Some comments from our winemaker, Gideon Beinstock:

Minimal intervention
No unnecessary processes or treatments are used. Most wines are not fined. All red wines are unfiltered. Little or no commerical yeast is used for inoculation, and white wines are not cold-stabilized. Levels of sulphur dioxide are kept to a minimum by extending the “sur lie” period, during which the wine is protected by its lees.

Gentler is better
Our winery design enables us to use gravity for many of the wine movements, including bottling. Gentle diaphragm air-pumps are used for other movements. Some small lots are worked manually from foot-crushing up to and including bottling. Stabilization and clarification occur by natural sedimentation and subsequent racking.

Diversity leads to quality
Most Renaissance wines are blends of multiple small lots vinified and aged in different ways. We believe that in the right proportion, each variation contributes to the complexity, richness, and harmony of the final product.

Flexibility -- “Listen to the grape”
In lieu of formulas or recipes, we strive to understand each individual lot of grapes. Our vinification methods are then tailored to each lot’s particular character and quality in order to maximize it and achieve the best balance possible.

No use of “makeup” in the winery
We try to achieve balance through the quality, concentration, and ripeness of our grapes and through lot and varietal blends. Cosmetic manipulations such as strong acid adjustments are avoided. We do not leave residual sugar in the wine to “enrich” its body. The use of new oak is limited to white wine fermentation, with great caution not to mask the fruit. No new oak is used for the aging of red wines, except for a small portion of the Pinot Noir. It is the essence of the grape itself that we strive to pack into every bottle.