Crush
We picked and crushed today!
We started at 7AM in the morning. Esteban had already cleaned the macro-bins, and was there when I arrived. Erwin showed up a few minutes later.
We prepared for the first hour. Here is a summary:
- Sanitized everything with StarSan.
- One macro-bin in winery to receive crushed fruit.
- Two 2×6 boards across macro-bin on which to place the crusher.
- Crusher sat on boards, with stem disposal into food tub next to macro-bin.
- Tarps on floor to keep it somewhat clean.
- Second macro-bin in back of Erwins truck to take to grapes.
- 4 totes and clippers for the pickers…Esteban, Erwin, Afsi, and Niels
We picked the Block 7 470 syrah first. We picked the outer 4 rows, filling the bin to about 3/4 full. The clusters were gorgeous, with almost no raisins. There was some what I think is wasp damage…hollowed out grapes, with just the skins left. Maybe it was birds.
Nice soft skins; lot’s of flavor. It went really fast as the clusters were big. It was amazing how much fruit had been previously dropped.
We then picked the Block 3 Alban syrah. End rows had some raisins, and we were careful to sort before putting into totes. We filled the bin so that it was mounding up maybe a foot. That should be about 1200 pounds.
Here are some stats post crush:
- 14 inch in-depth of must in bin. This calculates out to 117 gallons must, or 1197 lbs must (grapes), assuming 10.2 lbs/gallon for the must. That was what it was last year.
- We sulphited to 50 ppm; 384 mL 10% sulfite solution addition.
- We added dry ice pellets to must to cool it off and protect the must from O2.
- Must temp = 58 F…pretty warm.
- We put 6 gallon jugs of frozen water. Probably not going to help to much, but maybe a little.
Here are some photos from the crush:
After finishing up the crush, we drove to BevPeople and back for the corks I had forgotten to buy. We ended up bottling the rest of the 2008 syrah that we have been using as topping wine. And also the 3 gallon carboy of Rose.
We then tasted through the 2010 Syrah, the 2011 Syrah, and the 2011 Zin. All three knocked our socks off. maybe we had drank too much of Erwin’s wheat beer!
The 2011 Syrah was far better than we remembered it. I haven’t tasted for awhile, and Erwin even longer. The nose was good; the mouth feel and taste were wonderful. I think the time in oak is really making a difference.