Poppyseed Cellars » 2010 Moaveni Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc

Racked, and sulphited

admin — Sat, 28 May 2011 14:08:37 +0000

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.

And another free SO2 test

admin — Wed, 25 May 2011 04:46:14 +0000

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!

Foggy wine

admin — Wed, 11 May 2011 03:59:28 +0000

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.

Getting close to harvest again

nielsj — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 17:25:07 +0000

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…

Syrah: 23 Brix; 3.3 pH; Some crunchy seeds; some still green. Flavors are really good.
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.

Quick sugar check

admin — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 02:35:53 +0000

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!

Down to 1 Brix

nielsj — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 17:45:05 +0000

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.

SB bubbling

nielsj — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 05:32:31 +0000

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!

Getting going

nielsj — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 04:37:07 +0000

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.

Sauvignon Blanc ferment started

nielsj — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 02:46:12 +0000

I spent a couple of hours on the SB.

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.
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
I added it to the carboys, and put on the airlocks. Let the fun begin!
The room temperature is 66 F, which is a little warm. I may have to use an ice bath to bring down the temperature.

Sauvignon Blanc

nielsj — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 22:45:52 +0000

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.