Chateau Morrisette Winery

This weekend my roommates and I went and visited the Chateau Morrisette Winery. It was a wonderful, quaint, and charming place. I learned a lot from my visit. I learned that the entire winery is made form Douglas Fir wood, and that as the wood ages it cracks, which makes the place look less sturdy, but in all actuality, the way that the wood works is that as it ages and cracks, it becomes more stable. I learned that their wines are made with 97-98% of Virginia grapes. I also learned and was walked through the entire process of making a wine, starting from getting the grapes to the last step of putting labels on the bottles. First the grapes arrive and are sent to a de-stemmer. After that, the grape can be left with the stems and skins for a white to make a red wine, or can be instantly removed to leave it a clear, "white" color in a crape crusher. Then the juice is left to ferment, which is where yeast is allowed to eat all the sugar away from the juice, causing the juice to become alcohol. The yeast eats away all the sugar until it is all gone or the winemaker kills the yeast with heat or a chemical. However much sugar is allowed left is what gives the wines their "dry" taste, which is usually how reds are. After fermentation, they're stored in an oak or steel barrel for a few years. Their oak barrels are either French, American or Hungarian. The barrels take three years to make, but are only usable for up to five years, where they are either sold to a smaller winery who can't afford new barrels or are used for decorations around the winery. The barrels that contain red wine have paw prints on them, because when the winery first started, the owner owned a dog and would only lap up the red wines. His name was Heinz, and he's been a big part of their logo ever since. I learned about angel share, which is the evaporation that occurs during fermentation in barrels. They have an angel share room where the climate and humidity is controlled to lessen the amount of angel share. I also learned their bottles are injected with nitrogen before sealing in order to keep the amount of oxygen down. Fun fact: they use Aristocrat vodka to clean their bottle/labeling room because it won't effect the wines like a bleach cleaner would. The place was really fun and I enjoyed trying a bunch of wines, all which I've documented in tastings on my blog!