Poppyseed Cellars

The sauv blanc needs bottling; we should be drinking it already.

Since the free SO2 was so low (3 mg/L), I racked 6 gallon carboy and 1 gallon jug into another 6 gallon carboy, putting in 30 mg/L SO2. Nothing worked right; my racking siphon was missing parts; the pump injected air. I finished anyways, cleaned up and bottled the extra 2 bottles.

We will drink it on our 4 family camping trip this weekend.

Also tasted and tested (Vinquiry) the ’10 sauvignon blanc. It was pretty crisp, with strong tropical fruit, like pineapple. Still clody, but I am going to skip the fining.

The free SO2 was 3 mg/L, which is way too low. I need it up at 30 mg/L. I will have to rack the carboy and jug into a new container to mix the SO2, wait a day or two, and then bottle. I am way late on the bottling. Most folks are drinking their SB by now!

Well, the SB never completely cleared on its own. I have decided to bottle it with a little haze. My main “inspiration” for this was a high end barrel tasting I attended where the winemaker never fines or filters his wines, even his SB!. If it is hazy, so be it. Why ruin it with fining? And his SB sells for  $28! And was amazing in terms of it’s mouthfeel and richness.

I racked the SB into a single 6.5 gallon carboy, and 3/4 gallon jug. Smells good. Tastes good…grapefruit, crisp. Now let it sit for a month and settle  out. I added 30 ppm SO2.

Also measured the sugars in the zin and syrah…

1. Syrah: 23 Brix; 3.3 pH; Some crunchy   seeds; some still green. Flavors are really good.
2. Zin: 23 Brix; 3.4 pH; Good flavor. The crunchy seeds actually taste pretty good. Skins slightly tannic, but not as much as one might think they should be.

I checked sugars with Clinitest:

Pinot: 0.4%

Sauv Blanc: 0.1% …it is done. Time to rack…hopefully tomorrow morning.

Also, here are some picures of the pinot and SB…

and a friend who was living in the ceallar…hopefully not drinking any of my wine!

I checked the sugars today (and managed to drop the wine thief into the carboy..).

• 1 Brix by hydrometer

So there is probably a week left before it goes totally dry..It has taken 1 week to ferment. That is actually pretty fast. I would have like two or three weeks. Oh well, it is almost done.

Also, there is a very slight H2S smell. Not enough to do anything. It goes away when I take a sample for tasting. It  will probably blow off when I rack it.

The taste is very crisp, citrus, very acidic. I will be doing a cold stabilization on this wine this winter.

The SB looks good. The browning in the must is gone. I am not sure why. I wonder if the CO2 content makes it go away? Or maybe the yeast produces enough SO2?

I added 2 g each carboy of FermaidK. (First half of 1 g/gallon…1/2 /gallon * 4 gallons)

The aromas were extremely citrusy, just like all the SB’s I have made. I just don’t know how to hang on to them at the current strength! Looking good!

After punching down the Pinot, I checked the SB in the cellar. It now has a steady bubbling going, so the ferment has started, though slowly. The ferment smells fine, so far. I have not used any nutrients in the SB.

I spent a couple of hours on the SB.

1. The SB has been settled over night, so I pumped the juice off the sediment layer. I started with around 9 gallons, and ended up with about 8 gallons. I pumped equally into 2 5 gallon carboys, which leaves some space (hopefully not too much) at the top.
2. I mixed up a batch of Prise de Mouse yeast, per the Lallemand Yeast Rehydration procedure
   • 10 g yeast (1g / gallon)
   • 12.5 g GoFerm re-hydrated in 250 mL H2O
3. I added it to the carboys, and put on the airlocks. Let the fun begin!
4. The room temperature is 66 F, which is a little warm. I may have to use an ice bath to bring down the temperature.

I managed to get to the vineyard around 9AM. First I had to drop off the kids at school…then rescue the cat from the neighbors yard.

The grapes were picked and waiting for me. They started picking at 2AM. 

I decided to go ahead and whole cluster press. I forgot to put the net bag in the press, but that didn’t seem to matter. I did two press runs. From about 40 gallons of grapes (150 – 200 lbs?) I got about 9 gallons of juice. That is a pretty low yield, but that was all my press could get out of the grapes. If I had crushed first, that would probably have helped. I pressed to 3 BARs of pressure.

Here are the post press numbers:

• Sugars: 23 with hydrometer
• Sugars: 22 with refractometer
• pH: 3.1

With this low a pH, I don’t need much SO2. I added:

• 20 ppm (3 gallons * 1.3 mL 10% SO2 /gallon = 3.9 mL 10% SO2)
• 20 ppm (6 gallons * 1.3 mL 10% SO2 / gallon = 7.8 mL 10% SO2)

I moved the carboys into the cellar to sit over night. I’ll cast the yeast tomorrow, after racking off the sediment.

The sauvignon blanc is being picked tomorrow morning. I am going to piggyback on this harvest, so when I get there the grapes will picked and ready. I gotta drop the kids off at school; I wouldn’t have been able to start until 9AM. They are starting at 2AM. I don’t have the numbers…so I am trusting the winemaker who ordered the picking tomorrow. The guy makes damn good wine…I should be OK.

Also, I brought the pinot in from the cold room to warm up. I’ll start the ferment tomorrow!

We did our vineyard walk through today. The three winemakers who are going to make the Syrah decided how they will divide up the harvest. There was lots of concern over not getting ripe enough. The Syrah is at about 15 brix sugar. It needs to be at least 22. That’s 7 to go, and it usually takes about 1 week per 1 Brix. So we are out 7 weeks, assuming good weather, which is shaky at this point.

They talked about foliar sprays that boost sugar; they decided not to. The wines these guys sell are >$50/bottle. They need the flavors to be right. If the sugars and resultant alcohol are a little low, but the flavor is right, thay are happy. No one knew what would happen to flavors using these foliar sprays.

They were unhappy with the few green berries that are left. The problem is that the green berries will turn purple, but will never ripen. And when the berries are on the sorting table (yes, these guys sort individual berries before crushing), you can’t find the unripe ones and into the wine they go. So they would rather have a crew go through the vineyard and remove the green berries while they can see them. That is a slow process, and will cost the grower some bucks.

We are looking at the end of October at this point for the Syrah. The Pinot however will probably be ready in 2 weeks.

This is going to be a very crazy crush season. The weather sucks! We are far colder this summer than most. So the grapes are not ripening fast enough. And we may have rain this weekend. As long as it is not too much, and it warms up and dries off, we’ll be OK. Otherwise there will be unfriendly organisms growing on the grapes.

I walked the vineyard Tuesday morning, measuring the sugars and picking out the rows I want. This Saturday, the real winemakers are walking the vineyard to divvy up the grapes. My quantities are mice nuts compared to what they are making, which is mice nuts to well known wineries. 

• Syrah: 2 different vineyard blocks: 13 -18 Brix. Almost completely turned. Anything that hadn’t been more  that 50% through veraison last week was dropped. So there was a lot of fruit on the ground. What is left looks pretty good.
• Pinot: 20-22 Brix. Getting close! Everything is well through veraison. Lots of bird damage however. The vineyard has wild turkeys…maybe not for long. Early Thanksgiving anyone? The grapes tasted good. It is amazing how much more tannic the syrah skins are compared to the pinot. The seeds are partly turning brown, which is supposed to be an indicator for ripeness.
• Sauv Blanc: 15-18 Brix. The grapes have a noticeable “cat pee” taste. This somewhat common in SB. It does seem to be dissipating, as I have been tasting for a month or so.
• Zinfandel…I didn’t get up there. I’ll do that this weekend. These grapes are not sold, so I’ll have more than I can handle.

Here is my 2010 Crush Plan. Since I am making 4 wines, planning the containers and equipment is more important. I have no idea how a real winery manages all this stuff. I am glad my living is not on the line!

Planning for the upcoming crush…I am going to make four wines this year, all from the Moaveni Vineyard in Bennett Valley:

1. Sauvignon Blanc: 150 lbs grapes ~= 7.5 gallons wine  ~= 3 cases
2. Syrah: 500 lbs grapes ~= 30 gallons ~= 12.5 cases  ( this one with Erwin )
3. Zinfandel: 150 lbs grapes ~= 9 gallons wine ~= 4 cases
4. Rose of Zin: 150 lbs grapes ~= 7.5 gallons wine ~= 3 cases 

I am going to be busy. This is more than I have ever tried. The good news is I have sunk my entire allowance for toys for several years into a crusher/destemmer and a bladder press, so no more renting and driving around the equipment. I’ll have it when I need it.

I do need to plan out the glass and barrels that I’ll need. I’ll start putting together a table of the required items.