Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/912565
december 2017 / the tasting panel / 61 voice above the clanking sound of our shoes on the lofty steel catwalks as we marched between the large open top fermenters. "This open top fermentation is no different than a small, boutique winemaker with a four-by-four bin punching it down by hand," he said. "In our case though, we've got just a little bit of a hydraulic assist so you can do six, 12, or even 25 tons at a time." Director of Winemaking Dave Nagengast has been with Scheid since 2002, and says the winery—which he helped design—takes cues from small-lot handling to make production "a very simple process." "It's not hands on, but it's gentle handling. Everything that comes through here is handled very similarly, and we have a lot of control," he explains. "We have open top fermenters for certain varieties for certain conditions, closed tops, and [wine pump-over] venturi injectors with the ability to add air to the fermentation so the yeasts are happy. We also have temperature control on everything so we can control the rates of fermentation or the storage conditions. The approach is really kind of thinking about things as a very small, high-end production winery on a large scale." Gollnick adds to the state-of-the-art list of features in staggering detail and with great pride, making it obvi- ous that he really is—as the Scheids refer to him—"one of the family." His blue eyes shimmer as he points to a sloped-bottom fermentation tank and a conveyer that looks like a robotic long- necked dinosaur. "We invented these tanks, which the manufacturer dubbed 'the Scheid Slide,' so we never have to put an employee in there to shovel the grapes out," he said. "Safety is very important to us." We continued to walk through the city of steely, silver, and round skyscrapers before stopping in front of some sort of locomotive. I wondered where it would take us, but Gollnick stepped in to explain that this innova- tion—basically a "big train" weighing roughly 250,000 pounds when full—has the ability to move up and down the line to each fermenter. "This grape press on rails is just like other presses that are in line and immobile, but it has two doors for loading, although we always use one," he added. "The advan- tage here is that we're not sluicing. The vast majority of wines are made from sluiced grapes; they literally put a wine pump into this tank and whip the grape skins around, whip the seeds around, and get everything liquified. Then they pump it to the press, but by doing that they're literally cutting the skins and the seeds again and releasing the bitter tannins. So that's one of the luxury sides of this process—we don't break the skins and the seeds down, and I think you get a better wine quality product right off the bat as a result." THE SCHEID ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT Getting to know the Scheids adds another level to the concept of a "family-run business," because they're a family of business-minded individu- als. This is apparent even in what could be called their extended family, which is made up of those who have been part of the company for many years. Gollnick epitomizes this as an equal partner in the company, just the same as Al and his brood. "I have a true love and affection for the family," Gollnick said. He's also an obsessive farmer— even farming his own hobby vineyard at home—but that's another story. Al was born into a poor family in the Scott Scheid and family give Managing Editor Jessie Birschbach a tour of the winery. They're standing next to the "Scheid Slide" fermentation tank, with the press on rails in the background.