For over 100 years, Beaulieu Vineyards (BV) has been a mainstay of the Napa Valley and an oracle for what is great about North Coast wines. And since its inception by legendary winemaker André Tchelistcheff in 1936, the winery's now equally legendary Georges de Latour (GDL) Private Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon has been the longest, continuous running cult wine in the Napa Valley. Always known for its high quality wines, BV is now poised to go one better by creating a winery-within-a-winery for its flagship brand. After more than 60 years of sharing space, BV's GDL private reserve is now going private with the recent completion of its own, new, 9,600-square-foot micro winery.

"We actually took over a barrel-aging and storage area in the old Beaulieu winery and rebuilt it from the floor up just for our Latour reserve," said Joel Aiken, head winemaker and vice-president at BV. "We wanted to bring it into the 21st century, and this seemed the way to do it." At a cost of $7 million and a fast-paced, 11-month construction project, the new micro-winery was completed just in time for the 2008 harvest. "We just barely made it," Aiken said with a grin. "The destemmer and tanks were being installed as we were bringing in the first pick, and our press was barely in place, too. But we made it without a hitch and think we have the best wine ever."

Indeed, the bedrock Rutherford winery has not only been producing superior wine for a century, it has produced its share of legendary winemakers during that time as well. Beginning with the craftsmanship and quality control of Tchelistcheff, the winery has been a training ground for the likes of Joe Heitz, Mike Grgich, Dick Peterson and, now, Aiken. Not looking to live on past feats alone, however, Aiken, the GDL winemaker for over 20 years, is replanting the winery's feet firmly into the 21st century.

"There was never any problem with our reserve, and we've always gotten good marks for our wines," Aiken said. "But I felt it was time to make more use of all the technology that has come out since the 1990s. I was especially interested in taking full advantage of our terrific Rutherford fruit and to insure wine with no green tones and heavy tannins. I wanted to produce a rich, voluptuous and sexy wine, and not have to wait 10 years to drink it."

Aiken believes his new micro-facility, combined with his viticulture and wine-crafting style, is producing wines that are already in balance when they are put into barrel for aging. His itch toward modernity began in 2004 when he started to move away from traditional winemaking and winemaking equipment, with the belief that small is best, and labor intensity is vital.

"Before, we were using a destemmer that could handle 40 tons of fruit an hour; now we're destemming slow--only two tons per hour, and we have six people sorting through the fruit, besides." Their new destemmer is a Bucher-Vaslin, Delta E1. It is a high quality, low-flow rate unit created for hand-picked grapes and is designed to remove the berries from the stems and leave them whole and intact. It reduces to a minimum the undesirable components that result when the stems are shredded. "We've never seen such perfect fruit. We're getting very clean, whole berries. No jacks, no mess and no bitterness. We think it's bringing out the full flavors of our Rutherford vineyards."

Fermentation Process

Aiken said his fermentation process is also high performance and high tech, and he is using a mix of techniques.

Fifty percent of the fruit is slow-fermented in 20 2,000-gallon stainless steel tanks, which are built by the Paul Mueller Company in Springfield, Missouri. "We think the slower, cooler fermentation keeps the cap small and lessens the chance of coarse flavors. It gives us the full flavor of the fruit," Aiken said. "And we're blending it with a 50 percent mix of oak to add rounder flavors and make it approachable sooner."

The Mueller CDL015 tanks have built-in strainers and both heating and cooling jackets, which are controlled by an OPC monitoring system developed for the winery by the Calmetrics Company in Sacramento. "The system is terrific," Aiken said. "It also controls the ambient temperatures throughout the cellar and does our pumpovers as well." The control panel is attached to the wall, and choices are made by the touch of the screen. He said he can access it from his office, from Europe or anywhere he has a computer.

While another 10 percent of the fruit is fermented in five 60-hectoliter, upright oak casks from Tonnellerie Taransaud, Aiken's piece de resistance, and third piece of the puzzle, is his innovative, whole-berry fermentation of red grapes in traditional 60-gallon aging barrels.

Since 2004, he has been fermenting a portion of the GDL fruit in these casks. "The results are great," he said. "We think the earlier the wine is introduced to oak the richer and more complex it becomes." He added that the oak, early on, helps stabilize the color and remove any harsh, green components. He said he started with 100 barrels in 2004, increased to 300 barrels by 2006 and has increased the amount to 600 barrels for the 2008 vintage. "It's a great investment because it reduces the need for additional fermentors, which are idle most of the year. When we finish fermenting in them, they are used for ageing."

According to Aiken, BV is using the OXOline roller system and a mix of 100 percent French oak from "a dozen" coopers. But instead of pouring the fruit through the bunghole, he has a BV team remove the head. "They loosen the hoops and pop a head, sit the barrel upright and add 400 pounds of whole berry fruit to each one," he said. Once the barrel is reassembled, they use an OXOlift attachment on their forklift to hoist the casks onto the OXOline roller racks. The fruit gets a dry ice, cold soak for five to seven days, then is fermented and kept on the skins for up to 60 days. The barrels are rotated by hand four to six turns, six times a day. When it is time to press, they remove the head again and, using a screen, remove the free run and then finish the skins in a Bucher-Vaslin JLB20 press. The wine receives up to five pressings. The free run and each press run are barrel-aged separately. He concedes it is very labor-intensive.

From the Vineyard to the Bottle

In addition to the new winery, Aiken reports that GDL is receiving a full rethink--and starting from the vineyard. "Everybody replanted in the nineties," he said, "and all went to the vertical to get better exposure and ripeness. But Rutherford isn't Carneros, and we found we didn't need quite that much exposure. So we're doing a sort of modified, split canopy to give just a little shade. We've also incorporated a misting system for those 100-degree days that come late in the season. We're taking precautions for mold and botrytis and think we're getting better quality fruit."

Aiken adds that he is doing four to five selective pickings from select blocks in his classic BV 1 (the Sullivan Vineyard) and BV 2. "We're picking the vineyards over a five-week period and using less than half of the fruit at that." The normal production of GDL has been 15,000 cases, but he said the 2008 production will be reduced to about 10,000. "We're keeping pumpovers to a minimum and only for a few minutes, not the traditional half hour or more," he said.

Minimal racking is also the rule. "We think we're getting near balanced wine right out of the fermentation process, so we don't need those quarterly rackings. If some barrels show some tightness or are a bit more tannic, we might do some gelatin fining, but basically we let the oak ageing do the work. Back in the '70s and '80s, we didn't appreciate the intricacies and benefits of oak. We didn't completely understand the role it played on the yeast and the tannins. Now we're making better use of it."

Ironically, while Beaulieu's roots go back to France, it originally aged its benchmark Cabernet Sauvignon in American oak. Aiken said he gradually weaned it away from that. He said he began with a mix of the two; but now GDL is aged 100 percent in French oak. He said he shies away from fining but does do an occasional gelatin treatment with some barrels if heavy tannins persist. "Every year has been different, but our goal is to get all there is to get from our historic vineyards."

BV, which is owned by giant Diageo, produces a total of 1.2 million cases of wine and 300,000 cases from the Napa Valley. When it comes to the Georges de Latour Private Reserve, however, it is keeping production to about 10,000 cases. Clearly, Aiken is striving to keep Beaulieu a "beautiful place" for quality wine. The 2008 will be released in 2011. wbm

John Intardonato lives in the Napa Valley and was wine writer for the St. Helena Star. His articles have also appeared in the Napa Register, Weekly Calistogan, Napa Valley Life and WineNews magazine. He has traveled extensively to the major wine areas of Europe, from Oporto to Hungary's Tokaj wine region.