Day Trip: Vineyard 29

Wineries often trade wine with other wineries they see as their competition and hold Blind Competitive Tastings.  We were interested in putting their Sauvignon blanc against our Sauvignon blanc, so T and I drove to V29 to pick up their SB and drop off our Cabernet Sauvignon which they were interested in tasting.  This is the entrance to Vineyard 29.

V29 has several different types of tanks including concrete and stainless steel but these wooden tanks are reserved for their highest quality fruit.  This is a good way to get 200% New Oak into your wine.  First you ferment in a 100% new wooden tank and then after primary fermentation drain the wine into 100% new oak barrels.  This is expensive ($225 a bottle), and a stylistic choice.  Not everyone appreciates 200% new oak.

On the right you can see concrete tanks.  It is rare to see concrete tanks used for red wine in California.  I  found concrete tanks very common in Chile and Argentina when I was visiting, but this is the first winery that I have visited that has concrete tanks for red wine.  I expect to see more and more wineries acquiring concrete tanks because of the desirable characters the concrete contributes to the wine.

The caves at V29 are immensely impressive.  Walking through them you eventually dead-end in their library room.

The history of V29 is told through it's vintages and preserved on the labels of the wines in this library.  They also hold tastings in this room.  Absolutely lovely.

Black glass wine decanters with the V29 logo.

The cave's barrels are stacked two high, and they have concrete eggs for their Sauvignon blanc, which is a lot more common.  The trend in Napa valley for a while has been to ferment white wine in concrete eggs.  The eggs come from France, hold about 150 gallons and are insanely expensive to ship over.  The benefits are good temperature control of the fermentation, the eggs shape allows for a gentle mixing action and desirable minerality imparted to the wine.

Lovely tour from Assistant Winemaker Jessica.

-L