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208-793-1773

5286 W Chinden Blvd Garden City, Idaho

EVENTS

The Wine Making Process

The Wine Making Process

a how-to from a Boise Winery and Tasting Room

POTTER WINES
Boise Winery & Tasting Room

5286 W Chinden Blvd
Garden City, Idaho 83714
208.866.7765

Mon – Wed : Appointment Only 
Thursday : 2pm – 7pm
Friday : 2pm – 7:30pm
Saturday : 12am – 7:30pm
Sunday : 12pm – 5pm

How to Make Wine

The Potter Wines Way – Welcome to the Production Room!

1: Get Your Contract!

Wineries need grapes to make wine and Vineyards need to sell grapes they harvest.

The Contract is essentially any transaction involving the sale and delivery of grapes to a winery. The contract can also specify the types of grapes that are included. The types of wines a winery makes is determined by what types of grapes the winery has contracted with the vineyard. For example, Potter Wines is contracted with vineyards in the Snake River Valley AVA for the types of grapes that make Merlot, Cabernet, Syrah, Riesling, Chardonnay and Tempranillo.

Visiting the Vineyard
Our contract with each vineyard specifies our rows and blocks. This means we are able to visit the winery and check on OUR grapes to ensure they are being harvested at the best possible time for our wines. Generally, we begin testing the sugar and acidity levels in August.
Potter Wines Grapes

2: Harvest Time!

Harvest time is determined by the aforementioned sugar and acidity levels, and the general harvest schedule. The Vineyard handles the actual harvest, or picking, of the grapes. Then the grapes are picked up, and brought to the production room.
Potter Wines Grape Harvest

3: The Production Room!

Welcome to the Potter Wines Production Room, or as we call it, The Opal Room! The Opal Room is located in the back of our Boise, Idaho Tasting Room located in Garden City off Chinden Blvd. You are welcome to come and check it out whenever we’re open, or schedule a private wine tasting and tour!

After the grapes arrive, we Crush ’em and Press ’em!

Next they go into barrels or fermenting bins with yeast. NO SUGAR is added! All the sugar in wine occurs naturally.

If we’re making one of our Jalapeno Wines, we add Jalapenos in this stage. Our Jalapeno Wines aren’t “flavored” with Jalapeno, they are actually fermented with them!

Wine Production
The aging process can take anywhere from 6 months to 4 years or more! During this process it is kept in a temperature controlled environment, chilly, and closely monitored for development, with occasional tasting along the way.
Wine Fermenting - Potter Wines

4: Rack It!

Racking is a wine industry term with some variations on the definition from one winemaking book to the next. Put simply, racking means to siphon the wine from one container to another one, to leave the sediment behind. That is the purpose of racking, “to leave the sediment behind.”

5: Bottle Time!

Next is bottling time! It is what it sounds like: getting the wine into the bottles. Von, our winemaker, who created the idea for Jalapeno Wine, used his incredibly creative brain and built our Proprietary Potter Wines Wine Bottling Robot (not the official name, that is what our designer calls it).

6: Name It!

We don’t generally name a wine until we’ve tasted it, and know exactly when it will be released. So the name depends on how it tastes, when it’s “born”, and something to fit our neon deco theme.

7: Design It!

Once it’s named and ready to bottle, then we call our designer and tell her the name, theme, and feel we’re going for, and she takes it from there.

8: Taste It!

This one’s YOUR job. So get down here and grab a glass!!
Wine tasting Potter Wines
Wine tasting Potter Wines

What makes Potter Wines Different?

While the process is familiar to other wineries, we are one of the ONLY wineries that makes Jalapeno Wines, and the ONLY winery that goes out of their way to be unique, approachable, and make wine FUN!

Wine Tasting at Potter Wines

Wine Tasting at Potter Wines Winery and Tasting Room starts at just $5! Stop in anytime we’re open, or schedule your next special event with us. 

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Idaho Winery & Tasting Room

5286 W Chinden BLVD
Garden CIty, Idaho 83714
208-793-1773

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