How we do what we do!

The 4 Joes have worked long and hard at taking the care and craft of small kitchen sized batches into the range of small scale commercial winemaking.

We have had the pleasure of working with truly world-class growers over the years and from this profound respect for their craft we have honed ours.

We always try to “cold soak” our destemmed and lightly crushed grapes for a few days before fermentation. This time as an aqueous solution allows for much of the grape skin compounds to dissolve into the juice while leaving the bitter flavors that normally dissolve into the alcohol to sit and wait. We also usually remove some of the fresh juice to put into our 4 Joes Rosé. Depending on the grapes, we will remove 5-15% of the juice. Not only does the bleeding (literally: saignée in French) provide the basis for 4 Joes “Kool-Aide”®, but it also leaves a much greater “skin to juice ratio” in the must to make a better red wine. We trust the growers that we work with. They know their vines and vineyards, so we do not ask them to drop fruit or prune to lower yields. Instead, we try to get that extra concentration and ‘oomph’ in our winemaking steps.

A slow and cool fermentation follows with gentle hand punching down. Pressing is done after fermentation completes and occasionally we will press some days after that if we think the wine could use some time as an alcoholic solution to dissolve additional tannins. We press gently, slowly, all the while monitoring the wine for the onset of bitterness and excessive tannins from the pressures applied to the skins and seeds.

We are not big fans of oak in wines. We are big fans of what time in a barrel does to a wine. As 4 Joes wines are intended for your dinner table, we leave the wood course to the toothpicks. We use older barrels that have donated most of their oak flavors and aromas to other wines. We let our wines finish, settle, and knit in the cozy environs of a barrel for over a year.

Next comes the hard work of blending. The wines are tasted for their individual strengths and weaknesses. Blends are proposed; trials (and errors) follow; assumptions are made and challenged; friendly palates are often brought in to assist or break ties; ultimately consensus is reached and the blends are decided. Almost every 4 Joes wine is a blend. That little bit of Syrah can bring a Grenache up from a lovely, fruity ‘quaffer’ to a seriously rich (and lovely, fruity) wine for the dinner table, not just the poolside. The overtones of smoke, tar and tobacco from Mourvèdre might be just the subtleties needed to extend a Syrah into the realm of “hmmm”, just beyond the realm of “yummm”.

Grapes

After more than a decade of chasing grapes, growing grapes in our backyards, and attending seminars on planting a vineyard, we have learned enough to "speak grower". At least passibly so....

While every growing season is a new adventure, the best growers with the best vines in the best locations always shine. We've been fortunate to find some of those!

David Thompson's vineyard in the Los Alamos area of Santa Barbara County is our primary source of Syrah and Mourvèdre. We are on their waiting list for Grenache -- and having had a few tons over the years, it is worth the wait. In the meanwhile, we have been sourcing our Grenache through one of Santa Barbara's premier Rhone winemaker / grower: Andrew Murray.

We blend all of our wines, at least a little. While it is nice for a Syrah to be a Syrah, quite often a splash or dash is necessary to improve the wine. Every year's blend is a bit different and every year's blending "discussion" is a firey affair!