Slow Wine
Slow Wine is a philosophy of winemaking that emphasizes winemaking techniques which make the best wine for a given region rather than techniques which are optimized for bringing wine to the marketplace. Pumping, filtering and fining ultimately are processes which speed up winemaking and get wines to the market which are ready to drink. But speeding up the winemaking process is hard on the wine, and certainly has a greater negative impact on the environment than slow winemaking. A wine which is pumped, fined and filtered has a less complex taste, a greater carbon footprint, has more ecological impact and has a higher cost of production than a wine made without them.
At Stoutridge we do not use pumps, filters or fining agents in making our wines. The only significant problems are that these wines require a longer time for gravity to settle them, a longer time to age in the winery before release, and they can have a slightly hazy appearance due to their higher levels of natural antioxidants. But these wines have a more complex flavor and have the ability to age far longer than their processed counterparts. Should you choose to age these slow wines in the cellar you will be rewarded with the increased complexity of flavors brought on by the development of bouquet. This is perhaps the biggest advantage of slow winemaking.
