"A good winemaker has a thousand ways to make a wine "better" but better by whose assessment? It has taken us over a decade to gradually acquire the confidence to understand that the wine should be what the wine should be.
Like any good parent, one should encourage but not mould. If one sees a trait that is perhaps not what one would like to see, the solution lies not in how to cure the problem, but in learning to understand where it came from. Each year we have a new family to raise and our increased understanding can pass back to the new generation's schooling in the vineyard.
Gravity flow is the start of a gentle process, avoiding the need to pump fruit uphill. Ferments are spontaneous from the wild or indigenous yeasts that are in our vineyards and winery. Inert gas is shunned. Oak is a subtle companion, not a loud guest. The Malo is simply a function of letting the warm spring air into the cellars. Pinots are unfined and unfiltered, Chardonnays are increasingly treated in the same way. The bottling of single vineyard and single block wines are based on their speaking of a place, not on their size or hierarchy of flavour."