Montemaggiore Blog
We are winegrowers not professional writers, thus this blog will probably only be updated a few times a year. In fact most of these posts either have appeared or will appear in our quarterly newsletter. Having said that, we hope you enjoy our insights on winemaking and winegrowing on a boutique level. We welcome your opinions and questions—and even your suggestions on future topics.

Vintage Chart for Paolo's Vineyard Syrah
We recently tasted every single vintage of Paolo’s Vineyard Syrah that we’ve ever produced—an exciting and enlightening event given that we don't often taste all these wines side-by-side. The resulting vintage chart will help you decide whether to open that special bottle of Montemaggiore Syrah now or hang on to it. Continue »

The Wine Lover’s Dilemma: drink now or later?
We've all contemplated a special bottle of wine, wondering whether to open it now or wait because it may taste better in a few years? Here are a few tips and tools for evaluating the ageability of wines. Continue »

Berry Sensory Analysis: this winemaker's favorite harvest tool
How does a winemaker precisely assess ripeness in grapes? And do flavors in the grapes translate into flavors in the wine? The answers to these questions lend insight into how Montemaggiore chooses when to harvest the grapes. Continue »

Fermentation: the key to unlocking Flavor
Fermentation is a miracle. The yeasts are not only creating alcohol, but more importantly, unlocking all the interesting flavor potential from a basically uni-dimensional grape. Continue »

Natural Fermentations
Natural fermentations, native fermentations, spontaneous fermentations—whatever you call them, they are quite interesting to winemakers! Continue »

Whole Cluster Syrah
We've started utilizing "whole cluster" fermentations, which imparts a depth and spiciness to our Syrah. This practice is somewhat counter-intuitive since we normally are very careful to remove bits of stems that our destemmer misses. Continue »