Balance is a word we use to describe a wine where there is neither too little nor too much of anything, and everything works together in harmony.
There are five major components that make up a bottle of wine: acid, alcohol, sugar, tannin and water. For a wine to be considered well-balanced, all these parts must exist in proper ratio to each another. Each of these five components plays a vital role in the creation of a good bottle of wine; too much of one part and the wine will suffer, not enough of a specific component and the wine will be lacking of something.
We aim for balance in many different ways. In the vineyard we work to let our vines find their natural balance as that gives us better and balanced fruit. We look at finding the optimal balance between the physical and phenolic ripeness when we decide on picking time. We seek balance in all our processes in the winery. When we decide on our blends balance is a key factor and the main reason we blend at all. Oak ageing is another aspect where we have specific focus on balanced proportions.
As dear Scott Fitzgerald so cleverly put it:
"Too much of anything is bad, but too much of Champagne is just right."