Our gondolas do not sit around in the sun waiting for the crusher and requiring excessive chemical treatment. We believe that clean, undamaged, fresh grapes are vital to the quality of the wine. Thus, a mechanical picker will never be used at Goosecross. Now that the viticulturist has delivered the highest quality grape he can grow, it becomes the winemaker's job to make the best wine possible. First, the winery and all associated equipment must be scrupulously clean, and kept that way.
Bacterial contamination requires measures detrimental to good winemaking.
The best quality French oak barrels and puncheons, along with temperature-controlled tanks, are used for fermentation and aging. We believe that this provides a suitable balance to the wine without an overwhelming oak predominance. The gondola is then immediately loaded into the crusher-stemmer for processing which protects our philosophy of freshness in the grape. From the bladder press the juice is pumped into the oak barrels and temperature-controlled stainless tanks where fermentation is started using a proprietary yeast to augment the process. The winemaker's art now comes into play to regulate all the variables involved.