Benton Lane Pinot Noir
For the 2021 wine season, I worked in a team of 10 to produce about 360,000 bottles worth of wine at Benton Lane Winery.
Winemaking can get messy—Marie found herself managing a tangle of hoses while standing in a pool of spilled wine. Moments like this were all part of the process.
Kathleen performing a pumpover, a crucial step to ensure proper fermentation and flavor development in the wine.
Not every moment went as planned—Kathleen had an unforgettable slip into a vat of wine, adding a bit of humor to the season (and flavor to the wine?).
Here, Parker is filling the barrels with wine that had finished primary fermentation, preparing it for secondary fermentation. With nearly 1,200 barrels to fill, it was a time-intensive step in the winemaking process.
Throughout the process, tastings were essential to check the progress of the wine and ensure everything was on track. Here’s Emily climbing onto barrels to sample and evaluate the wine, determining how best to blend it for optimal flavor and balance.
By the end of the season, we had produced 476 tons of wine, pictured aging in rows upon rows of barrels.
