MY FALL VISIT WITH DAN GATLIN AT INWOOD ESTATES VINEYARDS
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by Andrew Chalk
The great thing about visiting Inwood Estates Vineyards is that owner/winemaker Dan Gatlin is a factory of innovative ideas around the quest to make better wine out of Texas grapes. These innovations have included him adopting high altitude vineyards in the Texas High Plains. Being one of the first wineries in the United States to order new cabernet sauvignon and merlot clones out of Bordeaux Universities on their initial release (including waiting years while they sat in US quarantine) and planting them in the Texas Hill Country. Reducing yields to diminutive and economically absurd levels to develop anthocyanins and be one of the first wineries in the state to order an expensive optical sorter to improve grape selection on the sorting table.
On my latest visit last week I saw new developments with that technology, and took part in a fascinating comparative “sniffing” to see its aromatic effects.
Optical Sorting
First, let’s consider what an optical sorter is, and what problem it solves.
Grapes are a natural product harvested like other crops by hand or machine. Along with the grapes is a lot of non-grape matter and a lot of grapes that are subject to disease. WIneries have traditionally tipped incoming grapes onto a long table known as a sorting table where workers on each side would sort out any MOG (Matter Other than Grapes) and also examine the grapes for disease evident through spots on the skin.
An optical sorter uses lasers to perform the latter task, batting imperfect grapes aside using a jet of compressed air.
Bordeaux, which produces a lot of expensive red wine, has popularised optical sorters, and their widespread adoption got Gatlin’s attention. He sent his son, Spencer, to a famous winery in the Pessac-Léognan appellation of Bordeaux to see them in action. This particular château was much larger than Inwood Estates and had three sorting tables to handle the incoming grape load at harvest. Traditionally, along each side of each table were 50 workers fastidiously removing MOG and bad grapes. The results were good, but some infected grapes still got through. The bad material on their skins would have a disproportionate negative effect on the taste of the final wine. The château purchased three optical sorting machines with the outcome that now the grapes getting through are virtually 100% undiseased. The château, and their counterparts in Bordeaux, are ecstatic with the results. Spencer Gatlin came back with an upbeat story about the equipment and Inwood purchased one.
They first used it last year, but this year felt that they got its setup much better. I was given samples to smell of recently fermented 2025 wines and the nose on these was simultaneously massive, elegant, and complex. When the wines are released they are going to turn heads and mark the next era in Inwood’s 30-year winemaking journey.
Interestingly, Gatlin’s excitement about the improvement from optical sorting echoed that of Daniel Daou, co-founder of Daou Vineyards in Paso Robles, California, when I interviewed him about the sources of quality in his wines. He recently sold Daou to Treasury Wine Estates for a billion dollars. I wonder if Dan and Spencer will do something similar?