Why Winemaking Is Still Human
Want to guess what 3.3 million means to me as a winemaker?
That’s not the number of grapes rejected this year by the optical sorter on our crush pad.
And it’s not the number of leaves analyzed by our AI-based system that guides our irrigation decisions.
Instead, 3.3 million is the number of times a pair of human hands came in contact with a Shafer vine on our estate this year.
That’s 3.3 million moments of personal care: pruning, tying, tucking, trimming, and tending — across our estate vineyards.
In an era when technology is reshaping how wine is made, my team and I are spending more time than ever getting our hands dirty.
It all starts with pruning in the chill of January when our team goes vine by vine on our 243 acres — that’s just over 300,000 vines. Countless decisions are made on the fly in terms of cutting away last year’s growth and pruning the vine for optimal growth for the new vintage.
Throughout spring and summer, we continue to work, positioning shoots to grow up through the trellis system and defining the fruit zone. We remove extra shoots that might pull the vine’s energy away from fruit development and selectively remove leaves to ensure the right balance of shade and sunlight.
All our work in the vineyard ensures that only the best fruit is hanging on the vine at harvest. And that’s especially true with fruit thinning. In this case, late in the growing season, we’re going cluster by cluster to respond to what each needs. Sometimes we cut away a small partial cluster, called a wing, that’s covering the main grape cluster and getting in the way of its maturation. In some years if the vines have produced overabundant amounts of fruit, we will balance the vine by cutting and dropping fruit so that what remains on the vine will achieve ideal ripeness.
And then comes harvest itself — those early mornings when our team moves through the vines, hand-picking fruit destined for the crush pad.
Even at the crush pad, the human touch is still essential. Our cellar team inspects the clusters as they arrive, removing anything that doesn’t belong — underripe fruit, stray leaves, or bits of foliage.
As a final step in our rigorous fruit selection, the newly destemmed berries pass rapidly through our optical sorter. This is where technology shines.
I program the optical sorter with a profile of the perfect grape – its size, color, and shape. Anything that doesn’t match the profile is rejected. The only grapes we want in our fermentation tanks are those that have won the Olympic Gold in being a grape.
When we’ve done our job — through a combination of meticulous human effort and the best technology available — the result is a wine that’s elegant, balanced, and unforgettable.