Korbel California Brandy is made at our Central Valley winery, where we crush and ferment only the finest California brandy grapes to make our base wines. The young wines are then distilled in a copper-lined still to ensure the highest level of purity and flavor. The firey heat of the water-white new distillates is slowly mellowed in one of our 30,000 small, American oak barrels. These barrels are specially charred during their construction to leave a layer of natural charcoal in contact with the brandy. This slow barrel aging, incontact with both the oak and the natural charcoal, gives the brandy its golden color and smooth, elegant flavor. After barrel aging, we carefully blend many individual lots of brandy into our solera system at Korbel Champagne Cellars. The solera system is never emptied, as brandy is removed for bottling. Instead, new barrel-aged brandy is added back to the tank. This allows us to maintain a high level of consistency and the ultimate quality in our bottling blends.