Winemaking

At La Mesa Vineyards, we handcraft all our wines. All of our grapes are directly sourced from our own estate vineyards whenever possible.  There is simply no better way to make wine than to walk the vineyards, control growing conditions and taste the ripening grapes to best determine when they are absolutely perfect for harvest. By growing our own grapes, we control from vine to bottle to give you the best wine tasting experience.

We utilize smaller scale winemaking equipment with an emphasis on small distinct batches and careful attention to bring out the best of the grapes from our Sierra terroir. Three generations of our family are involved in our winemaking. Here are some photos that capture how we do it.

Son Ben helping leaf the Viognier just days before heading off to college.

Harvest of our many different varietals must produce optimal sugar content, acidity and overall quality. It takes careful planning and requires lots of effort to sort the grapes that are up to our standards.

Small-batch processing with routine manual punchdowns and monitoring allows the full extraction of rich colors and complex flavors.

 
Gentle pressing of wines using special bladder and pneumatic presses allows us to make highly complex and technical small-batch wines such as our Barbera Blanc, Sparkling Primitivo Rosé and Gamay (pictured).