Pressed the syrah!
Wednesday eve…decided we needed to press off the syrah. We wanted to press sweet, and Wednesday night it was a 6 brix. Thursday morning it would be around 3…no choice but to press. We wanted to press a little sweet, as last years syrah was maybe a tad tannic, although we sure didn’t think so at a recent barrel tasting.
It was Esteban, Shahrokh and myself as cellar rats. Here are some stats:
- 8Am – 11:30 Am: 3.5 hour for 108 gallons must
- 108 gallons must pressed to ~75 gallons juice and gross lees.
- We separated the juice into three gatgories: free run, moderate press, and hard press. They all tasted good; we plan on just combining them.
- 3 press runs, plus a 4th re-pressing of all the pressed grapes. We got 5 more gallons, and it tasted pretty good.
- We started around 8AM, and finished by 11:30 AM, so 3 1/2 hours for 108 gallons must.