Something to actually drink!
We started at 6:30 AM…Erwin and I.
We racked the ’11 Syrah off of the copper into three white tubs, cleaned the barrel, and racked back, inoculating with a 2.5 g package of Enoferm Alpha on the way. That took until 9:30 AM. We ended up with 4 1/2 bottles for topping. We will need some of the ’10 for topping, as 4 1/2 won’t be enough.
The copper seems to have done the trick. No H2s on the nose that we could detect. We aerated the wine slightly when racking. It has less tannins than last year. Actually, maybe too few. It will pick up somewhat in barrel tough.
Then the fun part…FINALLY! We bottled the 13 gallon barrel of ’10 Moaveni Vineyard syrah:
- We first racked the wine into a 20 gallon tub.
- We added 10 ppm sulphites during the racking to get good mixing. This should put us near 30 ppm in the bottle.
- We soaked the corks in water as best we could. It really helps in putting the corks in.
- We then siphoned into the bottles.
- We got 5 1/2 cases. We left half a case for topping the rest of the ’10.
- It took us about 10 minutes per case to actually do the bottling.
The aromas in the cellar were amazing. Outside it was cold (near freezing) but sunny. Crisp fresh air. Stepping into the cellar, you would feel the warmer air, and then the aromas would settle in. Just amazing. I think this wine may be the best we have made.
Finally, we sulphited the other two barrels to about 30 ppm as follows:
- 30 gallon: We added 20 ppm, or ~40 mL of 10% SO2 solution.
- 15 gallon: We added 10 ppm, or ~10 mL of 10% SO2 solution.