Custom Crush Tours

I contacted Terravant shortly after returning from the grape buying journey. Their website at the time (and possibly still) was fairly rudimentary, but it did a good job of explaining what they were about, which was essentially Custom Crush Deluxe. Terravant would shepherd the grapes from crush to bottling for a pre-arranged price, which seemed to be by the case rather than by the ton. They also pitched the Alternating Proprietor Program, which classifies their customer (i.e. myself) as a winemaker/producer rather than a wholesaler. This would mean I could actually get in there and mess with the winemaking. An AP is also allowed to operate an independent tasting room. CCWS I believe requires all of its clients to be APs, as everyone I've met who uses CCWS is very hands on in making their wine and essentially uses CCWS to rent facilities, storage space and equipment.

 

I emailed Alan Philips, the Director of Winemaking and briefly explained that I had 6 future tons of syrah burning a hole in my pocket. We ended up talking on the phone a bit where he emphasized the boutique nature of the operation (any size client was welcome) and the turnkey pricing i.e. we would decide on the process beforehand and then a price would be quoted that would place the wine in bottles. We set up a meeting for a couple of weeks hence, when I would be up in the area.

 

Terravant is located in Buellton, a town on Highway 246 in the SYV. Buellton is about a mile from Solvang, a heavily touristed little town that is known for its Danish motif - the style is all Danish within the main tourist area (there are strict codes governing architectural styles) There are lots of Danish language signs and references and it is very easy to get a fresh Danish pastry, as well as mediocre Danish food (and mediocre American food). Opinions of Solvang range from kitsch to charming; my personal opinion is that it's a lot nicer when not thronged with tourists, although not the most interesting spot in the world. In recent years Solvang has also become known for being a gateway to the wine country; the town, which is barely 2 square miles in size has become home to numerous tasting rooms and you can do a weekend's worth of wine tasting on foot without leaving the city limits.

 

Buellton does not have the slightest whiff of tourist attraction to it, unless you count the Anderson Split Pea Soup operation, which is nothing more than a restaurant and gift shop. In many ways Buellton is the anti-Solvang: where Solvang is all about small squares and cutesy gift shops, Buellton features a mall with a corporate grocery and drug store, as well as the full range of American fast food options. The west side of town also features a burgeoning spread of master planned communities whose prevailing style seems to be blandness and expediency.

 

Terravant is on Industrial Way, a small dead end street just west of

Highway 101, which bisects the town. I rolled up at our appointed time to a large warehouse emblazoned with the Terravant logo. There was nobody there; Alan had mentioned he would make a special trip in, as they were closed on weekends.

 

After I walked around the facility for a few minutes seeking a way inside I noticed a man in an SUV idling in the middle of Industrial Way, talking to someone in an adjacent car. I surmised that might be Alan and I was correct. After introductions on the lot he told me that the winery was actually at the end of street and that the large warehouse type building was offices and storage.

 

The winery facility at the end of street was a recently constructed building that looked like a large warehouse. We walked over to it and Alan pointed out a huge cylinder lying on the ground on the side of the building that resembled a Saturn 5 rocket.

 

"These are custom designed fermenters", he explained. "It's open top as well as pumpover. Two separate compartments."

 

Whoa, trick.That meant you could have 2 independent fermentations going on in one of these monsters (I each compartment had a very large capacity) - open top for pinot noir and enclosed for, say, syrah. We went inside and there several more fermenters of this design, in various sizes. Alan gave me the tour of the facilities, showing particular pride in the mobile press, which could roll up to each fermenting tank and press off the wine directly using no pumps, just gravity.

 

"These cost $1,000,000 each. In fact we just assume everything runs about a $1,000,000: the bottling line, the crusher, the tanks, etc."

 

He showed me the room with the bottling line, which was directly below the public tasting room, where the wines of Terravant's clients would be poured, A great idea, and a nice bonus.

 

I had two thoughts at this point: that this place was a shrine to winemaking technology, and that they might find it difficult to make money at this venture, at least for a few years. It was certainly the most impressive winery I had personally been in, although of course not one drop of wine had been made there yet and certain pieces of equipment were still absent (e.g. the crusher)

 

Following more chitchat we retreated to his office in the first building, where he fiddled with the custom Terravant software program that would determine what it would cost me to process my grapes. He walked me through my options:

 

Did I want a cold soak period? Would I filter the wine? Fine it? Barrel age? Length of time in barrel? Barrel ferment? And so on. The process for making syrah is straightforward (at least in my orbit, where I was trying not to screw things up first time around), so I had sufficiently advanced in my knowledge (or bullshitting ability to provide competent answers. After some more fiddling by Alan the program spit out a sheet showing my decisions along with a price: $47 per case. This included a 15% "Founding Vintners Discount" if I signed up by August 15.

 

I thanked him and left, promising to get in touch shortly. I told him the price sounded good, but when I did the math I realized that the price did not sound, look or feel good.

 

Let's take a look, using our $650 per ton rate from GV winery as a comparison.

If I would process the wine at GV here's the breakdown:

 

6 tones @ $650 per ton	$3900
15 barrels stored for 8 months @ $10 per month	$1200
15 barrels racked @ $5 per barrel	$75
Topping fees (estimated)	$500
Bottling	$3000

 

This comes out to about $8700, so let's call it $10,000, as there's always other stuff (in/out charges, lab tests, winemaker consultation, etc)

 

Terravant estimated 391 cases would come from my 6 tons, so if we multiply that by $47 we get ...

 

$18,377!

 

Ouch.

 

So that sure was a nice facility, but priced like it too. GV suddenly looked a little better, and they were closer to my grape sources as well. I was still not totally convinced.

 

My next contact was a facility close to my home in Los Angeles: Camarillo Custom Crush. I had heard about this company initially when looking around for crush operations. CCC seemed to cater to both pros and amateurs; they were oriented toward small lots. The owner also ran a home wine and beer making supply outlet and they had been in business for over 20 years. I had called them some time ago but no one ever answered the phone and my messages were not returned. Nevertheless I decided to try again, as Camarillo is less than an hour from my house, meaning I would have ongoing access to my wine, a strong lure. I also knew they would be much less costly than Terravant, as I doubted they routinely wrote $1,000,000 checks for equipment acquisitions.

 

I called and, per usual, no one answered. I left a message. The next day I called again, impatient with these guys and yet somehow fascinated by an operation that could survive without returning phone calls or answering the phone. This time someone did answer, an affable man named Norm, who acknowledged he'd gotten my message and mentioned he had planned to call me today. I briefly outlined my requirements and we arranged to meet at the facility.

 

Camarillo Custom Crush (CCC) has been around a while and they evolved very differently from Central Coast Wine Services. There are a lot of little vineyards in the mountains by the Southern California coast. Most of these are vanity vineyards, or small vineyards trying to move some cases commercially. My gut feeling is that most of them are owned by pretty well-heeled CA landowners rather than grizzlled scions of vineyard families scratching out a living from their estate vineyard.

 

CCC had recently moved into a new facility when I visited. The mood was very relaxed. Norm was in charge, a genial guy in his late fifties. As I strolled in and said hello, there were 4 employees gathered in the lab/tasting room. The three besides Norm were in their late twenties or so and everyone seemed to be hanging out. There were some half-filled glasses of wine on the table; it was both lunch break and a tasting session.

 

Norm explained that the staff regularly tastes the clientele's wines, for quality control purposes ostensibly. And also so they could taste them. Norm took me out to the back of the building, where the winery proper was. It was a decent sized warehouse, but in a way it was an expanded version of the AHC college  facilities. There wasn't much equipment I'd grown used to seeing in commercial wineries. There was indeed a press, a crusher, barrels, etc but it was all so small and cute. Norm admitted that they weren't set up to bring in lots of more than about 10 tons and even this amount seemed stretching it to my nascently-trained eye. I couldn't keep from flashing back to the Fess Parker operation, where they wanted at least 20 tons at a time, a humming facility with big equipment and big capacity.

 

I casually mentioned some of my requirements. I wanted to barrel ferment some syrah but that was out. Not enough space. Norm suggested oak dust, the preferred method at CCC. With this process you dump some oak dust into the fermenting bin and voila - barrel fermented! Oak dust is available at all home winemaking outlets and the owner of CCC also runs a home wine and beer making supply.

 

So I sensed the orientation here. Honestly, oak dust may be more effective than the actual barrel. I don't know. What I do know is that when I talk about how I age my wine, I have to be able to say "barrel fermented" not "fermented with oak dust additives".

 

Business is good at CCC. There are a lot of semi pro operators who use the facilities and in fact I saw several barrels from a local label labeled as "LL Syrah". I asked Norm if it meant Lucas and Llewellyn. He admitted yes. LL is by no means a dilettante or vanity operation; they farm several hundred acres of high quality grapes throughput SB County. So LL Syrah guy was making a substantial investment (I also couldn't help admiring his impeccably new French oak). Still, I couldn't help feeling that CCC was for either dilettantes or vanity operations.

 

As we were touring the warehouse/winery the owner of the entire operation showed up, a skinny man named John in his sixties or seventies wearing shorts. He was good natured and seemed to be enjoying having this nice new facility to hang around in, especially tasting wine with the kids in the lab/lunch room. The new facility even has plans for a tasting room in the front, featuring clients' wines. This was in progress when I was there, i.e. it was strewn with various cases of wine but did not look like a tasting room then. It was just a disheveled room in the front entrance.

 

It was all very affable, and I like hanging around with wine people and discussing winemaking. Naturally Norm and John had their own opinions on my preferred winemaking path, and I wanted to hear their input. They've been making wine for a while, vanity vineyards or not.

 

On the way out Norm again mentioned the tasting room plans and gestured toward several cases of wine stacked against the wall in the front room. Stafford. Norm gave me his card. Norm Stafford. So Norm had something of a semi-pro wine operation himself? He sure did, and in fact had been making a whole lineup of 6 to 9 different wines for a few years. There they were, the Napa Cab, a Rhone blend, some whites and a bunch more. There must have been at least 30 or 40 cases of various Stafford wines hanging around that room, from 3 or 4 vintages. Go Norm!

 

The price per case at CCC was $40.50, if I remember correctly. Less than Terravant, but it seemed high. I had to concede to myself that it was totally handmade winemaking from start to finish, but still.

 

On my way out Norm gave me a Stafford Chardonnay and his personal cell number. I left knowing I wouldn't be making wine there but also with a solid affection for the place. No commercial pressures here (subject to change without notice)