The other reason I became a winemaker was because I wanted to make a different Chardonnay, not the typical ‘oaked’ California Chardonnay made for the U.S. market. I wanted my Chardonnay to be clean, light, and crisp, with more of an Italian profile, which had been imprinted on my palate from my cultural heritage.So when I landed the job in 2007 as lab manager for Crushpad here in San Francisco, the timing was perfect. Crushpad is a totally unique enterprise, a state-of-the-art winery where you get to be the winemaker. While all Crushpad clients can choose their level of involvement in the process, I knew I wanted to control every aspect of production. Prior to coming to Crushpad, I’d worked as wine chemist at Chateau St. Jean for three years, participating in many crushes. Then as lab manager at Crushpad, I routinely oversaw the fermentation and aging of thousands of barrels of wine. I was pretty confident I knew what I wanted and how to make it happen, from selecting the vineyard and the grapes to the lab work and, finally, to packaging and sales.
For my first Passaggio Chardonnay vintage in 2007, I chose grapes from Split Rock vineyard along the California Coast. The cooler climate typically produces grapes with a lower sugar content, which also results in a lower alcohol level, which is what I was after. I had set my goal on a target alcohol content of 13.8 and not higher than 14.2, although I was prepared to ameliorate, or add water, if the grape sugars were higher than my target.
Because my grapes were picked at night and immediately transported in refrigerated cars to Crushpad, they arrived at our facility still chilled and with my target sugar levels.
Making wine at Crushpad gives an easy entry into the wine business.
To get the juice from the grapes, one has two choices: press the entire grape cluster or destem the cluster and press only the berries. For my ’07 Passaggio, I pressed the whole cluster, stems but not the seeds, because I wanted to accentuate the fruitiness and soft structure of the wine. (In my ’08 release, I did destem some of the grapes just to test the resulting difference in body complexity, tannins, and fruit characteristics. So stay tuned to the critical consensus of the ’08 Passagio release!)
Because I was averse to replicating the oaky profile of typical California Chardonnays, I fermented my wines in two stainless steel tanks, not oak barrels. I also used different yeasts, which enhance the flavor of the grapes, to provide different style profiles and stirred the lees each week to enhance the mouthfeel. And in order to accentuate the crispness of the wine, I also chose to prevent secondary fermentation, or malolactic fermentation, which uses bacteria to impart the creamy, buttery textural mouthfeel so ubiquitous in California Chardonnays.
Finally, after months of tasting and testing, I decided to blend both styles into a single stainless steel vessel for aging. The result garnered gratifying reviews. According to Jeff Prather, wine educator with the prestigious Ferry Plaza Wine Merchant, my ’07 Passaggio release was qualified as an auspicious debut:
“Upon tasting, we were more than a little surprised at this clean, round rendition of perfectly ripe fruit that was allowed to shine in its purity without the additional flavors of oak. What a find! It is such a fine first effort we can’t wait for the next wine from this budding winemaker, Cindy Cosco.”
Passaggio also received three stars from Larry Walker, West Coast consultant for Hugh Johnson’s Pocket Wine Book and author of Classic Wines of the Napa Valley. Of course, making a critically acclaimed wine involves much more than the right grapes and chemistry. You also have to choose the right bottle, the right label, and the right closure. And, hardest of all for me, you have to get your wine into the marketplace.
Thank goodness Crushpad has an entire team of packaging and design experts who were there to help me from the outset. I knew my wine was going to be a different style of Chardonnay, so I wanted my wine’s packaging to be different, too. While I selected a standard Chardonnay bottle, I chose the ZORK closure for its uniqueness, its ease of use, and environmental attributes.
I just bottled 125 cases of my second Passaggio release…
I‘d checked out the screw cap, but it just wasn’t right for the rest of the package. Since my Passaggio’s tagline is ‘New Generation,’ I definitely wanted something new and progressive. So ZORK was a perfect fit. Not only was it easy to apply, it reinforced my brand’s differentiation. I really think it’ll become a bartender’s and consumer’s best friend because it’s durable, doesn’t leak, and you don’t need a corkscrew.
I know I’m not alone among winemakers when I say marketing my wine is my biggest challenge. Having produced only 50 cases of my ’07 Chardonnay, I pretty much single handedly managed initial sales, landing accounts with some prestigious retailers, including Ferry Plaza Wine Merchant in San Francisco, Oxbow Wine Merchants in Napa, the Valley Wine Shack in Sonoma, and the trendy new café/wine bar, The Corner, in San Francisco’s Mission district. The few cases I have left can be purchased on my website www.passaggiowines.com.
I just bottled 125 cases of my second Passaggio release—another un-oaked Chardonnay with the same crisp fruitiness, but with increased complexity—again using the ZORK. This time around, though, I’m trying some new marketing techniques. For my ’07 release, I sent out direct mailers to specific San Francisco/Bay Area zip codes, but that was costly and resulted in only a few inquiries.
So this year, I’m relying almost entirely on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook to drive people to my website, as well as some door-to-door visits to local establishments to promote on-premise sales.
The last two years have been quite a journey, a rite of passage into the art of winemaking and the making of two Passaggio releases. While it’s been challenging, I’ve loved every minute of it, and am ready to embark on my next project. Who knows, maybe I’ll try a red.
In 2004, Cynthia (Cindy) Cosco moved to the Bay Area to pursue her passion to make wine after a fifteen year career in law enforcement. Cindy works at Crushpad, Inc where she has been the Lab Manager for two years. Crushpad, located in San Francisco, is a custom crush facility that makes wine for approximately 1800 clients (both commercial and private).
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