Our hours are 1pm - 5pm Fridays through Sundays, or by appointment, just give us a call at 610-793-5134 or 484- 899-8013 or email us at info@galerestate.com
Galer Estate Wine Tasting Room will allow our visitors to enjoy our boutique wines in a beautiful and artistic environment that truly reflects the “blending of science, art and nature
NEW WINERY
A brand new state-of-the-art Fermentation Room was built in 2010
6 stainless steel, glycol jacketed fermentation tanks with integrated tank to barrel gravity flow system
Catwalks installed to allow for easy tank access and optimal monitoring of wine during fermentation
A brand new Crushpad Area
Directly feeds pressed clusters from whole-cluster press into fermentation tank (white wine)
Hand selected premium grapes move from sorting table up conveyer belt and are then gently “crushed” before loaded into fermentation tank (red wine)
Dedicated Barrel Room revamped and improved.
Located directly below Fermentation Room in subterranean atmosphere to naturally keep our wine at perfect temperature
Our French Barrel Program rotates each carefully chosen barrel through a 3 year cycle
Cooperages used to make Galer Estate barrels:
Seguin Moreau
Alain Fouquet
Mistral
Stainless Steel barrels are used mostly for steel-fermented white wines to keep them with fresh fruity characteristics
2011 HOME VINEYARD UPDATE
Our First Harvest!
2010 brought the first harvest of our 3 year-old premiere vines:
Cabernet Franc
Merlot
Petit Verdot
Vidal Blanc
Phase 3 Planting
April 2010 laser planted
Albarino
The first vines of this special Spanish/Portuguese white varietal in the Brandywine Valley
First harvest planned for 2011
Merlot
Our 3rd year of planting Merlot, which is rapidly becoming one of the best known high quality red varietals in the Brandywine Valley
RED LION VINEYARD UPDATE
Spring 2010 - Pulled up all our Cabernet Sauvignon Vines
After two mediocre vintages in 2008 and 2009, with slow ripening and low fruit yield, we made the tough decision to pull up the approximately 2 acres of 10 year old Cab Sauv vines.
10 year old Chardonnay Vines
2 acres of 10 year + Chardonnay vines
Produced wonderful fruit for our 3rd harvest of Red Lion Chardonnay in September 2010.
Planted new Chardonnay Vines in 2011
To optimize the health of the new French hybrid Chardonnay clones and insure the highest quality fruit, Jan and her team have reworked Red Lion Vineyard area where the CS vines once lived.
The new vine rows are reoriented to a north-south orientation to improve sunlight exposure and thus enhance fruit ripening
WINE LABORATORY
Our Wine Laboratory was updated with new chemistry equipment that allows us to precisely measure changes in our wine, from vineyard to bottle; such as pH, brix (sugar), alcohol, titratable acidity, residual sugar, malic acid, free or available sulfur, total sulfur, and volatile acidity
WINERY EQUIPMENT
All Winery Equipment custom made for Galer Estate Winery from Vinquip in South Africa
Fermentation Tanks
Red Fermentation Tanks
Shorter and wider to allow for maximum development of the “cap” (grape skins and seed)
Larger opening on top to improve capability for “pump-overs” to improve oxygenation and mixing of wine with cap throughout fermentation
Special White Wine Tanks - taller and skinnier than Red Fermentation Tanks
White fermentors are designed to minimize the top surface area while maximizing the cooling capacity
This allows to fermentation to be controlled within a tighter range, which enables the juice to get warm enough for fermentation to progress while keeping it cool enough so that the maximum amount of aromatic volatiles are kept in solution
Sorting Table
Conveyer
Crusher/Roller
Press
Puleo- an Italian bladder press with special computer programs designed for each specific grape varietal or winemaking style
