Time in a Bottle – Grape Crush

Devin Barringer hears a familiar reminiscence repeated in the tasting room at the Feliciana Cellars winery in Jackson.

“Everybody’s got a story about how they remember someone in their family making wine,” he says.

The tug to sample native fruit wines, today made with science and deliberation, leads a growing number of regional travelers to Barringer’s Spanish Mission-style winery located in East Feliciana Parish.

“We’re getting a lot of people coming through who talk about our wines and other native wineries,” says Barringer. “It’s become a popular thing to do.”

Feliciana Cellars produces nine different red, white and rosé-style wines from three varieties of muscadine grapes: the Ison, Carlos and Welder. The winery has performed well among its regional peers and has won several awards in the Wines of the South annual tasting competition. The Evangeline, a sweet white, is its most-decorated wine and top seller.

Barringer, 37, says that while winemaking might sound glamorous, it’s more akin to farming. He spends countless hours among the winery’s 13 planted acres, an expansive L-shaped tract lush in stunning muscadine vines. When he’s among them, Barringer’s passion for nature emerges.

“You’re out here alone a lot,” says the former field biologist and avid birder. “It’s great when you see something unexpected. The other day I saw a Northern Harrier, and it’s like a window into nature opens up that’s just there for you.”

Moments like those were rare in 2010, when Barringer’s thoughts were focused on when to harvest—a decision made more difficult by a growing season defined by sharp swings between drought and excessive rain.

Barringer brought 10,000 pounds of muscadines to the winery each morning during the September harvest, where they were crushed, de-stemmed, pressed and pumped directly into a large tank. The batches were fermented and taken through the processes of cold stabilization and several courses of filtration. Weeks later, Barringer began tasting and adjusting so that the finished product would maintain the same profile and characteristics of previous vintages.

Barringer is usually too busy making wine and tending vines to see what’s going on in the tasting room. When he does, he says, it’s satisfying to hear customers’ comments.

“It’s important that I make wine that they like and respond to,” he says. “I think in a lot of cases, it takes them back.” felicianacellars.com