WTN: 2009 Edmunds St. John Rocks and Gravel

What a perfect wine for a cold, snowy/icy day - particularly with a roasted pork tenderloin.

This is all about freshness. Freshly picked red fruits seasoned with herbs, just-cracked black pepper and stony accents on a polished, medium-weight frame that's very easy to drink with fairly gentle tannins and bright acids. This conveys flavour with restraint, elegance and I wish a lot more Californian wines (or southern Rhone blends for that matter) were like this. Delicious.

Thanks Steve for making such fantastic wine, and thanks David B. for this bottle!

For anyone who's curious, producing this wine involved both fermentation and aging in concrete, not a stick of wood involved. I wish I'd been able to start using concrete 20 years earlier!

[David M. Bueker]

Glad you enjoyed it Salil.

For anyone who's curious, producing this wine involved both fermentation and aging in concrete, not a stick of wood involved. I wish I'd been able to start using concrete 20 years earlier!

Just curious, but why concrete (rather than say, stainless tanks or neutral wood)?

For anyone who's curious, producing this wine involved both fermentation and aging in concrete, not a stick of wood involved. I wish I'd been able to start using concrete 20 years earlier!

Just curious, but why concrete (rather than say, stainless tanks or neutral wood)?

Oh good lord, now you've set him off again.

Joe; concrete is sufficiently porous to the extent that it "breathes" in much the same way as oak, without introducing the flavor of oak. Stainless also doesn't introduce any flavor of its own, but tends to foster reductive character, leaving wines "bound up," their expressions attenuated. In concrete there can be a much greater precision of expression. I like that precision, and prefer not to introduce any other flavors than those that come from the grapes. It requires, to be successful, exceptionally good grapes, but for me the result is unsurpassed.

Steve,
Since concrete is porous, do these vats have a limited life cycle?

Not sure I understand the question

[David M. Bueker]

Can you only use the concrete tank for 10, 15 or some set number of years is the question (I think).

What David said...

[David M. Bueker]

And to answer my own interpretation of the question - everything has a limited life, but I would expect the concrete will last as long or longer than just about anything else.

Interesting. I had never imagined that concrete would be porous. I'm not sure I've ever seen a concrete tank at a US producer, I've seen them in Europe. Sometimes they are epoxy coated, which would clearly negate the oxidative aspect. Are there other CA producers using these tanks? Surely the thickness of the walls and geometry would also influence the breathing of these vessels? French vs. American concrete?

The French producer, Nomblot, says that most of the tanks they've made, since the 1920's, if I remember the date correctly, are still in use. California had plenty of concrete, prior to Prohibition. It fell out of favor when stainless was introduced. There are an increasing number of wineries here that are using concrete, including some of Napa's priciest cult producers. Lots of fermentation in concrete, but not so much elevage; they're doing most of that in new oak.

Hi Steve,
Because of the porous nature of the concrete when bulk aging or elevage of wine in concrete does one need to “top-up”? Is the inside of the concrete “monster” treated with a food-grade epoxy?

Salute

No. The interior surface is washed, repeatedly, with a solution of tartaric acid (30%) and water, until the acid and the calcium in the concrete stop reacting to one another, at which point it is safe to assume that a neutral surface has been created, and one can then introduce grape juice, or wine, without a negative result.

Thanks Steve, What about “topping-up”? Surely some wine penetrates into the “monster” possible making its way out to evaporate. I remember reading an article possible in Wines & Vines that the first wine you put in the “monster” you could see a six-inch or more drop in the level of the wine.

Salute

that's been less of an issue than I thought it might, and it may be attributable to the fact that the building my "Cuve Béton" inhabits is not air-conditioned. It abuts San Francisco Bay, and it has a 40 foot ceiling, so it's never too hot, but over the course of the Spring the temperature of the cuve gradually rises, perhaps into the low 60's, and the wine expands sufficiently to mitigate whatever evaporative loss might otherwise occur. And I bottle in early Summer, as well. So the potential loss is diminished a bit, and the topping required seems very little. The foggy Summer helps, no doubt, in terms of discouraging evaporation (the cellar doors are often open during Spring and Summer).

Thanks again Steve.

Salute