Taking a wine journey: Vino Tabi helps you create your own vintage
Santa Cruz -- For Katie Fox, making wine with the 12 families in her co-op wasn't enough. The former global marketing expert started fooling around with wine as a hobby and found she was more and more entranced by the whole process, from choosing grapes to blending wines to bottling her creations.
Soon processing 10 tons of grapes a year just wasn't enough.
So Fox, along with her partner Doug Feinsod and winemaker Jeff Ritchey, started Vino Tabi, a do-it-yourself version of winemaking, nestled at the back of the Swift Street Complex along with the other wineries of Surf City Vintners.
"Now I have bigger toys," said Fox about her jump to making commercial wine.
Tabi is Japanese for "journey," which forms the premise behind the business. Fox, Feinsod and Ritchey guide customers through the process of making their own 60-gallon barrel, which results in 24 cases of wine.
How much does it cost? Well the first lesson in winemaking is: grapes are expensive.
Depending on what types of grapes are chosen and where they come from, a barrel can cost anywhere from $5,000 to $15,000. That translates to $18 to $60 a bottle upon completion.
Those who are interested in dabbling can purchase a ¼ barrel for $1,300 6 cases or visit for a tasting or blending experience.
Those who opt for the whole experience receive instruction on how the wine is made and can be as involved or aloof as they want.
Process of winemaking
Behind the tasting room is where the winemaking journey starts. Steel tanks hold recently harvested, crushed and de-stemmed cabernet sauvignon, while pinot noir rests in smaller bins. Racks containing barrels are sprinkled around the room, and an alcove contains a nest of glass and chemistry equipment.
This year's harvest has delivered a low yield with small fruit, which result in intense wines, according to Ritchey, who also has his own Sensorium label. The winemaking process for these grapes is just beginning.
The pinot noir in the small bins are being "punched down" while fermenting, a process that blends skins and juice to develop a wine's flavor and add color in its first couple of weeks.
Pumping over is like punching down but on a much bigger scale. Climbing a ladder to the top of the steel tanks, Feinsod makes adjustments, then sprays grape juice out of a huge hose, pumping over to fill another nearby tank, and decorating the wall in a bright purple hue in the process.
"Oops," says Feinsod with a grin. In an atmosphere of learning at Vino Tabi, you laugh at small mistakes.
After two weeks of stirring and fermenting, the liquid takes another week to settle and clarify.
Ritchey describes how this process begins giving the wine character and intensity and develops tannins. It's also where winemakers look for problems to occur.
"You have to know how everything ticks," Feinsod said. Novice winemakers are guided through the process, tasting the murky juice on its fermenting journey to the clear liquid poured into barrels.
"You know we have to taste wine here everyday," Feinsod said with a smile. Even curious patrons at the tasting bar can sample the wine in steel, although you have to be a bit brave to swill the cloudy fluid.
After the wine and skins mix and it settles, the juice is put in barrels for six to 20 months depending on the type of wine being made. The wine is also put to the chemical test, balancing temperature and sugars and tasted in the barrel.
"We monitor by taste and mouth feel, smell it to make sure it has good aroma and most important part, spit," said Ritchey, demonstrating with a sample of Mt. Eden Chardonnay.
These guys aim to set newcomers at ease and are not adverse to a little joking around to get their point across. Unlike many winemakers who pursue a certain flavor profile they enjoy, the winemakers here are open to a wide range of tastes brought to them by their customers.
"That's where the winemaker's talent comes in," said Fox.
"We're capable of custom-making wine in any style that the customer wants," said Ritchey.
But when pressed, each describes a favorite varietal.
"Cabernet sauvignon is the king of wines, but pinot noir is the Holy Grail," said Feinsod. "Pinot is the most difficult to grow and make."
"It would be cabernet," for Ritchey. "You can do so much with cabernet, with blending, with the oak profile. You can push it around. It's very forgiving."
Fox said she is more of a white wine lover, "Pinot gris from the Russian River Valley. Chardonnay grapes from the Santa Cruz Mountains are exquisite. It's got balance, is nice and crisp. The wine makes itself."
But at Vino Tabi, "It's about the customer's journey, not mine, not Doug's," Fox says. "It's sharing winemaking with other people. I'm surprised at how addictive it is and it amazes me how interesting it is."