Emily ( left ) and Eric Hays opened Chateau Davell winery in 2010 . The couple has a 4-acre vineyard in Shingle Springs and a half-acre vineyard in Camino , where the winery is located . trogen fixation ; improve soil fertility ; and attract biodiversity , like beneficial insects that control pests and disease .
For Hays , it ’ s important to extend a light footprint throughout the business . During production , he chooses not to filter or fine the wine , keeping it in its most natural state . Filtering and fining remove sediment and clarify the wine , but fining agents are commonly made from animal proteins , such as isinglass made from the air bladder of fish , albumin from egg whites or gelatin from bones , making them unsuitable for vegans .
Although vegan firming agents exist , Hays says , “ It ’ s OK if a wine is a little bit cloudy . Filtering and fining can strip away the bouquet ,” referring to the wine ’ s aroma . “ Oftentimes , when folks come to our winery and they ’ re smelling our wines , they ’ re just blown away by how much bouquet our wines have .”
While Chateau Davell wines are vegan , they aren ’ t labeled or heavily marketed as such . In fact , vegan , organic and biodynamic wines are such a small segment of the U . S . market ( experts estimate 1-2 percent ), they don ’ t yet command mainstream analytics or occupy space on retail shelves .
At Clavey Vineyards & Winery in Nevada City , Josh Orman was making vegan wines before the family-run business became vegan-certified and began labeling them . “ It came down to the style of winemaking I was doing ,” Orman says . “ I wasn ’ t trying to change everything in the winery or lab . … I ’ m doing it out in the field .”
But with several vegan family and friends , it made sense to Orman to market his organically farmed vegan wine , especially being located in a progressive region of Nevada County that caters to vegans .
“ People are really starting to realize what they ’ re consuming and how their food products are being processed and made ,” says Orman , who expanded his market to include local co-ops and health-conscious grocery stores . “ They ’ re having a better understanding of what these larger wineries are really doing to their wine to make it taste the same year in and year out .”
While Orman tries to harvest his grapes at similar sugar and acid levels each year , the nature of low-intervention production ( minimal chemical or physical manipulation of the wine ) always yields slight variations , “ but that ’ s kind of what makes winemaking and wine so exciting and more enjoyable ,” he says . “ You can go wine tasting and try four wines from the same place , different years , and they ’ ll all taste just a bit different .”
In Sutter Creek , Shake Ridge Ranch , a 46-acre family-run vineyard on a steep hillside with rocky soil , uses “ minimal and judicious intervention ,” says owner Ann Kraemer , who continues to evolve her farming practices to work with the natural ecology of the land .
Kraemer used to control the vineyard ’ s weeds with a single application of
Roundup , a better alternative , she thought , to mechanical weeding with tractors that use diesel and compact the soil , or hours of manual labor in the heat . But nearly four years ago , she began planting cover crops instead to do the work for her .
And for the last 10 years , she ’ s attracted more than 20 barn owl families to her vineyard by hanging owl boxes to replace
“ It seems like anything we can do to work with nature and let nature be the driving force instead of deciding it ’ s got to do what we need it to do is a really good thing .”
Ann Kraemer , owner , Shake Ridge Ranch chemical baiting and mechanical trapping of gophers that damage the vines .
“ One owl family is supposed to be able to eat 1,000 gophers over the season ,” Kraemer says . “ It seems like anything we can do to work with nature and let nature be the driving force instead of deciding it ’ s got to do what we need it to do is a really good thing .”
November 2020 | comstocksmag . com 29