Welcome to Elyse Winery

To understand the Elyse philosophy, you'll need a crash course in viticulture and winemaking. If you're ready to dive in, click on thumbnail number two. Continue by clicking on the subsequent thumbnails..

Ray says "winemaking is cooking without a flame." Our winemaking philosophy at Elyse is similar to the approach of a chef. Great chefs search for the best ingredients and then carefully prepare them so the layers of flavors in the food all reach the table. At Elyse, we're constanly searching for wonderful fruit to work with. Besides the vineyard at the winery, we've been fortunate to find amazing fruit from vinyards stretching from Carneros to Howell Mountain.

Location is paramount, but a vineyard needs more than location to grow high quality fruit. Ray started his career in the vineyard, and his decades of experience have taught him that good wines result from continuous work in the vineyard - planting the right clones for the vineyard site, pruning to ensure lower yields and higher fruit concentration, canopy control to bring the fruit to full and uniform ripeness, and thinning to maximize flavors. As a fellow winemaker once said, "The best wines come from the vineyards with the most footprints in them."

Picking the grapes at the right time is crucial - the sugar and acid levels of the fruit must be at the proper balance so that the finished wine achieves similar balance in its fruit, tannins, and acidity.

Each step taken at the winery has one major goal - to capture as much of the fruit flavor as possible. As at most wineries, the first step in the winemaking process at Elyse is to send the fruit through the stemmer/crusher. This device removes the berries from the vines and then crushes the berries. At Elyse, we have modified the the standard stemmer/crusher. The first section has been left intact and removes the stems from the fruit so that they do not impart harsh tannins into the juice. We have, however, removed the crusher roller from the second section of this device.

This has two effects. First, it allows some whole berries to reach the fermenters, which produces wines with more forward fruit flavors. Second, it ensures that the grape seeds do not get crushed and release harsh tannins into the juice. The grape juice and the must (grape pulp and grape skins) are then fermented in small half ton lots.

These small open top fermentors maximize the must and juice contact, which translates into more flavor and color extraction. The must floats on top and produces the cap. To further assist the extraction process, the cap is punched down several times a day on each lot during the fermentation - an arm-straining job. After the primary fermentation is completed, the new wine is left in contact with the must, a technique called maceration, for further flavor and color extraction. This technique also softens the tannins

The next step in the winemaking process is to separate the wine from the must. This separation is done in a wine press. We use a bladder press, which is a cylindrical device with a plastic liner that can be inflated to lightly squeeze the must. We use this type of press so that we can ensure that the grape seeds do not get crushed and release harsh tannins into the wine.

After the wine is pressed, it is placed in French oak barrels for aging. The first step in the aging process occurs as the wine undergoes malolactic fermentation. This secondary fermentation converts sharper malic acids into softer lactic acids. We conduct the malolactic fermentation in oak barrels to capture softer, more complex flavors.

The final part of the process occurs when when we select which barrels go into our final blends in what proportion. At Elyse, we've always run distinctly counter to the trend toward 100% varietal wines. We believe that the art of winemaking is the subtleties of the blend. For example, in some vintages we've blended a few percent of Syrah into our Cabernet to enhance the flavor and cut the harsh edge that 100% Cabernet wines can have. In other years our taste tests have indicated that a few percent of zinfandel was a better combination. There is no set recipe. Each year, we strive to make the best wine possible.