My wines…

• 2009 Syrah: Silver
• 2009 Sauvignon Blanc: Bronze
• 2008 Sauvignon Blanc: Silver

So I am pretty happy, though we really wanted a gold for the Syrah. Every wine without any defects gets at least a bronze. Something is usually wrong with the wine if it gets no award.

Also, Afsi is running for the Bennett Valley Union School District board this fall! 5 contenders, 3 positions available.

Crossing our fingers…

Anyways, it is bottled. 4 1/2 cases. I didn’t try to hard to get the last drops out of the carboys. The wine was still on the bentonite; I didn’t want to fluff it up.

I moved it all out the the farm for storage, keeping 6 bottles for home use!  

• 2009 Syrah:  27 ppm free SO2
• 2009 Sauvignon Blanc: 19 ppm free SO2

The SB is ready for bottling! Maybe I can pull it off this weekend.

Just tasted the Syrah with Erwin. Very nice. It is definitely improving. It has a nice aromatic nose. Fruity with maybe a little spicyness. The tannins are slightly light in the mouth, but still noticeable.

First, the clarity of the wine in the test jars, before pouring into a wine glass for tasting. I brought them into the kitchen under brifght lights, but it is easiest to see the clarity against the background of our light oak cabinets. It is harder to see it against a white background. One thing…there are some clumps floating still, although most of the bentonite has fallen to the bottom.

• 0: Clearly the haziest.
• 0.25 g/L: Compared to the 1.5 g/L, I can still see aslight haze.
• 0.5 g/L: I can see no difference between the 0.5 g/L and higher. Based on sight only, the 0.5 g/L seems appropriate.
• 1.0 g/L:
• 1.5 g/L:

The nose seems to be the strongest on the cntrol, with the least nose on the 1.5 g/L. The 1.5 also seems to have the least fruit in it. There is grapefruit on the finish, and it really hangs in there for awhile. I taste no difference between the control and the 0.5 g/L. The nose on the 0.5 has a slightly more bready or savory character, which I actually like. Can we actually smell bentonite? Or maybe the savory is there, but covered up by something the bentonite is removing.

Based on this, I am going to go with the 0.5 g/L. Containers are 23L each, so that is 11.5 g/container, or 23 g total. Not enough time to do it this morning, but hopefully this weekend.

1. Mix a 5% Bentonite solution, by mixing 5 g Bentonite with distilled water to get 100 mL of solution. It took a couple of days for all the Bentonite to dissolve.
2. Addition solution concentration = 50g/L
3. Do a trial with 0, 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0 g/L Benonite
4. Bench trial volume = 100 mL
5. .5 g/L * 100 mL = .05 g Bentonite needed for 100 mL
6. .05 g / 50g/L = .001 L = 1 mL 5% solution
7. So here are the bench trial additions for 100 mL of wine:
   1. 0.0 g/L:  0 mL solution
   2. 0.25 g/L: 0.5 mL solution
   3. 0.5 g/L:   1 mL solution
   4. 1.0 g/L:   2 mL solution
   5. 1.5 g/L:   3 mL solution

Tomorrow I’ll take a look and see how well it has settled. I could also leave it for a fewq days, while we go skiing.

Bob said that titrets read about 25ppm high, and I have been measuring 25 ppm…

I need to add some sulphites. I am going to add 30 ppm. This is 2.0 mL/gal 10% sulphite solution.

• 2.0 mL/gal * 6 gal carboys = 12.0 mL each

I have a sample to take to BevPeople, to do a SO2 test there. I want to correlate it with my titret test.

I seem to not have measured the final sugar levels, or at least if I did, I never entered it into these notes. So here are a complete set of measurements:

23 L carboy (6 gal):

• pH: 3.08 with meter
• Acid: 6.6 g/L by titration with pH meter to 8.2 pH
• Sugar: 0.2% by clinitest
• SO2:  20 ppm by titret
• Eye: Clear (in a glass), pale straw
• Nose: Nice citrus. grapefruit
• Mouth: Crisp. Good citrus flavor. Nice long finish.

25 L carboy (6 gal):

• pH: 3.05
• Acid: 9 g/L by titration with pH meter to 8.2..this cannot be right. I will measure the acids again when the wine is at the same temp as the pH calibration samples. The pH meter is supposed to be TC, but maybe this is too much of a temperature difference (the wine might be near freezing).
• Sugar: 0.2% by clinitest
• SO2:  20 ppm by titret
• Eye: Same as above
• Mouth: Same as above
• Nose: Same as above

Both  carboys are now out, in the 20 gallon fermenting tubs, packed with ice. Two weeks will be the 6th of January.