No two winemakers, vineyards, or vintages are the same, so why should their consulting needs be? Our approach to consulting is simple. We listen to our clients, determine their needs, and utilize our brains (and additional resources) to make their goals reality. It’s simple but it works. To learn more about our wine production philosophies, read on.
#1 The Vineyard Cliché — “Great Wine comes from Great Fruit”
Just as a chef can’t cook a 5-star meal out of subpar ingredients, the best wines come from grapes of high quality. Many wineries use this as a mantra, but at House of Wine, we live it. With our strong viticultural base and love of the land, we understand that if we do our due diligence in the vineyard, it makes the wine work easier and the product better. Thus, we help our clients perfect their fruit in the vineyard throughout the season by working together with growers to achieve the desired results. Regular vineyard checks and meetings keep us all on the same page. The more dirt on our shoes and the deeper our farmer’s tan, the better your wine.
#2 Learn by Doing
Winemaking is an evolutionary process. Regardless of our client’s current knowledge base, we work to bring their understanding about the impact of their wine production decisions to address the why and HOW of getting the wine that they want. As such, we don’t ‘craft’ anyone’s wines for them. Instead, We’ll teach you how to craft wine, not just make it for you.
#3. Sustainable, Holistic and Super Crunchy
We work with wineries to achieve the product quality they desire via integrated laboratory analysis, consulting, and business analysis. Since moving to Idaho, we’ve been a wee bit twitterpated by the local, sustainable, and holistic business environment. The Idaho wine community is the help-a-neighbor sort of place with a high level of integrity, work ethic, and a keen eye on using all that is provided by mother nature. We strive to embody those same principles in our consulting service. Call us selfish, but we won’t sell a client a line of work (even if we help our clients craft a great product) without an efficient way to get their product to market. So, we ask lots of questions, learn our clients’ goals, and try to keep our decisions in line with the intended outcomes. Sustainability the old-fashioned, Idaho way. Full of meat, potatoes, and even a home-grown tomato or two.
#4 Take the Numbers, Use them and then Follow Your Gut
We run a wine lab and we’re science nerds to the core. We believe in taking as many useful data points as possible to help analyze and plan for winery processes. That said, much of winemaking is an art. No manual or book can prepare you for the character of the incoming vintage. We utilize numbers and techniques as tools but in the end, it’s thinking through the issues that allow us to meet client needs. Let our toolkit be the key to your success.
#5. Make Wine that You Love to Drink
Just as you can’t cook a meal for someone’s palate, you can’t make wine that way. Our style is uniquely ours and while we believe in some wine quality keys (balance, complexity, intensity, and finish), all of our clients have different palates and needs. We’ll never help craft a wine that we wouldn’t like to drink. Luckily, we love lots of various wine styles; as long as the wine is good. Let us help you make your best wine.
Questions?
Contact House of Wine via email: info@thehowofwine.com or via phone at 208-297-WINE (9463).