Double Oak Vineyards And Winery

Open: Year-round

Double Oak Vineyards & Winery is located 15 miles north of Nevada City in Nevada County, California. We are in the Sierra Nevada mountains at an elevation of 2500 feet. We are in the higher elevation range of the "Sierra Foothills" appellation.Double Oak fine wines display the intensity of mountain grown fruit, full-bodied yet well balanced and complex. Our wines complement any occasion for fine wine. They are a food that creates a synergy with other foods and promotes conviviality. Double Oak wines are accessible when first released, and their well-structured tannins allow them to bottle age with grace and finesse. Our red wines have been barrel aged for 23 months and bottle aged for six months before release, making them the ultimate slow food.

The high quality of Double Oak wine stems from many elements, including location (terroir) and our sustainable wine farming and winemaking practices. We have been growing wine grapes since 1982 on nine acres of mountain vineyards. With the maturing of our vineyards, the vines have deepened their roots and gained more complex flavors. We believe it's all about balance and harmony with nature. The song of the birds and the flight of the dragonfly inspire us as we grow our grapes and make our wine. Double Oak is dedicated to sustainable and nature-friendly practices from the vineyard to the winery.Double Oak's handcrafted wines are made from estate grown, fully ripened, handpicked fruit. An ideal sugar/acid balance is produced by the long ripening time. Growing in granitic loam soil through warm autumn days and cool nights, our fruit ripens to a marvelous intensity with full flavors. Our climate, with its mountain influence (the cool night air in summertime flows down to us from the higher elevations) and its Pacific maritime influence (weather patterns moving through the Golden Gate and continuing northeasterly toward the northern Sierras), gives us a long slow ripening season.

When the sugars and flavors are just right, our grapes are harvested by hand early in the day. The red grape varietals are first destemmed and then moved to small open-top fermenters. During fermentation the cap of the fermenting grapes is punched down twice daily by hand to extract the colors and flavors. After two to three weeks of fermentation and maceration, the young wine is pressed out and moved to small oak barrels for 22 months in order to complete fermentation and barrel age. We use Minnesota oak barrels, chosen for the tight grain of the northern latitude oak. Our chardonnay grapes are pressed immediately after being destemmed and the juice is fermented sur lie in a mix of oak and stainless steel barrels to achieve more complex flavors.