ABOUT YUME WINE
Read through to find out everything you need to know about our wines and how we make them.
1. The Principles
Farming is and always has been the most important aspect of our winemaking process. We believe that the most sustainable forms of viticulture - and indeed any agriculture - are those where observation and intuition are considered front and foremost in management decisions, with the aim of enhancing natural ecosystem processes for optimal functioning, whilst reducing the need for exogenous inputs, simultaneously increasing financial security and human wellbeing.
As such, we don’t prescribe to any particular set of practices, nor do we expect our producers to. Instead, we support our producers in applying holistic principles to constantly improve their ability to achieve sustainable (environmental, economic and social) development outcomes.
In the winery, our actions are determined by an ethos of respect for the vineyard, the grape grower, the grapes themselves and the numerous tiny but important microorganisms that transform our grapes from juice into a little fermented world.
2. The Vineyard
The first part of making wine is finding a great site with grapes that are well-suited to growing there, managed or owned by a like-minded producer.
This happens long before any wine is made, and involves scouting out many sites, talking to other producers, perhaps sharing a drink or a meal with them. Making wine is more than just a transaction to us - it’s the start of what we hope will be a long-lasting relationship.
We also like to inspect the site to understand how components such as aspect, elevation and soil type might work together, as well to see how the vines are being managed first-hand. This gives us an initial indication of what the wine from that site might need from us to fully express itself.
3. Picking
The next thing to do is decide on a picking date. We typically maintain contact with producers across the year, but especially as the grapes are ripening.
Once we know that things are getting close, we’ll typically go to the vineyard to inspect, taste and maybe test the sugar levels. Constant assessment of the weather and further conversation with the grower results in a picking date being set.
All of our grapes are handpicked, meaning that the grapes are treated very gently right from the start of the process (and often a very early start to manage the pick!). Pickers are also asked to be selective about what they pick, meaning that most of the unwanted leaves, bugs and any damaged bunches are left behind. But we also hand-sort in the winery just to be sure.
4. Processing
After the final sorting in the winery, we make a choice about how the grapes will be processed - with skin contact, direct pressed, carbonically macerated or any combination of these.
We use a hand-cranked basket press, and bucket the juice directly into barrel or fermenter, since we don’t use a pump. In fact, all of the winery work is done by hand (or foot), other than moving bins around with a forklift, so it means that we are in constant contact with the grapes.
5. Fermentation
Next, fermentation! We encourage naturally occurring yeasts to ferment all of our wines, which come from the vineyard and the winery itself.
Our aim in fermentation is to provide conditions in which as many different yeasts as possible can play a part.
Research shows that as many as twenty different yeasts can be active in a wine ferment, and that they produce flavour compounds and volatile esters that contribute to the final character of the wine. Our rationale is that, the more yeasts are active during this part of the process, the more complex the wine will be.
There is also research that indicates that wines with greater microbial biodiversity are more stable in the long-term, as in any other living ecosystem.
6. Ageing
Now we age the wines. We use older French oak to micro-oxygenate them so that the many tiny flavour molecules that have been pressed out of the grapes can polymerise - bind to one another - into longer flavour molecules. Oxygen in very small amounts acts as a catalyst for this process, smoothing out the flavour profile and making it more coherent.
We allow the wines to go through malolactic fermentation at their own pace, usually in winter or early spring, monitoring them at regular intervals to ensure that they’re tracking well and have everything they need. Every now and then, we top the wines if their levels in the barrel are getting low, as some water always evaporates throughout the course of the ageing process.
7. Monitoring
Throughout primary fermentation, the wines need to be monitored and maintained on a daily basis.
Temperatures and ferment progress need to be checked against ferment vessel size and ferment progress, moving them if needed. Spills and messes are cleaned up, and red wines are plunged at least once but sometimes three times each day.
Each wine is also smelled and tasted, to determine when it’s ready for the next stage in the process.
When ready, red wine is pressed off to pre-cleaned oak. White wines may have fermented in oak or be transferred once fermented.
8. Racking
When they’re ready to bottle, we gravity rack our wines to a larger vessel for blending. When we say gravity rack, we mean that they’re not pumped. Instead, we use a forklift to elevate the barrels, insert a hose with a racking spear and very slowly and gently move the wines.
We do it this way because we’re trying to preserve the integrity of the longer-chain flavour molecules that the wines have spent up to a year building, thus preserving their flavour.
We don’t filter or fine at this stage or indeed, at any other stage. We rely on our climate (cool) and gravity to settle any larger, undesirable sediments from the wine. We regard the smaller particles that can be removed by filtering or fining as intrinsic aspects of the wine, since they contribute flavour and antioxidant qualities to it.
9. Bottling
We then bottle by hand, which is a much longer and slower process than using a bottling line, but it means that the wines are never pumped. Again, we prioritise being gentle with the wine to preserve the integrity of the structure that we’ve just spent months trying to build.
10. Final Steps
The last piece of the puzzle is the label. Each label tells a story about the wine and the grower, or the winemaker. The labels are all hand-painted or drawn by Lou, before being scanned and put into a format that we think will look just right on the bottle.
Mostly, we then have these printed by our printing partner but every now and then, the opporunity to hand-paint a unique label for a special release is just too good to pass up, so we go ahead and do just that.
Each bottle is then hand-labelled and packed into a box, which is sealed up before getting a label of its own. Each box is then packed onto a pallet to rest until it’s ready to send to our distributors, or directly to you.
