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Winemaking Philosophy
Our goal at L'Ecole Nš 41 is to achieve clean, ripe, stylistically expressive and aromatic wines that let the individual site characteristics of our vineyards shine through. We believe in well-balanced wines, good acidity, firm but not over-powering tannins, complementary oak extraction, and vibrant, expressive aromas and fruit flavors. To achieve these ends, we have a high quality dual focus on vineyard management and winemaking practices.
Vineyard Management
We believe in an intense involvement in all aspects of vineyard management, including designated blocks or rows, a direct personal relationship with the on-site vineyard manager or viticulturalist, and tight winery controls on yield and other vineyard practices, for both our own estate grown and contracted acreage, such as:
- aggressive pruning to limit yield
- drip irrigation to fine tune canopy growth and vigor; we only irrigate as much as is minimally needed by the plant
- shoot thinning for improved spacing and balance
- sustainable biologically-based vineyard practices
- thinning post-bloom and green thinning at veraison for low yields and uniformity of ripeness
- hand picking on the harvest date selected by the winemaker; cool mornings for the whites and warm mid-day temperatures for the reds
Winemaking Practices
We believe in winemaking practices that assure our wines will be more expressive, more aromatic and show their individual site characteristics. With a hands-on, highly focused attention to detail for each vineyard lot, we prefer limited manipulation and handling of the fruit, exemplified by the following:
- gravity assisted fruit movements, without the use of a must pump
- limited adjustments on acidity, accomplished when necessary at the fermentation stage
- small bin fermentations for temperature control, cap management and oxygen pickup
- frequent monitoring of sulfites throughout aging to assure clean and stable wines
- cap managed by punch downs, as opposed to larger tank pump overs to avoid skin and seed extract
- soft pressing to minimize tannins and harsh flavors
- whole cluster pressing on whites for reduced solids and phenolic extraction
- unfined and unfiltered red wines
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