Concrete fermentation tanks: the good; the bad; and the ugly.
A few weeks ago I had a chance to take a colleague wine tasting in Paso Robles. He’s from Texas and really enjoys wine, but has never visited a winery. Betty and I started wine tasting in CA when we lived in Santa Maria in 1981. We have seen the Central Coast wine production explode since then. One of the first wine festivals we attended was at the Ballard Canyon Winery near Solvang. They had the barbeque, wine tasting and party at their home and winery on Ballard Canyon Road. At the time, Johannesburg Riesling was the dominate varietal grown in the area and it was the most delightful introduction to really enjoying fine wine. (As a side note: Wild Horse was just getting started at the time and Kenneth Volk had produced a Merlot that was one of the most drinkable, balanced and beautiful merlots on the market. It really set the standard for Merlot as a great stand-alone varietal.)
At the Ballard Canyon wine festival, the tri-tip barbeque and all the wines were great. Towards the end, after much imbibing, my friend in the picture and I participated in the foot stomping of some red grapes that were in an open top fermentation tank. It was large enough to hold about ten of us. There was a guy next to us just minding his business stomping on the fruit when Craig kicked his legs out from under him. This guy falls into the smashed grapes and red juice. He didn’t want to be the only one to be drenched in grape juice so he comes up throwing smashed grapes all around and pulling others into the muck. Everyone within 10 feet had some amount of smashed fruit and juice on them. After the food fight, we were standing in line at the garden hose to wash off.
At last month’s wine tasting in Paso Robles, I wanted to take my colleague to some wineries with my favorite wine and some great views. I also like to try new wineries anytime I can to keep up on the 200+ wine makers in the area. Our first stop was Brochelle Winery that makes one of the best Zinfandels ever. The Syrah and the Cabs are also great. It is such small boutique production that every bottle has the bottle # on the label, i.e. “no. 180 of 600” produced, referring to the reserve Zinfandel. The family is so lovely and friendly and they are personal with all the wine club members, like us. http://brochelle.com/
The Good: The first wine on the tasting schedule at Brochelle was the Chardonay, which is a first them. It was explained that the wine was fermented in 1/3 stainless steel, 1/3 oak and 1/3 concrete. That is unusual, I thought. And the wine was unique: not fermented and oak aged to the point of some of the buttery, toffee and oaky Chardonnay’s; and not too light and crisp like the stainless steel fermented Chardonnays that I enjoy. It had an initial taste of pineapple and later grapefruit with a smooth and balanced mouth feel. I bought a couple bottles. I think it will go great with grilled salmon and mango salsa that I like to make at home.
The Bad: Our next visit was at EPOCH winery off of Hwy. 46 West on York Mt. Road. It is at the former York Mountain Winery that had the historic, now condemned wine cave. I heard of this winery from my manger in Denver that said her customer, a Canadian oil company, owns the winery in Paso Robles. The wine is supposed to be really great and sold out of all the production. It’s a famous location and they have won awards, so I wanted to try it. In the tasting room they explained how all the wine is 100% fermented in concrete. I’m thinking: what’s with all the concrete fermentation? The red wines we tasted all had an astringent taste. Not like strong tannins that make your mouth pucker. But more like the caustic in cement. My colleague and I had the same response and didn’t even finish the tasting pour. http://www.epochwines.com/
Our next and last stop on our tour was a sure bet, Le Cuvier. They have over-all and consistently the best wine. I mentioned to the winemaker about the concrete fermentation tanks that I learned about today and he just said, “It’s the latest fad”. http://www.lcwine.com/
I told him the story of my experience with concrete wine tanks:
When I was selling Plasite coatings in the 1990’s, our company was in at the Gallo Wine Co. in Modesto, the largest wine producer in the world. Plasite formulated a special epoxy tank lining that was tested to protect the steel storage tanks from corrosion and not impart any taste into the wine. It was not my account, but I wanted to spread the success in my territory. In the southern valley there is a history of large scale grape production and massive scale wine production from the 1950’s. Off of Hwy. 58 in Bakersfield there is a Giumarra plant that used to be one of the big bulk wine producers. There are huge insulated tanks that you can see from the freeway. So naturally where I see huge tanks, I want to sell some coating. Once I got past the guard and into the plant, I learned that the winery is long past making wine and the tanks are out of service. But the bottling plant was in production, they had a contract to bottle Snapple. So I turned my cap around, so to speak, from Plasite Coatings to Pall Filtration. I learned about the Snapple production and bottling operation and eventually got the bottling manager to try a set of Pall filters. Bottling operations are notorious for being the cheapest people around. The profit is fractions of a penny per bottle so it was a tough sale with a high dollar premium product like Pall.
I remember trying to sell Pall filters to the Pepsi bottling plant in Bakersfield (when it was operational) and thinking: They will not pay an extra ten cents for a better filter, but they will pay $100 Million to Michael Jackson to be in the ads.
On the Snapple line at Giumarra, I remember the ornery plant manager had a call into me. Before cell phones, I had to stop and find a pay phone and call him back. He said that my filters had fallen apart and they were junk and he wanted a new set. “I understand that is a problem. I’ll come by and see what I can do”. When I got there, I asked to see the filters that had failed. So he is showing me these used filters that had the end caps and media support coming apart. After close scrutiny I said, “I see. These really are junk filters. Look at this end cap, it’s come apart and all the contaminants have passed through to your Snapple. Why would you ever use these again”?
“Exactly”, he said. “I need you to get me a new set right away”.
With my smart-ass grin I said, “Where are the Pall filters I sent you? Every Pall filter has the logo molded into the end cap right here. These are not the Pall filters I sent you”.
He replied, “Your Pall filters must have plugged up during the night shift so we had to replace them with what we had.”
“Well, if you want another set, you’ll have to pay the full price”. That was the end of my Snapple filtration.
The Ugly: On Comanche Drive, south of Panama Rd near Lamont, there was another old school massive winery from the 1950’s era. Di Giorgio is an old facility that used to make huge quantities of wine. I went there in my Plasite days to help them get their wine production going again. They wanted to get some old concrete vaults coated so they could use them again for fermentation and storage. Walking into the area where they had concrete vaults, 10’ by 10’ by 10’ high, lined up row after row, I could visualize pallets of Plasite in 5 gallon cans with 1 gallon cans of catalyst being used to line all these tanks. Running the numbers in my head while listening to the history and plans for putting these vaults into service, I am thinking: 60 sq. ft. per gallon; a hundred thousand sq. ft; $60 per gallon; 25% commission to Mensco, 30% of that to me, I can see it all resulting in a nice commission check.
I was also visualizing the production: 100,000 acres of ripe wine grapes all coming into the winery in tandem semi-trucks, lined up at the scales and waiting to dump the tons of grapes into the crusher and all these vaults filling with fermenting juice. What I saw when we got into the vaults was concrete that was old, corroded and spalled with loose aggregate that would come apart in my hands. My pen knife could dig right through it. I could not imagine what the exposure to this open corroded concrete would to the wine. “We are going to have to get to some sound substrate before we can ever get any coating to stick to this surface.”
I never sold a drop of epoxy to fix those tanks and they never went back into production. I know because years later, I was back at the same plant selling bottling filters. The old massive wine production facility that was its own city, Di Giorgio, CA had used a small portion of the original bottling plant to fill beer kegs with wine for Anheuser Busch to sell to their restaurant and bar customers. A portion of the business offices were used by the plant personnel and the meeting room was the old board room of one of the great agri-businesses that made the Central Valley the world’s most productive agricultural area. I could feel the energy and ghosts of the business dealings that must have taken place there. Pictures of past success, agri-business greats and production accomplishments along with ribbons and awards decorated the walls and along one side of the room there was a wine tasting counter that 20 people could line up at.
I was successful with coatings at one facility near Delano that made grape juice. Much of the grape production in the valley is made into juice and juice concentrate that goes into the fruit juice drinks like Capri Sun. The plant near Delano has some old tanks that were clad with stainless steel to protect against corrosion. Sheets of stainless steel are formed to the inside of the tanks and the seams are welded. When there is a failure at a seam, the juice gets behind it and corrodes the tank. At this plant, they were removing the cladding and sandblasting and coating the steel for protection. That turned out to be some nice coating sales.
Nearby on Hwy. 65 are the power plants that burn coal, rubber tires, agriculture waste, refinery coke and anything else that is cheap to buy and can be burned in a fluidized bed to make steam. I asked a customer to lunch once and we went to the only place within a lunch time drive. It is the Idle Spur Café in McFarland. It is at the south bound on-ramp from Hwy. 46 to 99. There is a dirt parking lot and cattle corals there. The burgers are great and they grill a nice flavorful steak. We were there on a Monday when they have the beef auction. I walked through the dining room to the auction area and watched the cattle parading through as they were being auctioned off to the buyers in the stands. It’s worth a visit on a Monday for lunch to see this take place. The whole experience is something out of Petticoat Junction or Green Acres. I was there for lunch once and the waitress had her new born baby in a car seat propped up on the counter while she was working tables and the cash register. The baby was darling and remained pretty quiet while I was there. Just last month, I took my manager there for lunch on the way back to town and talked to the lady that owns the café and she said that baby I saw is 12 years old now. And I learned that the family is the Maitia Basque family and they have a Basque dinner on Friday nights. I mentioned how I used to like the special dressing at Maitia’s Basque when it was on Union Avenue, blue cheese and 1000 island dressing mixed together. She made some for my salad. This is a fun stop for excellent home cooking and a friendly atmosphere that is hard to find these days. And try to make it on a Monday and check out the cattle auction. But be prepared to see some real cowboys and ranchers at the Idle Spur. They come in from work with dirt, mud and manure on them. And you might see some sales guy hanging out there for a break, checking messages or entertaining customers.
