Wine Growing
We like to use the term Wine Growing rather than winemaking at Little Farm Winery. It is all about creating wines that reflect where and how the grapes are grown. When you plant a vineyard from scratch and nurture it to produce its first crop of grapes, there is a strong bond developed, an attachment to the site which leads you to want to see what the grapes taste like as wine. We believe that the only way to do this is to mess with the winemaking process as little as possible.
Little Farm wines are unique (and we think special) because of their reflection of where and how they are grown. The grapes are grown using organic and sustainable techniques, taking care of the natural eco-systems in the vineyard and then carefully respecting the natural processes involved in transforming the grapes into wine. We strive to let the grapes shine through in the wine by carefully guiding the winemaking process with minimal intervention.
In the cellar, it is about minimal intervention, age-old techniques and traditions, careful respect for the natural process of winemaking and the importance of good grapes. Using the least intrusive methods, we strive to let our grapes shine through in the wine by carefully guiding the winemaking process and maintaining as much of the integrity of the grapes as possible.
We are interested in older, traditional methods such as using neutral barrels, long cool ferments, full solids, lees ageing and stirring and as little else as possible.
Winemaking is a great responsibility, taking all the hard work of the farming year and preserving, protecting it, and transforming it into wine. We take it very seriously that good wine cannot be made without good grapes, and we realize the responsibility we have to understand and carefully guide the complex natural process of fermentation.
The end goal is that the wine tastes of where and how it was grown. A wine of place, of our soil, our climate, our farming philosophy and our winemaking beliefs.
