Why is Racking Critical to Winemaking?

At Opus One, the team has carried out the first racking of Vintage 2025, carefully separating the young wine from its lees – the sediment that naturally settles at the bottom of each barrel. This year’s effort was led by Senior Winery Worker Eric Beaulac, who designed the racking plan and determined the precise order in which barrels were addressed.

Racking is a critical step in winemaking. During the process, wine is gently drawn from each barrel until the flow begins to turn cloudy, signaling the point at which the remaining wine and lees are left behind. This careful separation of racked wine from lees supports optimal clarification – measured in Nephelometric Turbidity Units (NTUs) – allowing the vintage to express its character with greater focus, precision, and finesse.

With barrels stacked one-high in the Grand Chai – a space inaccessible by forklift – the process becomes a true all-hands-on-deck operation, requiring coordinated effort to move, rack, and transition each barrel for cleaning. Once a barrel is emptied, it is meticulously cleaned of all sediment before the racked wine is returned to barrel to continue aging until bottling.

Shared February 2026