Blending the Vintage

Blending the wine can be as simple or complex an operation as the winemaker wants to make it. For most of the wine that I have made I have had only one blend. This means that there was no formal blending phase, since all the wines were mixed together from the start. This is changing though, since I have now separated the press wine from the free run wine. Prior to bottling the 2001 vintage I will need to decide how much of the free run wine to combine with the press wine and how much to bottle on its own.

In larger operations blending can be a complex process with a great many factors to include. For instance; does the winery have wines coming from numerous vineyard sources that need to be balanced? Is there a house style that is trying to be achieved? Are there expectations as to how many cases of which blends are going to be produced? All these factors must be taken along with the winemaker's sense of what makes the best wine.

In addition to the different lots of wine from the different vineyards and varietals there is a slight difference in the way that each barrel of wine will evolve — even when two barrels contain the same wine from the same vineyard. The winemaker's job is to do as many test blends as it takes to be sure that he or she knows what needs to be blended with what. This must all be done before the actual blending takes place, since once a wine is blended it cannot be unblended.