If you’ve ever found yourself on a journey of finding balance, you know it takes a lot of time and effort. Just like in life, finding the right balance in wine is something that is a truly an art! Learn more about our balanced signature wine style at Carlos Creek Winery and how we achieve it.
Our signature style
Winemaking is a stylistic process. Each winery does things a little differently. As winemakers gain experience, they figure out what produces the style of wine they desire and hone their processes.
“At Carlos Creek, we focus on using what Mother Nature gives to us to craft the most well-balanced wine,” said Head Winemaker Russ Funk.
We strive for balance in all of our Carlos Creek wines as part of our signature style. But what does that mean? Well, we always want those enjoying our wines to be able to focus on all of its features (acid, tannin, alcohol, fruitiness, etc). When you drink a glass of our wine and are able to take in all of the elements equally, that’s exactly what we’re intending!
Finding balance
As we can probably all attest, finding the right balance can be a little tricky and involves a good deal of effort. To ensure we have the right balance in our wines, we resign ourselves to the tough job of taste-testing them. This process helps us figure out what works and what doesn’t. If any one component overpowers the others, we know that wine is out of balance and needs a little more attention to achieve perfect harmony among all its features.
Striking the right balance
It took several years of winemaking to hone our processes to strike the perfect balance. It’s rare that grapes can be fermented out, clarified, and bottled without any other intervention and have a wine be perfectly balanced. Each wine may require different intervention depending on its intended profile. For instance, here are some red wine elements we commonly find imbalances in and our methods for addressing them:
Sugar
Red wines with too much sugar follow a specific process to remedy it; immediately after the grape crush, a calculated amount of juice is strained out and replaced with water. This allows the juice to grape skins ratio to remain the same or improve while lowering the sugar levels. If the grapes don’t have enough sugar we add more just like you would add sugar to your coffee. We calculate how much we need, weigh it out, and add it to the tank of grapes.
Acidity
The best way to control the balance of acidity is the timing of the harvest! Getting the harvest date planned at the best time possible will control most if not all the balance of a wine. We spend many hours monitoring the grapes and watching the weather during ripening and harvest to get the best data. Based on that, we make the most important decision in the wine’s life. If mother nature throws out all the right cards, the winemaker won’t have to make any adjustments. If a wine does show more acidity than we like, we cold stabilize the wine (hold the wine to near freezing temps for weeks or months at a time). This process not only drops out particulates that are unsightly in the bottle, but also lowers the acidity making a smoother mouth feel. If a wine doesn’t have enough acid, we can always add more. And all of our red wines go through a secondary fermentation that converts malic acid into lactic acid. Malic acid has a more sharp aggressive character to it and lactic acid is softer so it helps round out the mouth feel of the wine.
Flavor
We control flavor imbalances by tasting and blending. For instance, a red wine with too much oak flavor can be quickly addressed by pumping all the barrels into a tank and adding some wine without much oak influence. We pull some samples from different tanks or barrels, bring them to the lab, and make small samples with different percentages to find the right balance. Once achieved, we blend the wine and put it back into barrels.
Winemaking with intention
We craft our wines with intention guiding every effort. Great care is utilized to ensure the beautiful balance you experience every time you open a bottle of Carlos Creek wine. And now you know a little more of the behind-the-scenes work that goes into it all.
Want to learn more about winemaking? Check out our Barrel Aging 101 guide for more on our barrel-aging program. Interested in the viticulture side of things? Read about how ensure grapevine survival in the bold, cold north. And don’t forget to follow us on Instagram and TikTok for behind the scenes looks at life at the winery!
