THE PROCESS
Owners Bob and Fred go out to the vineyards; the grapes are picked and loaded into bins. They are then brought out, right in front of the winey.
Next, the grapes are unloaded and sorted. At this urban winery with a small staff, the owners do a lot of manual labor. They do not have the machinery and the conveyor belts for dumping and sorting that large vineyards have. Therefore, it becomes a largely manual process.
Then the grapes go into a destemmer, where the stems and grapes get separated. During this process the grapes and juice fall into bin.
From grapes to bottles with Urbano Cellars
This bin is used to ferment the grapes. The juice is inoculated with commercial yeast. This process takes anywhere from 10 days to 2-3 weeks depending on the grapes.
When the fermentation process is complete, the grapes and juice goes into a press. At Urbano Cellars they are put into a bladder press—this press pushes the grapes outward and the juice drips down into collection pan.
From that collection pan the juice is pumped into the barrels where the ageing process and secondary fermentation happens. Red wine is usually in oak barrels for 15 months and white in stainless steel for a shorter period of time.
After the allotted time in the barrels, the wine is bottled, sold and consumed.
