Winemaking

About the Winemaker

With an undergraduate degree in Exercise Physiology from the University of California, Berkeley and Masters in Exercise Physiology and Business from the University of Arizona, it seemed unlikely that James would end up as a winemaker or as an abstract expressionist painter.

Not having gone to school for wine, James trained himself to become a winemaker with the help of mentors like Oregon’s Josh Bergström and Burgundy’s Jacques Lardiere. He has gone on to create wines honored in Top 100 lists across publications, craft more than 40 Wine Enthusiast Editor’s Choice wines, and see his wines served to both the Obamas and Bidens at the White House.

“James is a hugely talented winemaker …”

– Dr. Owen Bargreen

“James’ winemaking philosophy is refreshing …”

– William Gaffney for Pinot File

“Frey is a rare winemaker indeed …”

– Terry Richard for The Oregonian

Trisaetum’s Philosophy

James was a painter before he became a winemaker, and his creative journeys in both fields are unmistakably intertwined. When asked if being an artist has influenced his winemaking, James responded, “It would be hard for it not to. You need science to make a good bottle of wine, you need art to make a great bottle of wine. Wines that really capture your imagination aren’t made by the numbers, you have to taste every day and let the character of the wine develop in a more expressive way.”

While he has more control over the process when painting, where he can choose the canvas and colors without mother nature intervening, James shares the same philosophy for both winemaking and painting: “The more you try to manipulate a painting, or the more you try to manipulate a wine, the less interesting, the less dynamic they both become. The best wines have energy, have complexity, have a little something special that you just have to let evolve naturally.”

Ultimately, Trisaetum seeks balanced and interesting wines that truly represent both the place and vintage from which they came.

To enable each wine to unfold organically, we start every fermentation with native yeast from the vineyard, never use enzymes or other additives, and minimize extractive protocols during fermentation.

The Heart of Harvest

In every vintage, nothing is more important to creating great wine than the people who make it.

The Winery

Vision

In early 2006, James Frey, with invaluable help from winemaker Josh Bergström, began work on the design of Trisaetum’s winery. From the outset, the goal was to construct a facility that allows a winemaker to blend old world tradition and new world innovation. After several months and nine drafts, a floor plan and design philosophy were eventually turned into the 13,000-square foot facility that exists today.

Cold Room

Our winery contains a 600-square foot cold room. All harvested fruit is immediately placed in the cold room to chill, and sorting or pressing only begins after the fruit has reached a temperature of around 40-50 degrees.

Fruit Sorting

We created a 6-stage fruit sorting system that is utilized to ensure only the best berries from the best clusters become part of our wines. The process begins with the tote dumper after the fruit has been adequately chilled. The whole clusters move down a shaker table that spreads them into a single layer prior to passing through a vacuum system that removes leaves, bugs, twigs, and other non-grape matter.

Following the vacuum, the clusters move through an air knife to ensure the fruit is dry. Then, the first of two manual sorting tables is utilized to select only the best clusters (sub-par clusters are removed, recycled, and returned to the vineyard as compost). For white wines, all clusters are hand-sorted before a conveyor lifts the clusters individually into the press. For red wines, bunches can either be destemmed and sorted again or fermented as whole clusters.

Tank Hall

Red wines are fermented in 2-ton oak fermenters from Burgundy and a mix of 3-ton and 4.5-ton stainless steel vats that line either side of the 65-foot long tank hall. A cocciopesto amphorae egg from Tuscany is also used for semi-carbonic fermentations. Using smaller fermenters is preferred for greater control and closer interaction with the fermentations.

A mixture of 100% whole-cluster and 100% destemmed fermentations are employed, with the relative mix of each dependent on the vintage and the ripeness of stems. Fermentations only utilize indigenous yeasts natively present on the clusters and are allowed to start naturally with no heating or cooling of the vats. In general, only foot pigeage (foot treading) is utilized to minimize aggressive extraction of color and tannin.

Near the end of primary fermentation, wines are racked via gravity (while they are still fermenting) into barrels in our subterranean cave where the ferments will finish. White wine fermentations never occur in stainless steel, but rather in a mix of neutral French oak barrels, concrete eggs, and 12hL French oak ovals.

Barrel Cave

After harvest, wines are cellared in French oak barrels within the 100-foot long barrel cave at Trisaetum. The subterranean cave holds a constant temperature and humidity throughout the year and provides an ideal environment to age wine. Depending on the vintage, wines can be barrel aged from 10 to 22 months before bottling. The cave also houses sparkling bottles on tirage for a minimum of three years.

“You have to be open to a little bit of chaos. You have to be free enough, and confident enough, to let things develop spontaneously without feeling the need to restrain the creation of something that might be great.”

– James Frey