What accounts for the consistency of Dehlinger wines from year to year? While each vintage has its own personality, the overall reliability of each bottling is due to the expression of place complemented by craftsmanship and selection: Year after year, Dehlinger’s estate wines originate from a single vineyard in a prime location. Each portion of the vineyard is shown great care and attention to detail. Wines from individual vineyard areas are then kept separate throughout the fermentation process, which allows us to identify and select the most flavorful, expressive lots during tasting trials. After the blends are finalized, maturation in traditional oak barrels facilitates the development and the clarification of the wines, all of which are bottled unfiltered. Our techniques for each step in the winemaking process have been informed by 50 years of operational history, and from that position of craftsmanship we are able to develop and showcase strong flavors and unique qualities of the site on an ongoing basis.
A few years ago, photographer Sara Sanger and I collaborated on a photo essay showcasing these steps in the winemaking process, accentuated with my mother Carole Dehlinger’s floral artistry.
The Vineyard: A vineyardist keeps their pruning shears at the ready throughout the season. Chardonnay leaves from our vineyard are complimented by striking yellow blooms of native Californian flannelbush, which grow in the creeks and gardens near the vineyard. The wooden picking box, branded DEHLINGER, is a vintage picking box our family used in the 1970s to harvest and transport fruit. The two books in the background are original textbooks that belong to my father Tom. “General Viticulture” was ‘the’ reference book of the California viticulture renaissance. This copy is signed by author A.J. Winkler.
The Fermentation: Notes from a 1988 harvest log set the stage. The traditional way to measure the remaining sugar content in a fermenting must is with a hydrometer, which demonstrates density through the archimedes principle. This hydrometer is one of our family’s original hydrometers, used in the earliest days of the winery. Cellarhands will recognize the tri-clover clamps used ubiquitiously in the California wine industry for connecting hoses and more. The truly initiated will recognize Amerine and Creuss as the authors of the Technology of Winemaking. Native spicebush and snapdragons from the garden on the farm bring a sense of beauty.
The Blending Trial: I spy with my little eye— Graduated cylinders for measuring proportionally, watch-glasses for retaining aroma atop the wine, Amerine’s Laboratory procedures for Enologists. Stunning native California buckeye that blooms near the winery.
The Maturation in Barrel: French oak staves from casks handcrafted by artisan coopers. Look closely to see the tartrate crystal deposits on the stained barrel head. Smokebush cuttings echo the deep burgundy hues of the red wine.
The Bottling: The final step in the winemaking process is packaging the wine. Glass bottles, corks, rolls of labels, and tin capsules come together to create the finished product. Note the handheld pressure gauge, which we use as part of the quality control process during bottling. Apple cuttings from trees on the estate speak to the agricultural origin of our wines.