Big bottles mean big celebrations and in our family, a big bottle means a jeroboam, it’s the equivalent of 6 regular sized (750 ml) bottles! What would be better to celebrate my father’s 90^th birthday than a jeroboam of Hafner Cabernet? I looked through my cellar and found a 1990, which was an excellent year here at Hafner Vineyard. A 25-year-old wine! There is a theory that the larger the bottle, the slower the aging process. To test that, I went down into my cellar and found a 750 ml bottle of the same vintage.

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When asked the question–“What has most influenced my winemaking philosophy/style?”–I would have to answer my internship at Domaine des Comtes Lafon. René Lafon opened my eyes to his traditional techniques that were considered revolutionary in California at the time. Malolactic fermentation is a secondary (bacterial) fermentation that occurs in most all red wines, but in California, in the early 1980’s, it was rare in white wines. In Burgundy, however, all of their Chardonnays undergo malolactic fermentation thanks to one primary reason–their wines would be too acidic without the secondary fermentation.

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As all winemakers know, winemaking starts in the vineyard. Having our winery at the southeast corner of our vineyard (30 feet away!) ensures that I’m out in the vineyard frequently. That, in my opinion, has a great impact on wine quality. Check out a short video of David and the machine harvester picking Malbec right in front of the winery. 

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Late July and early August days are filled with my least favorite job – bottling. It’s both stressful and monotonous. We bottle our Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon and Next Red (all from our Alexander Valley vineyard) in three extremely long weeks. Using our GoPro, we videoed the Chardonnay bottling. After watching one minute of it, we realized that it would be more interesting (and fun!) to see the process sped up (100x!).

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Ludovic David, our intern in 1990 and now the General Manager at Chateau Marquis de Terme, came back to visit us and brought his son, Guillaume. Guillaume will go to the same university, Purpan, where his dad went and our interns are enrolled. While they were here, our 31st intern, Aymeric Laturelle, arrived. They are our interns past, present and future! 

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