Michel Rolland consults today for hundreds of wineries throughout the world which means his experience grows exponentially.  He is continuously faced with many more issues than winemakers working with just one winery.  Therefore, he is able to offer accurate and in-depth advice on virtually any issue or problem that may arise.  In addition, Michel travels to many different climates and parts of the world, meeting many interesting people.  He has the opportunity to taste more wines than any winemakers I have known.  Michel’s experience is definitely very valuable to a company, especially a new one such as Alpha Omega.

 When I decided to approach Robin and Eric regarding contacting Michel Rolland, I was quite concerned Michel would deny our project as we do not have a multi-million dollar winery.  We were pleasantly surprised to hear he was very interested.  His focus and attention has been on one thing and one thing only:  the quality of the wine.

 Through his travels and extensive experience tasting a great variety of wines, his pallet has become very refined and yet has not become accustomed to one particular climate or aromatic profile of an appellation. His travels have provided the chance to be challenged by the characteristics of different wines. Moreover, Michelle Rolland has an amazing gift to be able to taste objectively. He is able to judge and discuss the quality of a wine with an open mind and offers this as his opinion.

 In addition he has great vision of what a blend will become. One may have many different wines and components to combine into a blend and Michel Rolland will estimate the quality and discuss a blend with the winemaker. The winemaker or owner will then choose a final blend.  Michel talent lies in creating blends that maximize the quality of the components, producing a wine that will be excellent not only the day of the blending but will evolve into a spectacular wine over time.  I think that is definitely the key to superior winemaking and creating consistently high quality wines.

Alpha Omega had the pleasure to host Mr. Michel Rolland on January 11th as our consulting winemaker.
Mr. Rolland met with Jean Hoefliger, winemaker, and Henrik Poulsen, assistant winemaker, in order to taste samples of our first vintage.  Both Alpha Omega and Mr. Rolland were pleased to discover the wines were very good, as 2006 was not an easy vintage.  His first visit was an exciting day as Mr. Rolland is such an eminent figure in the industry. 

 Mr. Rolland- we enjoyed your visit
 

After New Year’s and upon receiving a few foosballs from the guests that we sent their way they finally agreed to come to Alpha Omega to settle the Great Foosball Debate.  We had them over, poured some wine, consumed a little cheese and crackers, and then we got down to the business of our not so serious competition. That night we learned one of two things, either we have WAY to much time on our hands to practice playing after work and they have social lives that don’t involve foosball OR they are just not very good (by the way, we love you guys!).  Two of their teams even suffered what we affectionately refer to as a “skunking” which means that they were unable to score a goal before one of our teams scored ten.  This is a bad thing because we have certain rules about getting skunked that they must now own up to.  While I cannot disclose just exactly what the penalty is for being skunked I can assure you that our one year anniversary party is going to be talked about for quite some time if they have the guts to abide by the rules.
Most importantly though, everyone had a great time that night, and we hope to continue to build a solid relationship with the staff at Hall since their wines are fantastic and their employees are…well…they are alright too.  As a final note, I would like to point out that we had to put this story on our blog to build up our confidence before we head to their winery for will most likely be a ping-pong humbling.  We have our team watching Forest Gump in the meantime to look for inspiration but I don’t think it’s going to help!  With that said, we would like to thank Hall Winery for being such good sports, and we hope they will go easy on us over at their place!
By Eric.

For someone with a lot of passion for the winemaking process, moving from theory to witnessing actual practice is really exciting.  My name is Susan Bishop and among other careers, I’ve spent 12 years in this industry and studied through the wine education program taking viticulture and making some wine at the college.  But most of the winemakers I have come across, at seven different wineries, are pretty tight lipped about their practices and would rather not be grilled on what and how they do their job.  Here at Alpha Omega I have verified, solidified and increased my first hand knowledge of winemaking by a huge amount in a short time.  

How do you perform wild yeast fermentation?  So that “pastel patina” that coats the grapes really adds dimension and complexity to the wine?  “Unbelievable,” I say, “red wine fermented in brand new French oak barrels with one head removed.”  Even more amazing, “whole berry maceration; no crushing on our crush pad.”  And just when I thought it couldn’t get more exciting and that the harvest was OVER, we took in grapes on Dec. 1 and 2 that have “Botrytis Cinerea, the noble rot.”  

We are making late harvest dessert wine from Botrytis Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon!” Jean says the conditions were quite excellent for this special wine this year.  The acids are nice and high to counter balance the heavy sweetness we will see in this wine.  I have been waiting to see this operation for more than a decade! It seems the making of dessert wine by this process is especially tricky and time consuming.  Few winemakers want to bother, chance it, or challenge themselves this way.  But I get to see the whole process from sorting the grapes to mixing the yeasts and watching it all ferment.  Some of the Sauvignon Blanc is in barrels and some in tank.  I think all the Semillon grapes are barrel fermented.  Semillon grapes have tightly packed bunches and relatively thin skin, making them very susceptible to botrytis infection. Semillon grapes make up 80% of the blend in some of the most expensive wines in the world like, Château d'Yquem in Bordeaux.  Jean has been making wine in Bordeaux. Sounds good to me.

My personal enlightenment is fortunately due to the open communication and the sharing of winemaking activities on a regular basis by Jean and Henrik, the interns and the production staff.  For me, this makes all the difference in being able to do my job well, with love and passion.  I can convey the delightful nuances of AO winemaking to the public on a daily basis this way.  Let me give you another example.

One day last week Jean entered the tasting room from the cellar in his usual casual and uncomplicated but still larger than life style (after all he is 6 foot 5).  He said, “Susan, what do you smell in this glass?” I appeared obviously puzzled with that “wait a minute, am I going to get in trouble if I say the wrong thing” look. He proceeded to tell me it was a 2006 Merlot.  OK, so I swirled the glass a few times and took a deep breath, with nose poked into glass and I repeated the motion and smelled again.  “Well,” I said, you might not like this but the aroma I get right off the top seems a little bit like a light vinegar.”  Jean explained immediately that it was “yogurt” and “that tells me it’s undergoing malolactic fermentation.  Malolactic fermentation smells like yogurt Susan!”  Here is the winery I’ve been waiting for . . . one in which the winemaking staff takes the time and has the patience to give me a revealing answer.  And it keeps coming.

As I arrived on the Alpha Omega Property this morning I saw on the far edge of the pond a newcomer to the landscape, a Snowy Egret, standing proud and tall on his long rail thin legs.  Over his matching long rail thin beak he is eyeing us all.  Humm, I wondered how PD, the duck mascot for AO, feels about this avian addition.

As I enter the Tasting Room I am tickled to see the counter is covered with a couple dozen lab-labeled bottles, a few glasses and dump buckets.  Jean, Henrik and Marie, (an intern from France) are busy slurping, spitting and inhaling. What are we experiencing, I say to myself.  I listened to the short conversations that followed and soon discovered I walked in on a Tasting Trial.  I want to know and I will find out.  It’s all in a days work now.  My exhilaration rises as I see one more wonderful learning experience after another come my way.

This place fascinates me even beyond the incredibly artistic winemaking style.  There is an unusual spirit here.  You can see it most clearly as the staff upstairs and downstairs takes on an amazing dynamic in all the after work social activities.  Most pronounced is the heavy hitting “team” competition in the form of foosball tournaments.  Yes, the winery invested most wisely in a foosball table and the rivalry has been on ever since.  What a way to unwind on your lunch break.  Well I have to let you in on something . . . I’m coming into this major social camaraderie of quite a few “30 somethings” from a couple of generations earlier. But, I am determined to join in the fun and games . . . I bought myself a foosball table for Christmas!  The heat is on.

The second topic that I would like to discuss is naturally fermented wines versus inoculated wines. I have worked in the past with both ways and have become a defender of natural fermentation.  My reasoning behind this is that I intend to follow nature and limit man and the impact on the grapes.  The reason why I think it is this way, is I have a very strong desire to follow nature and limiting a winemaker’s detractions on grapes.  A winemaker should know the full potential of his/her grapes based on the hard work that has been done in the vineyard all through the growing season.  Letting the grapes go through a natural fermentation allows them to stay on the path to reaching their potential without trying to force the wine along the fermentation cycle.  With every yeast strain a winemaker has to choose from, a certain number of traits will come along with that particular strain that can knock the wine off of the intended course I had planned for while in the vineyard.  The second reason for using wild yeast is that I believe wild yeast allows a wine to start the fermentation at a slower rate extending the length of the first fermentation which I feel gives me a more complex wine in the long run.  Making wine is not about speed so I never worry about trying to force the wine through any part of the process.

The other side of this argument is that by not adding yeast a winemaker risks something called “stuck” fermentation which means that the wine stops in the middle of the fermentation leaving residual sugar present in the wine. This means that the wine will tend to taste more like a dessert style wine which is extremely bad for red wines.  A winemaker can try to fix a stuck fermentation but it is not an easy process.  Along the same line of thinking I also do not inoculate the wine for the secondary fermentation known as malolactic fermentation where malic acid is converted to lactic acid in the wine.  Most winemakers will call me crazy for making wines this way but so far I have yet to hurt a wine with this style and my wines have always managed to finish both fermentations.  With this in mind I will continue to let the wines go through fermentation naturally since in my opinion is the best way to help them reach their full potential and make a great wine!