Jordan Wine Country Table - Vol. 19, 2024 - 12

© ALEXANDER RUBIN
Concrete Elegance
Concrete egg vessels help elevate Jordan Chardonnay to new heights
BY MAGGIE KRUSE
W
inemakers love to experiment, and I am certainly no
exception. When my peers ask how I keep boredom
at bay when making only two wines-a Russian
River Valley chardonnay and an Alexander Valley cabernet
Sauvignon-I love to explain that, at Jordan, we are constantly
tweaking and fine-tuning these singular wines to make them
better with each vintage.
Since I started working at Jordan Winery in 2006, I have had
a front-row seat to the many changes we have made to improve
our cabernet, from refining fruit sourcing to transitioning
our barrels to all French oak. For a good 15 years, we focused
on improving the cabernet-with incredibly gratifying results.
Though our chardonnay had not been overlooked during that
time-far from it-I longed for a new challenge.
That day came soon after I took over as head winemaker,
when our winery owner John Jordan buzzed into my office and
said, " I have an idea for the chardonnay program, and I think
you're going to like it. " What he had in mind was a chardonnay
" super blend " that would elevate the wine to new heights while
maintaining the Jordan house style. I was all in.
With help from Jordan's grower relations manager Dana
Grande, I'd already started playing around with sourcing
chardonnay from cooler areas of the Russian River Valley
to bring more bright acidity, minerality, citrus and stone fruit
flavors to the wine. The grapes we'd been sampling from areas
like Sebastopol Hills and Vine Hill Road made me positively
giddy about the impact they would have on the blend.
Next, we looked to the cellar. What could we do to improve
our chardonnay without masking or overpowering the delicacy,
12 THE DESIGN ISSUE
minerality and textural components of our newly sourced fruit?
We'd already switched to aging just part of the wine in new
French oak barrels to dial back the oak influence, and I realized
that we could take that concept a step further by adding an
alternative fermentation and aging vessel to the mix. That vessel
was the concrete egg.
BETTER BY DESIGN
Egg-shaped vessels have been used to ferment, store and
transport wine for thousands of years, and European winemakers
have used large concrete vats for centuries. French winemaker
Michel Chapoutier combined these concepts in 2001, when he
commissioned a local concrete tank producer to create an ovalshaped
fermenter. Word of this innovation spread throughout
the global winemaking community, and in 2003, the first
concrete eggs arrived in the Napa Valley.
The design of the egg is a key reason for its growing popularity.
With the help of carbon dioxide and heat released during the
fermentation process, the vessel's oval shape naturally circulates
the lees or yeast solids within the tank, keeping it in continuous
contact with the wine. This helps add richness and roundness.
The material is another major benefit. Because concrete
is porous, it allows a small amount of oxygen to interact with
the wine-similar to an oak barrel-which helps the wine evolve
and age. However, unlike barrels, concrete vessels do not add
woody character that could obscure delicate fruit flavors and
aromas. While stainless steel tanks also enable the fruit to shine
through, they don't do anything to help the wine develop,
as the concrete egg does.
Jordan Wine Country Table - Vol. 19, 2024

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