Scherrer Winery

Bottling - will allow you to select the many different bottlings (i.e., Old & Mature Vines or Shale Terrace Zinfandels). Vineyard - Many bottlings are vineyard specific without being a vineyard designate. For example, all three of our Cabernet bottlings come from the Scherrer Vineyard, though only the vineyard designate bottling will carry that on the label.

Our Cabernet Sauvignons are vinified with destemmed (but uncrushed) fruit in open-top vats - with manual punchdown during fermentation, and extended time on skins before pressing. They are racked very infrequently, necessitating extra time in barrel to fully develop before bottling. This takes nearly three years.

Chardonnay is whole-cluster pressed (as with sparkling wine) and for the Alexander Valley fruit from my father's vineyard, stopped at very low juice yields, giving more fine elements.

With my two manually operated 'bladder presses' (please forgive the connotation) this requires hours of valve twisting, button pushing, lever hefting and scurrying about reminiscent of Dorothy and her associates' first meeting with the man behind the curtain in The Wizard of Oz.

Our varieties and methods making Rose (Vin Gris) have evolved over the past 20 years for this wine.

We have used Zinfandel alone, Zinfandel and Pinot Noir together, Zinfandel, Pinot Noir and Pinotage combined, Zinfandel & Pinot Noir together for one wine and separate multiple Cuvees of Pinot Noir and Zinfandel in the same vintage, added Cabernet Sauvignon bottlings for a couple vintages, added Syrah to the Zinfandel/Pinot Noir base, then finally settled into Syrah and Grenache since 2011.We make our Dry Rose by direct pressing red grapes.

A couple years ago, my father and I were discussing what we might plant on part of the property that has been fallow for many years. He thought that Grenache might be something to consider. Years ago, in Alexander Valley there was a fair bit of it, but it had been uprooted in favor of more sensibly economic crops.