Palladian produces approximately 500 cases per year of Cabernet Sauvignon. The wine is produced in a “Bordelais” style that is drinkable with food and ages well. Each vintage is picked 3 to 4 times at harvest. Only the ripe part of a bunch is taken. Prior to loading into the stemmer crusher the berries are sorted to remove leaves and unripe fruit. The stemmer crusher is operated very gently with the aim of removing the grapes from the stem without breaking their skins. The berries are then placed into open fermenters and yeast is added. They slowly ferment with the berries splitting their skins as they expand to give us the desired flavor. The resultant crust is punched down every 4 to 6 hours until such time as the primary fermentation is completed. By using open top fermenteres and punching down, we are able to “blow off” alcohol. The juice is removed from the fermenter and placed in French Oak barrels. This is done gently, no heavy “pump overs.” We are attempting to limit the crushing of the pips. In this way we keep the tannins under control. High volume wineries do not enjoy this luxury. The juice spends two years in barrel and at least two years in glass before we release the wine for sale. This again is another luxury that a small privately owned winery enjoys. We do not have accountants pushing us to get the wine to market because of cash flow. The resulting product is a well aged wine with lowish alcohol and moderate tannins that can be drunk with a meal or put aside for some future special occasion.