Water Treatment System and Specialized Equipment Are the Focus for New Patz & Hall
By Peg San Felippo
From Daily News Links, 05/03/2007
Patz & Hall, known for high quality Chardonnay and Pinot Noir will open the doors to their new winery in Sonoma this week.
The new 30,000 square foot facility was selected by the wine producers for a couple of key reasons. "Waste water was a consideration," Donald Patz said.
The building complex is set up with it's own mini water treatment plant that is specifically designed to handle winery waste water. This can be a problem for conventional sewer systems because of the low pH of the waste. The pre-treatment process takes our winery waste water and settles out the solids, then adjust the pH up to neutral. This encourages a biological fermentation that consumes the organic matter. The end product is then discharged to the Sonoma County Sanitation plant as very clean effluent."
"Another plus was the building was already approved for a winery so we only had to build out the interior to our specifications. This was what we wanted without having to tear down an existing winery. It also makes sense that we're located in this area, 70 percent of the grapes we use are from Sonoma County."
"We are very happy about moving to this facility," added James Hall. "The specialty equipment that we have installed is designed to improve and fine tune the quality of our wine. For instance we purchased Specialty Tanks or what we call "Clarifying tanks". These are Stainless steel tanks that are taller (18 ft high) and more narrow (6 ft) then typical red wine fermenters that allow for enhanced settling of the wines before bottling. We bottle all of our wines without filtration which can pose clarity problems if the wines retain yeast particles or sediments.
By storing the wine in the clarifying tanks the wines fall more clear, leaving the sediments on the bottom of the tanks. Thus we can avoid having to filter the wines while assuring that our wines, particularly the Chardonnay, are brilliant and clear. The tanks are very expensive but the resulting wines are clearer, age longer and suffer less from bottle shock."
"We also invested in two open screen membrane presses, one large press (15,000 Liters) for whole cluster Chardonnay pressing and a second 3,500 L press designed specifically to press Pinot Noir after fermentation. Both presses are made in Switzerland by Sutter. We choose the open screen press to expose the newly pressed juice to a small amount of oxygen which facilitates a cleaner fermentation and paler, less brown color. The Chardonnay press is extra large to allow for whole cluster pressing. The resulting juice is lower in tannin and bitterness compounds. It is also lighter in color and yellow pigments, which can cause herbal or veggie notes. The trade-off is a more expensive machine in that the quantity of grapes the press can hold is approximately half of the volume if the fruit was de-stemmed and crushed before pressing. The processing time is also 3 hours instead of 2. The resultant quality is without a doubt superior, well worth the additional investment in machinery and time."
"Generally, our philosophy on technology is simple" Hall added. "Don't use technology to make your winemaking life easier or more efficient or convenient, only employ technology that makes the wines better. Technology should always be subservient to quality. Pumps are a great example. Using pumps is much easier. You can move lots of wine in a small amount of time. The result is the wines can become bruised or oxidized by the pump which can attenuate the aromas and shorten their potential age worthiness. It is better for the wine, but much slower, to use a nitrogen powered "Bull-dog" pushing system that forces the wine out of the barrel under inert gas pressure, without pumping. This preserves aromas by retaining the natural CO2 in the wine which ultimately can help a wine age longer. Another technology issue is filtration. By filtering a wine one can clarify large volumes and assure the wine will be stable in the bottle, preventing in the bottle fermentations. By naturally clarifying the wine, it takes much longer, has lower yields and is more risky in that the wine is not sterile bottled. The advantages are much longer aging life, more texture and richness and a more clearly delineated vineyard character. Filtration also requires pumping. Use the least amount of technology possible to produce the best possible wines."
Three small, insulated individually temperature controlled-barrel rooms are part of the winery's design. Giving Hall the ability to precisely regulate the temperature of barrel fermented Chardonnay in one room, while in a second room warming barrels to encourage Malo-lactic fermentation in Pinot Noir. "It is more economical to have one large room with one cooling system and one temperature. We have five cooling systems that can maintain a wide range of temperatures that are perfect for any given winemaking situation."
Founded in 1988, the Patz & Hall partnership was formed with the goal to produce the fine Chardonnay and Pinot Noir wines made from distinctive California vineyards. Today, they produce 15 wines, 8 Chardonnay and 7 Pinot Noirs totaling approximately 37,000 cases annually. Prior to the move, Patz & Hall has been producing their wines at Honig Winery in Rutherford, where Hall was once the winemaker. Girard and Saintsbury also have their own winemaking facilities the complex.