Winemaking
Wines That Express Terroir
At Hartford Family Winery, we embrace traditional winemaking techniques to produce luscious wines that fully express the individual terroir of our vineyards. Guided by the expert hand of Winemaker Jeff Stewart, our "high risk, high reward" philosophy can be found in every bottle of Hartford wine.
While every wine begins in the vineyard, it's the choices we make in the cellar that amplify the unique character of each block, vine and clone. We believe in minimal intervention, allowing the personality of the vineyard and vintage to take the lead at every step, from the crush pad to fermenter and from barrel to bottle.
Embracing Traditional
Winemaking Techniques
Hand Picking and Sorting
Gentle handling and sorting of both clusters and berries preserves fruit quality.
Destemmed, Not Crushed
Pinot Noir and Zinfandel are partially de-stemmed, but not crushed leaving about 75% whole berries in the juice delivered to stainless steel open-top fermentors. Small lots of Pinot Noir are occasionally whole-cluster fermented.
Cold Soaking
Before fermentation is allowed to begin, whole berries and juice are placed in chilled tanks and stirred daily for several days. This process extracts additional flavors (polyphenols) and more supple tannins that cannot be obtained during the warmer fermentation process.
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