Open Source Wines

Open Source Chardonnay is a collaborative wine project of the Winemakers Co-Op. Every harvest, each member winery brings 1,000 pounds of Chardonnay grapes to the crush pad at William Heritage Winery. It’s always at Heritage, because they have the only press that can crush almost two and a half tons of grapes at once! After a feast of grilled meats and beer, the Chardonnay juice is divided equally, with which each winemaker returns to their own winery. This source material – the shared juice from collectively grown grapes – is an open platform for each winemaker to build their own version of Open Source Chardonnay.

Each year, at the Co-Op’s Spring Portfolio Tasting we debut the new vintage, giving event guests a chance to taste each of the five different versions of the wine. Although the labels of each of the five look similar, a careful eye will notice that the topographical lines on each are slightly different, etching the landscape of each winery estate. Each winery produces 23 cases of Open Source Chardonnay each year, and it is available at each Portfolio Tasting and in our respective tasting rooms until it is sold out.