The Winery
Hamacher Wines has built an innovative, "green" cooperative winemaking facility that promises to be an archetype for Oregon's wine industry, and the first of its kind built from the ground up in the nation. The 15,000-square-foot gravity flow winery, located on two acres in Carlton, OR, opened in August, in time for the 2002 harvest.
Eric's Winery Concept
Eric Hamacher's concept of a "green" winery
Hamacher Wines is one of seven wineries participating in the first crush currently underway at The Carlton Winemakers Studio. The Studio has two distinctly unique and progressive features: it was built "green", following the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Green Building Rating System from the U.S. Green Building Council, and it was designed up front for production efficiency. The "green" aspect provides aggressive energy and resource efficiency. The design for production efficiency allows a cooperative winery model to exist while keeping quality at the forefront. Together, according to Eric Hamacher, owner of Hamacher Wines, this makes The Studio the best place to process world-class wines.
"We wanted to take advantage of the opportunities building green presents," explained Eric. "Green buildings take a longer view of costs and quality to create healthy, resource-efficient developments. Our winery promises to be the counterpoint to traditional thinking by taking the stance that economics, the environment and functionality can be a good match." The "green" concepts incorporated in The Studio are relatively simple, but, in aggregate, highly effective. [For more details...] Eric's hope is that visitors to the facility might leave having recognized "green" concepts they can incorporate into their own activities, perhaps to save money on cooling or improve the efficiency of their houses or businesses. "People who visit the winery are there for the wine, but get an introduction to green building. They tell their architects about easy-to-implement green ideas they saw at the winery, and incorporate them in their own facilities," Eric says. The simple concepts used make that possible.
The production efficiency of the design is what allows the cooperative to exist. Most facilities of this size (15,000 cases) may be able to process 30 tons of fruit on a "maximum" day, running into early hours of the next morning. "For us," explains Eric, "we should be able to process 130 tons and be home to catch the 11 o'clock news. And we're increasing quality at the same time. All of the things we are doing to change from a batch system to a continuous flow system also are things that improve quality."
By having "access to the greatest winery in the world, we can produce the best quality wine economically," says Eric. "This is the best economic setup I could possibly be in. I don't have to raise the bottle price to have access to great equipment or increase production to support a big infrastructure."
So, why is all of this good for Hamacher wines? Access to a "top-notch" facility, with economic efficiency of production, in a synergistic environment with other great winemakers, will result in world-class wines at less than world-class prices. Check it out at Our Wines.
The Winery: A Guided Tour
Goals for The Studio were to maximize both quality and speed of production while minimizing costs
The design goals for The Studio were to maximize both quality and speed of production while minimizing costs, both financial and environmental. What resulted is an incredibly efficient, functional winery that raises quality while reducing the energy, chemical and water use of the facility.
Sorting Line / Destemmer
This processing line is the key to allowing multiple wineries to work side by side without having to wait long periods of time for the equipment in high demand during harvest. The line allows what is traditionally a slow, "batch" system to operate as a fluid, "continuous flow" system. Grapes are delivered by one of the hydraulic lifters into hoppers with pneumatic doors that control the flow onto a transport table. From there, the grapes fall onto an "off center gyro" shaking table which spreads the grape clusters out into a single layer making inspection and sorting feasible. Leaves and debris are removed, as are unripen grape clusters.
From the table, the fruit falls into the destemmer and from there into one of two shutes that direct the grapes to the fermentation tanks waiting below. These tanks are then moved into place in the winery to begin fermentation.
Fermentation
For red wines, we use a 4 ton, open top, fermenter. Our fermenters range in size from ¾ ton up to 4 ton. All fermenters are mobile to allow flexibility of space. From the destemmer, the fermenters are lifted up to the upper level of the winery. Each tank is adaptable to heating and cooling through "plug-ins" along the walls of the winery.
The white wines are fermented in larger stainless steel tanks on both the upper and lower levels of the winery.
We rely on natural, or "native," yeast to ferment the grapes. This can take a week or two. During that time, the tanks are punched down several times a day to keep the solids (cap) mixed into the juice, a manual procedure to keep the temperature even throughout the tank.
Gravity Moves Wine to Barrel
After fermentation, wine is drained, by gravity, through pipes in the floor to barrels on the lower level, where they will spend the next year or more aging. This method, instead of pumping, increases quality and yield while reducing man-hours and equipment.
Wines are periodically racked to help clarify the wine. This process, like decanting, removes sediment (yeast cells and pulp) from the wine.
Barrel Rooms
Each of the separate "rooms" behind the glass doors at The Studio is a legal, individual winery. By federal law, each winery must be separated by an eight foot wall and have a lockable entrance. The cloth panels separating the wineries are retired sails from large racing sailboats, reconfigured for our needs.
Bottling
The Studio's bottling room is located under the sorting line. It is one of the more mechanized operations in our process. It is also a most critical step as a problem on the bottling line can negate a year's worth of hard work producing the best wines possible by allowing oxygen in the bottle or not appropriately filtering the wine.
Most of Hamacher Wines' bottling and labeling occurs in the late spring, after our wines have aged for over a year in barrels. From there, the finished cases are delivered to our bonded warehouse for storage and shipping.
Green Building Facts
- Below foundation water capture and reuse
- North roof water capture and reuse
- Gravity usable for outside irrigation water (collected)
- High efficiency process systems: mobile heating (>50% piping decrease)
- Clear roofing materials
- Day lighting, windows, doors, hallway
- Night air cooling / CO2 exhausting
- Communal office space
- Coal byproduct (fly-ash) / concrete mix
- Recycled mats, paint, office desk materials, roofing metal, carpet
- Non-conventional material uses: sails-walls, curtains, shade
- Reused: counter tops (SS & acid resistant composite), lights, concrete, sinks, sails
- Sustainable building materials: wheat board, slash OSB
- Dynamic flow air pocket walls
- Exterior insulation
- Grass pave parking lot
- Earth berm / below grade walls for natural cooling