Poppyseed Cellars

Gorgeous Monday!

I had the afternoon free at the farm, so I borrowed Esteban and decided to rack the late harvest 12’s.

• 2012 LH Syrah port:
  • Racked the 13 gallon barrel into a 30 gallon tub.
  • Cleaned the barrel
  • Pumped wine back into the barrel, sulphiting +10 ppm (8.5 ml SO2 solution)
  • Tasted and smelled great. It seemed sweeter than it was at the last tasting. I wonder if it is possible for the sugar to sink to the bottom when it is just sitting in barrel.
• 2012 LH Syrah:
  • Racked the 15 gallon barrel into a 30 gallon tub.
  • Racked some of the 60 gallon barrel into same 30 gallon tub, so 50-50 mix.
  • Cleaned the 15 gallon barrel.
  • Pumped the mixed wine back into the 15 gallon barrel, sulphiting +10 ppm (10 ml SO2 solution)
  • Finished racking the 60 gallon barrel into tubs.
  • Cleaned the barrel. Surprising amount of sediment came out when washing.
  • Pumped the wine back into the barrel, sulphiting +15 ppm (60 ml SO2 solution)

The room smelled so good, until I decided to burn some sulphur disks in the empties. This time I used the new sulphur burner, and raised the sulphur off the based with the toroidal spring. I lit it outside, and let it get really burning, then put it into the glass jar and ran it inside. Worked great! I took it out in 15 minutes, and the sulphur was all ash. I did both the 30 and 60 gallon barrels.

Had some free time in the morning, so I decided to top and sulphite the 2013 Syrah.

• 60 gallon:
  • +20 ppm (80 ml SO2 solution)
• 15 gallon:
  • +20 ppm (20 ml SO2 solution)
• 3 gallon:
  • +20 ppm (4 ml SO2 solution)

I did not stir, as we need the wine to be settled for our first post MLF racking. There is probably a lot sediment in those barrels.

The wine tasted fine, although it has the young wine taste. I asked Daniel, the winemaker making my father in laws syrah, about the VA, and he said don’t worry about it. He has had a lot worse, and it came out fine.