How long does the fermentation process take until you press off the final wine for Zinjolais?
It takes a couple of weeks or so because this wine requires little or no aging. And we’ve got a deadline—the second week in November. Fermentation is very temperature dependent—when it’s cool, it goes very slowly which will create a nice, fruity, spicy wine. Once we press it off, we have to let it settle. We will cold stabilize it if we have the opportunity, then we have to filter it and get it ready to bottle. This last year it was a week after we bottled it that we released it. In 2009 it was bottled on Thursday and released on Saturday! Some people love Zinjolais and some don’t. It’s interesting for me being on the working side of the tasting bar and seeing how people react. Most of the time they’re expecting a big, fat, juicy, soft red wine because it’s a Zinfandel—that’s not what this is. It’s young, it’s spicy, it’s vibrant, it’s got nice firm acid, and it’s just a different style of wine. Where did you attend school? Chico State: I graduated from there the first time with a degr
