Poppyseed Cellars

I went out to the cellar before work.

Topped all wines, and sulphited the Zin to 30 ppm:

• 60 gallon barrel: added 16 ppm (60 mL 10% kmeta solution)

Had the sulphites checked 2013-04-26-011:

• 30 gallon barrel: 32 ppm
• 15 gallon barrel: 29 ppm

Just right.

Had the sulphites checked 2013-04-26-011:

• 60 gallon barrel: 14 ppm

Lower than I expected. Need to bump it up to 30 ppm.

Had the sulphites checked 2013-04-26-011:

• 13 gallon barrel: 56 ppm

Quite high. No need for more for quite awhile.

Had the sulphites checked 2013-04-26-011:

• 60 gallon barrel: 49 ppm
• 15 gallon barrel: 48 ppm

Higher than I expected, but good.

Had the sulphites checked 2013-04-26-011:

• 48 ppm: Just let it be. Higher than I expected.

Topped off all wines!

And tasted, with spitting. Very enjoyable morning!

Erwin and I bottled today…

• Re-hydrated the empty 30 gallon barrel (overnight).
• Bottled the 15 gallon barrel of ’11 zinfandel.
  • Struggled big time with the bottle wand on our new zin bottles. The punt on the bottles prevents the wand from opening. The want must be held precisely on the top of the punt and held there while filling. I am done with the wand after today! next time we do something much better.
  • We got about 6 cases of wine. 3 for Shahrokh, 1 1/2 each for Erwin and myself.
  • Cleaned the 15 gallon barrel
• 2011 Syrah 60 gallon barrel
  • Bottled 4 cases of ’11 syrah (from 60 gallon barrel). This went fast, as the syrah bottles that we used caused no problems with the bottle wand.
  • Pumped into 15 gallon barrel.
  • Pumped into 30 gallon barrel.
  • Bottled 2 more cases of ’11 syrah (from 60 gallon barrel). This went slow, as the siphon could not be started with the siphon pump. We ended up using my electric pump to start the siphon, and then bottled using the wand. It was also slow because we were at the bottom of the barrel, so there was not much height difference.
  • Got ~6 cases of the ’11 syrah, 3 for Erwin, 3 for me.