PHILOSOPHY

Winegrowing is a particularly interesting continuum.  When Eddy was a graduate student and post-graduate researcher at UC Davis, he would often refer to the Department of Viticulture (grapes) and Enology (wines) as the department of the farmers and the chemists with nothing in common except the grapes, and they’re actually adversarial at the point of transfer.  Yet, he’d never met a REALLY good winemaker who didn’t understand grape growing or a REALLY good grape grower who didn’t understand winemaking (table and raisin growers notwithstanding).  At Microwinery, our philosophy harkens back to the days when winegrowing was a single endeavor, rather than the Henry Ford compartmentalization modern industries employ for the sake of soulless efficiency.  We are dedicated to the notion that the wine in the glass should be reflective of the berries on the vines.

Our winemaking evolved from the original vineyard we planted.  Our first Custom Home Vineyard® initially came into production in 1984 and required vinification.  We were swamped with orders for new vineyard installations, so we hired a local winery to custom crush the fruit for us.  Our fruit received the worst care of all the wines in the winery, and tasted like it.  The following year, we rented space in a commercial winery and produced a wine from the same vineyard that won accolades.  So began the winery operations for Microwinery, with the help of a couple of professional winemaker friends, Eddy took the clusters through the entire process.  In the hands of a grapegrower making the wine, the fruit is king throughout the winemaking process at Microwinery.

All our wines are made exclusively from grapes we control, whether it’s from the backyard vineyards our Custom Home Vineyards® division plants and maintains, or vineyards where Eddy is the vineyard consultant.  Instead of compartmentalizing the components of wine production as is commonly practiced by modern wineries, vines, wines, and sales are fully integrated into the continuum of winegrowing.  We still believe that the ancient practices that made wine a family endeavor—the family working the vines growing in their back yards, the wines hand-crafted in small lots in an effort to glorify the fruit, and the little old winemaker taking the family wines to the neighbors—although we do admit to eliminating the mule-drawn wagon and a couple of other traditional accoutrements.

HISTORY

From Eddy's inception as a home winemaker in the 1970's, Microwinery began producing commercial wines in 1985 for Klein Vineyards, which disbanded when the vineyard owner moved off the continent.  We then produced the wines for the first ever vintages of Clos LaChance, until their plans for large volume production was beyond Eddy's interest.

We've also produced wines that are distinctly reflective of their vineyard owners.  In 1994, we launched Three Dog Vineyards after renovating the oldest vineyard in Portola Valley, a prestigious community in the Santa Cruz Mountains.  In 1996 we established Microwinery as a label vineyard-specific to a historical grape planting around a shopping mall in the Almaden Valley, where grapevines and not computers were once king.

Berghoff Vineyards and Delta Diablo Vineyard are two wines no longer produced by Microwinery.  These wines were designed to allow the vineyard owners to enjoy their grapes being available to all with their single-vineyard wines under the vineyard names, at least until those vineyard owners had to move.

The majority of the wines produced by Microwinery are not available to the general public, as the vineyard owners purchase the wines produced from their individual vineyards as entire lots.  How much more micro can anyone get than selling an entire brand to a single household?

However, that doesn't mean all of our private estate-grown wines are not available.  Our Family of Vineyards wines are due for release in the fall of 2007.  Although Lillipution in stature and yield, home vineyards afford crafted wines that are ginormous in quality.  Each vineyard, no matter how tiny, is distinguished on the bottle of wine it fashioned.  Finally, a truly personal wine, from someone's home right to your glass.

TECHNIQUE

We believe the worst way to make wine is to apply a formula.  By knowing each vineyard intimately, we can adapt the techniques that feature it best.  Nonetheless, we do have certain goals we strive to achieve with winemaking styles.

Generally speaking, our white wines are whole-cluster pressed, removing the harsh treatment crusher-destemmers produce while grinding skins and seeds into the juice.  The juice is then cold-settled prior to fermentation to have a more pristine fermentation.  Barrel fermentation is conducted in new French oak barrels for a subtle infusion of oak that is allowed to slowly permeate and season the wine after it is transferred to oak-neutral barrels, which allows proper wine development without adding any more oak flavor or aroma.  Flat out, we do not believe that using steel, glass, or plastic, as is commonly practiced for economic benefit, will do anything towards making a better wine.  Cool fermentation retains the fruitiness, while aging sur lees adds the maximum body and depth.  Minimum filtration prior to bottling and presto, the grapes become wine for your glass.  Rather than MAKE our wines, we view our role as shepherds fostering the grapes through their natural vinification process.

Our red wines are fermented cool to retain the fruit as much as we can.  Warmer fermentation means more color and tannin will survive the fermentation, at the expense of the delicate fruity qualities.  Since our vineyards produce grapes with color and body to spare, we get to feature the fruit without sacrificing a thing.  We pay close attention to matching the barrels to the fruit from each vineyard, always using French oak barrels, from France rather than the cheaper French oak alternatives commonly used by other wineries.  If we feel the wine will improve with the treatment, we may use fresh egg whites to fine the wine, and only minimally when done.  We NEVER filter our red wines.  The point is to have the wine taste like the grapes we started with.  And unlike Orson Welles who may have said it, we really don't sell a wine before it's time.