Perhaps that is a result of aging on the lees as opposed to oak treatment?
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Perhaps! There’s a bit of gloss (positive connotation) to the texture that I’ve associated with “not totally neutral” oak aging but that may well be correlation with lees contact.
That is fascinating, thank you. In a white wine, I do not associate gloss with oak. I would guess the gloss was due to stainless steel or concrete tanks. Perhaps I should reconsider.
Suppose there’s then the problem of what is “gloss” to me might be something different to you.
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Yesterday was the Oregon Chardonnay Technical event. We blind tasted 43 barrel samples for the 2025 vintage and discussed them across various rubrics including AVA, yield, time to primary ferment, clone, juice pH, etc. It was fascinating and there were a few takeaways. Yield in the 2.0 - 3.5 T/acre produced the best wines (not to say this is cause/effect, just correlation). Time to primary was most interesting in the 14-28 days range. Eola-Amity showed the best wines (no surprise) 
Overall the still unfinished wines showed a balance overall that was very nice - in fact BALANCE was the key word. Many felt light on acid and that tracks as malics were pretty low overall. ML was not always 100% complete and those wines did show a nice acidic balance. About half did acid adds this year and some sugar adds.
In the afternoon, we had a panel comparing press cycles which is something not often talked about. Three producers shared wines from a champagne cycle and a standard cycle. Overall the champagne cycle which presses in a stair step manner increasing the pressure 4 or so times before rotating and doing it all again, showed wines of linearity and precision with elegant fruit profiles. The standard cycle which presses at one pressure (increasingly slightly over cycles) and then rotates - so more rotations - produced wines of greater textural enjoyment - more phenolics. The room was evenly split on preference.
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Super interesting, thanks for posting this! Out of curiosity were the samples provided by the attendees or what?
Pressing seems to be one of those things that a very few producers specifically highlight in their writeups or tasting sessions (Seth Long returned to it many times when we tasted with him) but by and large is an underrated factor.
Tons per acre has very limited use without knowing the vine/row spacing. Pounds per linear foot of canopy is much more useful. We work with vineyards of various spacing between each row. The smallest is six feet and the largest is ten feet. Generally speaking, older vineyards were planted at wider spacing. Mainly because the tractors available at the time were designed for orchards and not vineyards.
An acre of grapes with rows every six feet will have 50% more canopy than a vineyard planted every nine feet. So three tons per acre from a more densely planted vineyard is equal to about two tons per acre from an older vineyard.
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Yes, the samples were all brought by attendees or their proxies. There may be an exception or two.
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Samples are all provided by attendees.
The most important parts of making Chardonnay all happen in the first 48 hours or so. Picking, pressing, and racking are the biggest factors in deciding wine style. I’m always amazed at the amount of people that don’t pay attention to pressing.
Presses come pre-loaded with a variety of programs for you to choose from. Kind of like how your microwave has a button for popcorn, defrost, and reheat. Its amazing how many people will just push a button and then walk away. We only do five press loads per harvest, but I am constantly tweaking it each time depending on vineyard, clone, cluster morphology, and desired extraction.
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I feel like pressing is one of those processes that doesn’t get talked about to the general public, but winemakers talk about a lot–and everyone is fairly sure their way is the right one 
. Part of that is that pressing can be a really nuanced process (to me) and that nuance doesn’t always translate to people who aren’t well versed in the rest of the decisions–and then you get someone on the internet saying “the winemaker said Y” when Y isn’t really what you meant.
I love Chard that’s made by both people who press long/slow/Champagne style and also by people who roll a bunch and extract phenolics. I think the big thing is matching your press cycle and your picking and elevage decisions–I’d go so far as to say that press cycles are a lot like the kind of heat you use when you’re cooking. You can make great fish over a grill, or poached in court bouillon, or even baked, but ideally you want to match the specific method to the kind of fish and the desired outcome.
We have a much smaller press than you do @Matt_Perry (I’m guessing) so I have the sort-of-joy of running a whole bunch of press cycles (across a bunch of different white grapes), which can be a lot of fun for experimentation (and less fun when you’re cleaning the press at 2AM…). Ultimately I actually think that the differences are a bit more subtle than not–for me, site and picking decision dominate the impact on both wine style and chemistry–but obviously the refinement of everything is what we live for.
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Matt - mind humming a few more bars on this? I know ~nothing on this beyond I guess a vague sense that harder pressing would be more extractive (of… skin and seed and stem content? IDK.)
What kind of press cycle (and what even does that mean I guess - pressure/time/pressure over time/rotations? I have heard the phrase “breaking the cake” or something to that effect?) do you use to achieve what kind of desired results? What sorts of changes do you make based on the various factors (vyd/clone/cluster shape/extraction level) you’re trying to optimize?
Bingo! It’s all a downstream process. I think style is mostly locked in by the time you put the juice in barrel. From there it’s mostly little tweaks here and there.
I don’t have a press, I just pay someone to use theirs. But thankful it’s 30 hL and we crush all of our fruit too.
Thanks Mark for the summary of the tech workshop. Good discussion by Matt, Saul and others. I tend to favor Champagne cycle in the press, but to your point Matt, just for the beginning of the pre-sets. I take over manually after the first 4 or 5 steps based on flavors and phenolics (trying to avoid bitterness), and also frankly waiting an hour for a few extra gallons is sometimes not feasible (or desired).
Mark, any discussion of whole cluster vs. destemmed pressing? I think most of us small, craft producers are pressing whole cluster for stylistic reasons (and on the other end of the spectrum very large producers never destem (nor sort fruit) because it takes too long). I have seen destemmed pressing for white wines to either a) process more fruit in each pressload; and/or b) for stylistics reasons (more grapes solids in the juice).
In terms of ferment times, the key to me is temperature more than time of fermentation. I really want it to stay no higher than 72F, and ideally in the 60s so that esters and other easily-volatilized aromatic compounds don’t escape. It’s a fine line because if the yeast struggle too severely, the wine can get funky but that would be more in the 50s range and actually, and probably more due to lack of YAN (availability of nitrogen compounds).
Anything to avoid my monthly quickbooks obligations!
There are three things I’m paying attention to coming out of the press: solids (lees/bourbe), phenolics, and yield (juice). We crush all of our fruit and press sequentially. Meaning short & light (200-400 mbar) squeezes, and rotate in between each squeeze. What I’m looking for in this part of the press cycle is to extract the maximum amount of solids while the juice is flowing freely. The longer you hold the press at a given pressure, the cleaner the juice becomes because it’s filtered through the cake. Once the juice starts running clean, I’ll stop the press, deflate it, and spin it to mix up all the grapes (breaking the cake). This is the opposite of “champagne style” pressing, which favors long, light squeezes, both to minimize lees and phenolic extraction. The duration, repetitions, and amount of rolling are dependent on cluster morphology and ripeness. Once we get up above 1000 mbar or so, then I’m looking to extract the rest of the juice without picking up a lot of agressive phenolics and bitterness. At that point it becomes longer squeezes at higher pressure, all the way up to 2000 mbar.
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Yes! Yield per unit planted area (tons/acre) results in apple to orange comparisons. Yield per length of canopy is much more useful.
Is your desire for solids for reduction or texture?
What if you don’t press in the first 48 hours? 
Solids are not a desire, they’re a necessity!
For us solids help fill out and extend the palate of the wine. Very helpful when our alcohols are 12-12.5%
The reduction is always desired but always seems to be fleeting considering how hot & dirty we ferment our wines.
Hipsters gonna hip… 