The Naucratis orginated in a true experiment:
I thought that I needed to learn how to make the direct, fresh,
and unoxidized wines that I enjoyed drinking so much. I chose as
my model the lovely Pinot Blanc made by Robert Sinskey. I asked
my friend Jeff
Virnig for an tutorial in making this kind of wine, quite foreign
to me. He laughed and gave me a recipe in 3 sentences.
In order to make the Naucratis, we crushed the grapes and allowed
them to macerate under a blanket of carbon dioxide before pressing.
We did this to maximize the extraction of flavors and aromas from
the skins, while attempting to minimize oxidation and diminution
of freshness. We also bled off 10% of the juice at the beginning
of maceration to concentrate the wine. We macerated for about 4
hours and then pressed the grapes very gently. Since they had been
crushed and macerated, they gave up lots of juice without the application
of any pressure at all. We captured this free-run and kept it segregated
from the eventual press juice.
We fermented this juice in a sealed and chilled stainless steel
tank that I had purchased just to make this wine. We sulfured the
wine thoroughly right at pressing and kept the sulfur levels up,
to inhibit malolactic fermentation. As soon as the primary fermentation
was finished, we racked the wine, again under CO2. We bottled it
as soon as possible, without aging, in December 2005. |