Dallas, Oregon. The Willamette Valley label has become admired for its expressive wines, which range from Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris to Grüner Veltliner and a Rosé of Tempranillo. Ford’s known during crush to man a custom bike pump, which can maneuver wine around without the aid of the electrical grid. He’s also becoming an off-season enthusiast.

“Winter is rapidly becoming my favorite season out here,” he says, acknowledging that it’s not always easy given the dark and chilly days. “It’s exciting to have a new year with all of its potential to think about.”

One of his favorite tasks is pruning in the vineyard, which Ford equates to bonsai. “We’re shaping the plant both for production and shape,” he says. “Cane pruning is more difficult than other types and still isn’t automated. It requires years of experience to make the correct cuts. After twenty years, we’re beginning to see beautiful, gnarly heads forming on our Pinot plants.”

At the winery, it’s a quiet time for simpler tasks, reflection, and dreams about the future. Many of the wines are finishing malolactic fermentation and those in the barrel need to be topped routinely to prevent oxidation. “Aside from that, we’ll be spending some time bottling the 2018 wine and racking,” Ford adds.

This time of year, winemakers are also in high demand to help curate seasonal dinners. Bountiful meals built around winter fare like shellfish or truffles are paired up with complementary wines and the very person responsible for making them. Better still, a lot of these feasts are held in cozy cellars, with vats and barrels in the background.

With the most recent vintage put to bed in barrel or tank, winemakers have time to think about the next growing season. This is prime time for meetings with the vineyard crew to chat about crop estimates for the coming year and any new viticultural approaches worth experimenting with in the spring.

Sometimes, a producer will elect to graft a different type of variety onto pre-existing rootstock, to keep up with an in-fashion variety (like Gamay Noir) or just to try something different. Or, they’ll consider ways they can be more biodynamic in the vineyard, via composting or the application of natural treatments. As Ford said, the entire year lies ahead and that’s particularly the case for the winemaker, who tends to think and operate in terms of vintages.

If you follow any winemakers on social media, you know that this is also one of only a few stretches in the year when they can think about vacation. Some will flee for warmer climes to enjoy drinks that don’t remind them of work. The most dedicated of the bunch will combine work and play, traveling to wine-centric destinations like the Loire Valley, Okanagan, or Austria to learn a few new tricks of the trade.

But the best part about winter and wine country might be reserved for the consumer, who can savor relatively quiet tasting rooms — sometimes in the delightful company of the rejuvenated winemaker.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
This St. Patrick’s Day, grab an Irish beer from one of these 5 craft breweries
Irish beer: Celebrate the luck of the Irish in the best tasting way possible this year
Group of happy friends drinking and toasting beer at brewery bar restaurant.

The annual celebration of St. Patrick’s Day comes with a few guarantees. Green t-shirts will be adorned with obnoxious sayings. Leprechauns will be blamed for causing mischief. And the dry Irish stout Guinness will be inescapable on tap, in bottles, and in cans from coast to coast.
Guinness is so synonymous with Ireland, it is practically the national beverage. However, this mindset overlooks the dozens of smaller craft breweries found throughout Ireland’s cities and townships, and dotted along its famously beautiful countryside. If you’re ever lucky enough to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in Ireland, enjoy your token Guinness in the airport and then head out to experience one of these independent breweries for an Irish beer you haven't tasted yet.

Galway Bay Brewery
Ballybrit, County Galway

Read more
Sip on these tasty Irish-style stouts this St. Patrick’s Day
These delicious stouts will have you feeling festive on St. Patrick's Day in no time
guiness draught

St. Patrick’s Day is here, and that means it’s time for stouts.

Specifically, St. Patty’s Day calls for Irish-style dry stouts. The depths of winter are the time for big, boozy, imperial, and barrel-aged stouts, but as spring begins to show its face, the lighter, lower-alcohol dry stouts are a way to transition to the warmer weather, but are still roasty enough to fight off the last bit of chill.

Read more
The best Irish whiskeys come in these 12 bottles
Looking for a great Irish whiskey to try? Start with this proper list of a dozen best bets.
whiskey bar

Ireland knows a thing or two about whiskey. After all, it's home to the oldest commercial whiskey distillery in the world, dating back to 1608. But with such a rich heritage and plethora of options, where should you direct your glass?

Well, Irish whiskey is actually a pretty manageable category, unlike the endless seas of, say, Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon or Scotch. Despite its massive popularity, Ireland hosts a relatively small amount of distilleries. But there's plenty of variation and quality within that span and we have our favorites.

Read more