Gleaning For Bubbles In San Diego: Biblical Winemaking

I have been thinking about sparkling wine for years now.  I started making pet nats in my garage three years ago and two years ago for Los Pilares with Eric Van Drunen at Vinavanti.  I'm really proud of the results -- LaDona (a dry, sparkling pet net of Muscat), and our customers love it.  Our initial method was freezing fresh must and using it for the liqueur de tirage (the dollop of sweet juice added before sealing the bottle) instead of bottling before primary fermentation is finished (méthode ancestrale) or adding sugar and yeast to the bottle (méthode champenoise).  I thought that freezing must was original until I learned that a few people are doing it in Franciacorta and other places.

Then I ran across this in Leviticus:  "And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not make clean riddance of the corners of thy field when thou reapest, neither shalt thou gather any gleaning of thy harvest: thou shalt leave them unto the poor, and to the stranger: I am the LORD your God."

I have said for a long time that San Diego has great potential for growing and making wine but is sort of a blank slate.  San Diego also may be the site of the very first vineyard in Califoria, but until very recently, what little we were known for was not good.  A few winemakers here see this as an opportunity.  No orthodoxy to oppose.  No rules.  We have the chance to establish varieties, methods, and styles here.  I think innovation is our birthright.

That got me thinking about gleanings, and I realized that we could use gleanings for the liqueur de tirage and avoid refrigeration.  So the method we are going to is:  harvest.  ferment dry.  go back to the vineyard to glean. Crush the gleanings.  Measure brix.  Calculate the volume of liqueur de tirage to end up with the right amount of C02.  bottle and add gleanings as liqueur de tirage.  I'm insanely excited about this.  I think it's poetic, efficient, pre-industrial, biblical, and natural.  Or, as I said to Joanie, The Italian Wine Geek, "Gleaning is a beautiful and even biblical notion.  And I find it very poetic that the vines could hold their grapes for us while we finish the first fermentation.  This would eliminate the need for adding sugar and yeast or even freezing juice.  It could be a lovely way to make the best of what nature gives, because careful hand picking can leave behind the less ripe bunches for gleaning later.  That means consistent grapes for the main harvest and less waste.”  http://italianwinegeek.com/sandiegowine/