Poppyseed Cellars

I just went out to check on the fermenting wine. In  the room I got a slight whiff of H2S. I punched down both the zin and syrah. The H2S smell dissipated.

• Zin temp ~ 70 F
• Zin sugar ~ 20 brix
• Syrah temp ~77 F
• Syrah sugar ~ 16 brix!  Wow that is going fast. It dropped 7 brix in 1 day. It will be down to 8 brix by tomorrow night if it keeps going.
• I have enough FermaidK for the zin and the syrah if need be. I will definitely add it to the zin when it gets to about 17 brix (1/3 done)
• The syrah is already past 1/3. I’ll check it in the morning, and if the H2S is stronger, then I may add a dose to the syrah.

Zin calcs:

• 121 g yeast = 121 gallons * 1 g/gallon
• 152 g GoFerm = 121 g yeast * 1.25
• 3 L H2O = 152 g GoFerm * 20 = 3040 g H2O

The zin was picked and crushed on Monday, Oct 17. It was sorted on a sorting table, then crushed into 20 gallon buckets, then transferred to a t-bin.

After completion, the height of the must in the bin was 14.5″. Inside dimension of macro bin = 44″ x 44″.

•  121.5 gallons must = 14.5in * 44in * 44in *0.00432900433  gallon/in^3
•  1243 lbs grapes = 121.5 gallons * 10.23 lbs/gallon ( based on last years must weight measurements)
• 401 mL 10% SO2 solution = 50ppm = 3.3.mL/gallon * 121.5 gallons

The syrah was picked and crushed on Tuesday, Oct 18. It was sorted on a sorting table, then crushed into 20 gallon buckets, then transferred to a macro bin.

After completion, the height of the must in the bin was 12″. Inside dimension of macro bin = 44″ x 44″.

•  100.5 gallons must = 12in * 44in * 44in *0.00432900433  gallon/in^3
•  1029 lbs grapes = 100.5 gallons * 10.23 lbs/gallon ( based on last years must weight measurements)
• 332 mL 10% SO2 solution = 50ppm = 3.3.mL/gallon * 100.5 gallons

Here is the Vinquiry report on the syrah must.

This is the craziest fall ever…

I was away in MN for almost two weeks on family emergency. My Mom passed away after complications from falling. I will miss her terribly. She was 85, and has had a long great life. 2011 will go down as a tough year for our family.

Maybe it can be a good year for wine…

While I was gone, my partners in crime, Erwin and Shahrokh picked a half ton of the zin, and a half ton or so of the Alban syrah. They crushed it, sulphited it and it has been cold soaking.

I will be adding lots of notes, getting caught up with all the details.

After a brief trip to MN, I am back. I stirred the Rose. It looks good. Slowly bubbling.  Putting my ear to the carboy, it sounds  like a fine crackling sound as the bubbles pop.

I measured the sugars:

• Free run carboy: 10 brix. Tastes, smells good. Lots of citrus, fruit. Light pink color, although still opaque.
• Press run carboy: 9 brix. Tastes, smells good. Lots of citrus, fruit. The color difference is quite noticeable. Darker  pink color, although still opaque.

I checked again this morning. Everything is good. Starting to get a really nice aroma. Fruity, yeasty. Nothing bad out of either carboy.

I checked on the rose tonight. Both carboys have started fermenting. I stirred them both. One had good ferment aromas. This was the press juice, noticeably darker in color. The second carboy was the free run juice, lighter in color. It had a slightly reductive odor. I’ll check in tomorrow and see how they are doing.

I just checked on the rose. No bubbles, no aromas, and all the yeast solution at the bottom of the carboy. But the color is gorgeous.

Patience, patience!

Early to the winery this AM…

I racked the rose off of the settlings into two 6 gallon containers, with about 5 gallons of juice in each container. Racking off the settlings should give me a lighter, fruitier rose. This is supposed to be an easy drinking, light rose, to be consumed this coming summer.

I prepped the Epernay 2 yeast in a GoFerm solution. After pitching, the carboys were stored in the cellar, in which the ambient temperature is about 65 F. This should allow the ferment to finish slowly.

I went back tonight and checked on the rose. Looks nice and settled. I will rack it and start the ferment tomorrow.

I also added 20 ppm sulphites to the 2010 Pinot, to prep for bottling.

We decided to let the zin sit through the first storm of the season. It is a thin skinned grape, with tight compact clusters. If water gets into the cluster, and it cannot dry out, you get bunch rot. This year however there are a lot of berries that didn’t get fertilized (due to rain in the spring during flowering). The clusters are not as closed and tight. The grapes are not ready for a red zin (23 brix today…needs 25 brix), so we will wait. However, I wanted to start something, so we started a rose!

We picked, crushed and pressed enough to make 7 or 8 gallons of rose. Here is what we did:

• Picked (Shahrokh and myself) 60 gallons by volume of zin grapes. We started around 7AM, finished picking by 8 AM.
• Crushed them to 24 gallons must (now with Esteban’s help).
• Pressed that (after 30 minutes or so) to 11 gallons pressed juice.
• Let that settle overnight.
• Sugars:  22.8 brix
• pH: 3.2
• Sulphited to 40 ppm

I decided to get the ’10 pinot tested one last time before bottling. The results indicate the free SO2 at 16 ppm. Ouch! I was expecting 30 ppm after the last addition. So I need to add 20 ppm more to get it to 35 ppm, and let it sit a little before bottling.

Crush 2011 is very near. I will be making a little over a ton of zin this year. It is going to be busy. The rain next Tuesday might mean we are harvesting Monday…see the harvest numbers. It is almost ready.

I sulphited the pinot to 40 ppm and racked into a new container. After a day or two, it’s going into bottles!

I decided to get all of the  wines still in barrels or glass tested for free SO2. Some of the wines are ready to bottle.

The results are summarized here…

All look great, except the pinot, which is near zero. As it is ready to bottle, I need to rack it into a new carboy and sulphite at the same time. The 2008 syrahs are also ready to bottle. 

I also tasted all the wines. The 2008 syrah is a little light, and would be better with a bit more acidity. The 2010 is crisp and intense, with stiff tannins: maybe a blend of the ’08 and ’10 would be interesting. Something to try with some of the wine.

I mixed up a new batch of SO2, and sulphited the barrels to 20 ppm.

I also topped them off…took one bottle of the ’09.

The ’10 is definitely more tannic than the ’09. Hopefully not too much. The ’10 should age well. It has the tannins and the acid. This year we will do the cold soak again, but maybe press off sweet. That should keep the tannins down a little, and maybe make them a little smoother. The big decision is whether to bleed off some juice off the skins to get more color, mouth feel. 

I walked the vineyard. The pinot up top (115 clone) is definitely into veraison. Probably 75% turned. The pinot in the back was maybe at 10% color. I saw one grape with color on the syrah, and none on the zin. It is going to be a late harvest again. If I were a praying man, I would be praying for a dry fall.

Test writing post from iPad.

Erwin and I topped off the ’10 syrah. All barrels tasted fine. The smaller barrels were the most balanced. I think the time that they spent in the big barrel really balanced them out. This wine is better than the ’09, which was really strong on the fruit, but not as spicy tannic as the’10.

We had planned on sulphiting 20 ppm. We had to mix up a new batch of sulfite. We mixed it correctly, but it didn’t smell strong enough (usually you can’t breathe anywhere near the stuff). So we tossed it, and I will buy some new sulfite, and we will add it after my Europe trip.

The sauv blanc needs bottling; we should be drinking it already.

Since the free SO2 was so low (3 mg/L), I racked 6 gallon carboy and 1 gallon jug into another 6 gallon carboy, putting in 30 mg/L SO2. Nothing worked right; my racking siphon was missing parts; the pump injected air. I finished anyways, cleaned up and bottled the extra 2 bottles.

We will drink it on our 4 family camping trip this weekend.

Also tasted and tested (Vinquiry) the ’10 sauvignon blanc. It was pretty crisp, with strong tropical fruit, like pineapple. Still clody, but I am going to skip the fining.

The free SO2 was 3 mg/L, which is way too low. I need it up at 30 mg/L. I will have to rack the carboy and jug into a new container to mix the SO2, wait a day or two, and then bottle. I am way late on the bottling. Most folks are drinking their SB by now!

I went out to taste and top off on Sunday afternoon. All is well with the ’10 syrah. The wine in the 30 gallon is already a little smoother if that is possible. Better mouth feel, and a more complex nose. The fruit is not so strong.

The three barrels took 2 bottles of wine for topping! So there has been a lot of evaporation going on. I really need to get the humidity of the cellar up.

I took a sample into Vinquiry for a free SO2 test. We hit 31 mg/L (ppm) free SO2 which is just about where we want it. So everything is good for another couple of weeks to a month.

Well, the SB never completely cleared on its own. I have decided to bottle it with a little haze. My main “inspiration” for this was a high end barrel tasting I attended where the winemaker never fines or filters his wines, even his SB!. If it is hazy, so be it. Why ruin it with fining? And his SB sells for  $28! And was amazing in terms of it’s mouthfeel and richness.

We finally moved the wine to the cellar. The days are getting warm, and we don’t want to cook the wine.

The wine in the 30 gallon new oak has had enough oak. It is much better than the wine in the 3 & 4year old barrels, but it needs to come out of the oak. Plus the other wine needs the oak.

So this  is what we did:

1. Pump the 13 and 15 gallon barrels into 2 14 gallon demijohns.
2. Pump as much as we could of the 30 gallon barrel into the 13 and 15 gallon barrels.
3. Move all barrels and demijohns to the cellar (we couldn’t have moved the full 30 gallon).
4. Pump the  demijohns into the 30 gallon barrel.
5. Top off slightly. We didn’t clean the barrels, so we didn’t lose much wine.
6. We sulphited 20 ppm more, so now this wine has seen 50 ppm total since crush.

The plan is to wait a week, and then get the sulphites measured. Then just keep topping and sulphiting. We would like to bottle the 13 gallon by the end of the summer, so we have some wine, and leave the rest until next summer.

Another malic test…

It showed 120 mg/L malic, slightly up from last time. So the MLF is now officialy stuck

We decided to take a sample from each barrel to Beverage People, and use their reflectoquant test.

• 30 gallon:   14.2 mg/L
• 15 gallon:   16.4 mg/L
• 13 gallon:   20.3 mg/L

By these tests we are done…30 mg/L is the target. Vinquiry doesn’t quite match.

So we are either done, or close to done. We are going to call it done. What does “done” mean anyways?

So now add sulphites (30 ppm):

• 30 gallon: 59 mL 10% SO2 solution
• 15 gallon:  30 mL 10% SO2 solution
• 13 galon: 26 mL 10% SO2 solution

It just won’t end. In fact, we are going backwards.

We did another malic test on the small 13 gallon barrel. Here is the Vinquiry result.

We went UP to 110 mg/L. How can that happen? It went from 70 to 110 mg/L.

1. Maybe the bottles I am topping off with have lots of malic acid. That is probably not possible, since I have put less than 1 bottle in since we last measured the malic. At the starting malic of 1210 mg/L, one topping bottle could only have push edit to 87 mg/L. Also, ALL the wine was inoculated with MLB, so even the topping bottles should have started their MLF’s.
2. Maybe Vinquiry is wrong. Probably not.
3. Maybe there are spatial differences in the ML concentration in the barrel. I don’t know if that is possible, as one would think that there would be diffusion going on, but I have read since this event that barrels should be stirred periodically, so the the MLB don’t settle out.

So, what are we going to do? Stir the barrels twice week. I built a shelter around the barrels, and have a space heater inside. I will try and keep the temperature around 65 F. If we can do that for another 2 weeks, we’ll test again.

We are still not done with the MLF on the syrah. I had a sample of the slowest barrel tested…70 mg/L. We need to be less than 30 mg/L to be “done”. Here is the Vinquiry result.

We have tasted several times, and the wine is really coming together. The 30 gallon new barrel has the smoothest wine. Surprisingly, the new oak does not seem to be overwhelming the wine. It is really good! We want to sulphite it…but need to wait for the MLF to finish. When finished, we hope to combine it all into the 59 gallon barrel for another year of aging.

I tested the ’10 pinot for taste, and for MLF. It still has a ways to go on the MLF, so I have moved it upstairs to the barn, in hopes that it will warm up a little. It tastes pretty good. The nose is a bit closed. We’ll see if it opens up over time. I decided to do a little more oak, as it was pretty fruity without much balance. So in went one new medium toast French oak stave.

I checked the ’08 syrah…yes it still isn’t bottled. This one just isn’t working out. I added 1 g/L tartaric 6 months ago…and was waiting for it to balance out a little. It is better, but is still isn’t quite where I want it. It has a “slick” mouth feel, and I think that is because of it’s low acidity (it was around 4.2 g/L last year; it should be 6 g/L). With this second addition, the acidity should be 6.2 g/L, which should be fine. I’ll check it in a few weeks. This wine also was very fruity; I think it also needed more oak, so I put a stave in each carboy.

Here are the Vinquiry resultsof for malic acid:

• 30 gallon barrel:  90 mg/L    ( AccuVin test strip showed no color, indicating finished)
• 13 gallon barrel: 240 mg/L  ( AccuVin test strip showed some color, indicating not finished)

To be complete, we should be under 30 mg/L. So we still have a ways to go.

I took samples from the three barrels for a malic acid test. To top off the barrels, I had to rack the 3 gallon carboy into two 2 1gallon jugs, plus some bottles. Here is what we have now:

We have a used barrel from a well known cab winery in Napa…it is probably a 225 liter (59.4 gallons) barrel, so we just barely have enough to fill it. We would have to supplement with another syrah for topping off. Probably the ’08 that we made. But both of us only have 2 1/2 cases left. It will be painful to use it for topping!

My first post from my ipad…using a WordPress application. So far, I think the regular web interface of WordPress is much better than the ipad app. In fact, the ipad wordpress app sucks. Even just using safari on the ipad isn’t very good.

All the wine is resting quietly. On Christmas day, our visiting family did some barrel tasting of the syrah. The smaller barrels were still smoother, making me think that the MLF has progressed farther in the smaller barrels. I will do some measurements this week.

Next steps:

1. test the syrah and pinot for mlf completion.
2. Rack the Sauvignon blanc. It looks like it will need fining as it is still cloudy. Plus I still have a 2007 merlot and a 2008 syrah to get into bottles, this winter.

Erwin got a used full size barrel That we hope to rack the syrah into when the mlf is complete. We need to get it out of the new oak…or we’ll be drinking wood!

Erwin and I tasted the three barrels today. Everything tasted fine. No sign of H2S. The 15 gallon barrels tasted a bit smoother than the 30 gallon…possible the MLF in the 15’s is going faster?

We also tried the Accuvin Malic acid test strips. We got ~300 mg/L, with wine from a 15 gallon barrel noticeably lighter than the 30 gallons, which agrees with the above.

Erwin took a sample (50% from the 30 gallon barrel, 25% each from the 15 gallon barrels) to Vinquiry for analysis. Here is a table of the results, and a comparison to our juice panel before the ferment:

I ‘ve been lazy on the blog, but not with the wine. Here is my catchup…

1. We racked the 3 gallon container that had been Cu fined. We mixed the result with the other small containers so that the MLB would be in all containers. This is our current count:
   

   1	110 L barrel	30 gal
   2	55 L barrel	14.5 gal
   3	50 L barrel	13 gal
   4	11 L carboy	3 gal
   5	3 L jug	3/4 gal
   Totals	229 L	61 gal

    

2. We also set up a space heater in the wine room, as it was getting too cold for the MLF to complete. We have set the room temperature at about 64 F.
3. We have tasted several times. The new oak barrel is definitely having its effect on the wine. It seemed really strong after the first week, but somewhat less more recently. I am not sure why, or even if it was real!
4. We innoculated for MLF Nov 12, so tomorrow it will have been 4 weeks. It should be moving along. I just can’t tell with the wine in the barrels.

I purchased an Accuvin malic acid test kit. I’ll try it out this weekend. It would be nice to know without doing chromatography or a lab test.

We racked the syrah off of the copper fining sediment today. It went pretty well. The wine has great aromas, and tastes good. It has good acidity; some of that will come off during the MLF.

We ended up with all three oak barrels full, plus a 1 gallon jug, and a bottle for topping in the short term.

We inoculated everthing with malolactic bacteria. I mixed 2.5 g of the bacteria into 50 mL.

• 110L barrel: 22 mL MLB solution
• 50L barrel: 11 mL MLB solution
• 55L barrel: 11 mL MLB solution
• 1 gallon jug: 1 mL MLB
• bottle: 1 mL MLB

After the last racking, we had taken all of the excess gross lees and wine and put it into one of the 14 gallon demijohns. We let it settle, and racked it also today, for three more gallons. We put in 4.5 mL 1% CuSO4 (1.0 ppm) to take the H2S out of it. In a week or so, we will rack it and use it for barrel topping for the next year.

I apparently didn’t note it, but I put in 0.5 ppm copper sulphate, at least a week ago, for the H2S problem.

We racked the pinot off of the copper sediment today, after finishing the racking of the syrah. I put two new French oak staves into the carboy.

The pinot doesn’t have a strong nose at this point. We’ll see if it comes later.

I also added 5 mL of Enoferm Alpha malolactic bacteria, to get the malolactic fermentation underway. Now just let it sit for a few months.

We racked the wine off of the gross lees.

• We racked each container into the bin we used for fermenting, so that the wine would be well mixed.
• We ended up with ~240 liters of wine.
• We did a Cu fining bench trial, using a control, 0.5 ppm, and 1.0 ppm as our samples.
  • We chose to go with the 1.0 ppm for the following reasons
    •  Slight improvement of the nose of the 1.0 over the 0.5 ppm.
    • We were worse off than last year, where we ended up doing a total addition of 0.9 ppm.
    • We decided that if it is not too expensive, we will also have  residual copper test done on this wine, after it has been racked again.
  • Addition calculation:
    • 240L of wine
    • 0.389 mL/L 1% CuSO4 solution = 1.0 ppm
    • 0.389 * 240 = 93.4 mL
  • We added 93 mL of 1% CuSO4 solution to the bin, and mixed well.
• Finally, we pumped the wine back into the following, for a total of ~224 L. This means the measurement scale on the fermenting bin is off a little…
  • 110 L barrel (30 gallon)
  • 50 L barrel (13.2 gallon)
  • 57 L barrel (15 gallon)
  • 1 1 gallon jug (~3.5 L)
  • 1 3/4 gallon jug (~ 3 L)

We are doing ~250L of syrah this year. We have a 3 year old 50L French Oak barrel, and a 2 year old 55L French Oak barrel. These are getting a bit old, and we won’t get all that much oak from them, plus that is nowhere near enough capacity.

So we decided to buy a new 110L French oak barrel. We bought it from Tonnellerie Radoux, a French cooperage with a US subsidiary based here in Santa Rosa. You can see it in the back of the other containers in this picture:

The cooperage is not what I expected…at least not up front.  They are way back in an airport business park. Looks like just another office building, except for the barrel outside the front door. Even inside, the customer space looks like an office, but with lots of barrel samples and posters and artwork. But you can hear the saws going behind one of the doors. And if you peek through the door, you see where they are made. Quite something, and would be a great tour.

Our barrel is French oak, with a tight grain, and a medium+ toast. The tight grain means that it is much slower to release it’s tannins and oak flavors into the wine. It really is meant for reds that will be aged for 12-24 months, which is what we are planning. If we get too much oak, we can swap out the wine that is in the older barrels.

The medium+ toast will give us “The apex of aromatic potential with a rich and complex sensorial contribution (pronounced vanilla, sweet chocolate, maple syrup, lactones and spice). Tannin potential is reduced but still present.”

There you have it in Radoux’s own marketing words…the apex of aromatic potential!

This is a first draft for this post. I will be amending it…

Pressed today into the following containers:

1. 14 gallon demijohn
2. 14 gallon demijohn
3. 15 gallon 4 year old barrel
4. 13 gallon 3 year old oak barrel
5. 6.5 gallon glass craboy
6. 6 gallon glass carboy
7. 5 gallon glass carboy
8. 3 gallon glass carboy

That adds up to 76.5 gallons of wine! That will drop a lot with racking, but it is still a lot. The goal is to end up in:

1. 30 gallon new French oak barrel
2. 15 gallon barrel
3. 13 gallons barrel
4. Some in glass for topping off the next to years.

That is 58 gallons. I think we easily have that. We are going to use some of the glass…

There was no apparent H2S smell either. It must have all blown off with the Co2 of the ferment. It is odd because we smelled it daily, although be the end of punching down it was usually gone.

Here is a record of the punching down..

It has to be easier to do all this in metric, so here are some of our 2010 Syrah numbers, in english and metric:

• Must total volume: 108 gallons = 408 liters ~= 4 hL
• Must total weight: 108 gallons * 10.35 lbs/gallon = 1118 lbs = 507 kg
• Must weight/volume = 507/408 = 1.24 kg/L  (water is 1 kG/L)…This is probably wrong. We started with a 25 brix juice by hydrometer, which corresponds to a specific gravity of 1.107.
• Target wine: 68 gallons = 257 L = 342+ bottles = 28+ cases

Other interesting container equivalents :

• Full barrel =  225 L = 59 gallons = 300 bottles = 25 cases
• Half barrel = 110 L = 29.3 gallon = 146+ bottles = 12+ cases
• 1/4 barrel = 50 L = 13.3 gallons = 66+ bottles = 5+ cases
• 14 gallon demijohn = 53 liters = 70+ bottles = 5+ cases
• 6.5 gallon carboy = 24.4 L = 32+ bottles = 2+ cases
• 6.0 gallon carboy = 22.7 L = 30+ bottles = 2+ cases
• 5.0 gallon carboy =  18.9 L = 25.2 bottles = 2+ cases
• 1.0 gallon jug =  3.8 L = 5 bottles

How about other additions:

• Yeast additon: 2.0 lb/1000 gallons ~= 1 g/gallon ~= 25 g/hL
•  GoFerm addition: 2.5 lb/1000 gallons ~= 1.25 g/gallon ~= 30 g/hL
• FermaidK addition: 25 g/hL total in two seperate additions
• Enoferm Alpha MLB: 1 g/hL

On Erwin’s advice, I looked up the max temp on our yeast…82 F. We’ll hit that easily. I headed back out to the farm to check the temp. We were at 80F, with a little H2S on the nose. I did a very vigorous punch down; the H2S was gone.

Time to slow it down. I took the bin cover off; I opened the front and back windows; I put two 1 gallon ices on the must. I bet tomorrow we still hit 85 F. I will go out early…

The ferment is going strong:

• Brix: 21.5; it has dropped 5 brix since yesterday
• Must temp: 77 F; it has warmed up considerably. I shut off the heat lamps. It will be in the 80’s by tomorrow, and I don’t want it to go any higher than 90F.
• The nose was perfect. Occasional whiff of ethyl acetate, but that is normal, and probably good as a very small amount adds fruitiness to the wine.
• Taste was great. Still very sweet. Even my kids liked it!

Here are the new cellar rats, punching down the cap:

The ferment has started on its own! There was a slight cap on the edges of the bin where the heat lamps were. It is time to add our own yeast.

1. First we finished with the tartaric addition, by adding 92 grams more tartaric.
2. Second, we mixed up a yeast starter as follows:
   1. GoFerm at 2.5 lb/1000 gallons. In our case, we assumed 100 gallons of must , and needed 0.25 lb, or 4 ounces of GoFerm. We only had 2.2 ounces of GoFerm left (from a 3 oz bag), so that is what we used. Note that this is my first year using ANY yeast rehydration nutrient.
   2. Added 20x the weight of the GoFerm 5.5 cups H2o at 110F.
   3. Mixed it up, and let it sit until it dropped to 104 F.
   4. Slowly added 150g ES488 yeast. The additon rate is anywhere from .75 to 1.5 g/gallon. We used the  1.5 because we already had a bit of a wild ferment going, and we want our yeast to be the main yeast.
   5. We let the yeast slurry sit for 20 minutes and at lunch!
   6. Then we slowly diluted the slurry with must, to bring the temperature slowly down close to the must temp of 62 F.
   7. Poured it in and mixed it up!
3. We are leaving the heat lamps on the must container to try and move it along.

Here are the results of our Vinquiry Core Juice panel: 2010SyrahCoreJuicePanel 

Our analysis of those numbers:

• Brix: 25.3…no more sugar need…this will result in 12.7-15.2% alcohol, probably around 14%.
• pH: 3.79. This is quite a bit higher than we would like. Our acid addition (see below) will lower it somewhat, but it will also rise during pressing. The  plan is to monitor the pH during pressing.
• TA: 4.96 g/L. We want to be at 6 g/L. So we need to add 1 g/L tartaric, using our target wine amount: 
  • 60 gallons target wine-> 214 g tartaric acid…I only have 122 g tartaric… need 92 g more.
  • Added 122 g tartaric
• Nitrogen
  • Ammonia: 31 mg/L
  • Assimilable amino nitrogen: 221 mg/L
  • YAN = 31 + 221 = 252 mg/L.This is considered a high level of YAN, so that will minimize our nutrient additions.
• malic acid: 2.81 g/L: This will get converted to lactic acid during the MLF, so our TA will drop. 

Just for fun, we measured what 1/2 gallon of must weighs… 5 lbs, 1.8 oz

• 10.23 lbs must/gallon
• 108 gallons * 10.23 lbs must/gallon = 1100 lbs grapes!
• Typical wine yield = 16 lbs grapes/ gallon. If you assume all the weight is in the must (pretty accurate, as we only throw away the stems), then we should end up with 1100/16 = 68.8 gallons.
• Let’s go metric! What would that look like? I’ll write it up in a separate post!

The must temperature was still at 55 F, too cold for the yeast addition, which requires >59 F. So we will wait one more day.

I got some testing numbers for a wine must made up of 25% zin from the Moaveni vineyard, plus 75% Syrah 470 from the same vineyard. Our syrah is made up of maybe 30% syrah Alban and 70% syrah 470 from the same vineyards. So our number may look very similar when we get them tested Monday. But here are the syrah/zin blend numbers:

1. Acidity: The TA is low. Typically winemakers add  tartaric acid to get it up to 6 g/L. This wine will need an addition. One might think that the TA should be a sum of the acids in the wine, but it actually comes out lower than expected. I have no idea why!
   1. TA (titratable acidity) 4.8 g/L
   2. pH 3.74
   3. L-malic acid 1.92 g/L
   4. tartaric acid 4.38 g/L
2. Sugars: These numbers are fine. But here is an interesting quote from a testing lab: “It might seem surprising that glucose + fructose numbers often appear higher than the corresponding °Brix. The reason for this apparent anomaly is that °Brix is measured as a percentage by weight measurement so °Brix values are influenced by the density of the juice. Glucose + fructose is measured as weight by volume and is independent of juice density.”
   1. brix 25.5 degrees
   2. glucose + fructose 273 g/L
3. Nitrogen 
   1. ammonia 73 mg/L
   2. alpha-amino compounds 141 mg/L
   3. yeast assimilable nitrogen 201 mg/L (as N): This is commonly referred to as YAN. This number is a midrange number, and probably means some extra N will be necessary. If the yeasts don’t get enough N, they get cranky and produce the H2S stink.
4. potassium 2100 mg/L

Mixed up the cold soak again. No more dry ice, so I used the CO2 tank to put down a layer of CO2.

• Sugars: 26.5 by hydrometer
• pH: 3.75
• Temp 50F; starting to warm up.

I took  down the blanket window coverings (trying to keep the room cool). I put up black weed cloth over the windows. This should keep out the light, but warm up in the sun, to try and warm up the must.

“Punched down” the cold soaking grapes. Starting to get some color. Added the last of the dry ice.

• Sugars: 26.5 by hydrometer, 24.7 by refractometer
• pH: 3.7 
• Temp: 45 F

So BevPeople do the SO2 calcs with the final juice volume in mind. That is what we did. We wanted 50 ppm SO2 at crush, and we targeted the 60 gallons of wine we hope to have someday.

MoreWine says target the must volume, and they underline the comment! So we should have used 108 gallons for the calculation.

I went back out this noon and added 150 ml of 10% sulphite solution. Now we are at 50 ppm in our must.

The must temp was at 45 F, so it dropped 5 F. That is perfect.

I floated a small bowl of dry ice on the top of the must. This will produce a nice blanket of CO2 on the must, to keep the it from browning in the air.

I racked the pinot again today after the  syrah crush. I measured:

1. Sugar: 0.4% with clinitest. I think the ferment is finished. The sugar is a little high but OK.
2. pH: 3.5 … it has come up significantly since the must measurment of 3.1.
3. It is losing it’s H2S smell, but now I can smell oak. But if I remember right, that is what happened with the ’09 syrah. And the copper removed it; so it wasn’t oak, but an H2S issue.
4. Because of the racking, I added 30 ppm SO2.

I took the oak staves out of the wine; I will let it sit a week, and then try some copper fining trials.

Here are the stats…

• 1/3 Alban, 2/3 470 clone of Syrah
• 26.0 Brix by hydrometer
• 24.5 Brix by refractometer
• 1.11 specific gravity
• 3.5 pH
• 50 F
• Must volume: 30 * 18.5 * 45 = 24975 cu in = 108 gallons
• Grape weight = 108 * 8.35 = 902 lbs
• Estimated wine = 900/16 = 56 gallons wine ~ 60 gallons wine
• Sulphite addition: 50 ppm = 197 mL of 10% stock meta

We will cold soak for 4 days. On monday I’ll take a sample to Vinquiry for analysis, and maybe start the Femrne t Monday night or Tuesday!

Praying to the wine gods!

Crush crew:

I racked the SB into a single 6.5 gallon carboy, and 3/4 gallon jug. Smells good. Tastes good…grapefruit, crisp. Now let it sit for a month and settle  out. I added 30 ppm SO2.

Also measured the sugars in the zin and syrah…

1. Syrah: 23 Brix; 3.3 pH; Some crunchy   seeds; some still green. Flavors are really good.
2. Zin: 23 Brix; 3.4 pH; Good flavor. The crunchy seeds actually taste pretty good. Skins slightly tannic, but not as much as one might think they should be.

I checked sugars with Clinitest:

Pinot: 0.4%

Sauv Blanc: 0.1% …it is done. Time to rack…hopefully tomorrow morning.

Also, here are some picures of the pinot and SB…

and a friend who was living in the ceallar…hopefully not drinking any of my wine!

Once again I have a serious H2S problem. The pinot is stinky! This is really frustrating. As far as I know, I am doing everything right!

I racked it yesterday, and again this morning, with lot’s of splashing. It helped a lot, but it is still there. I don’t want to keep doing the rack and splash, as it will eventually get too much O2 in the wine, and then I’ll have different problems.

The ferment is almost done. The sugars were at 0.6%, by Clinitest. My next step is copper sulphate to remove the H2S. I’ll post in a few forums to see if there is any other solution…but splashing and copper sulphate are the only solutions  I have read about.

I sampled the grapes this morning and took down some numbers:

• Zinfandel: 21.5 Brix; 3.3 pH. Some of the seeds were brown and crunchy, some still green. Lots of cluster problems (turkeys, raisins, green berries). There won’t be much zin this year.
• Block 3 syrah: 22 Brix; 3.3 pH. Clusters look really good here. Again, some crunchy brown seeds, some still green. We need another week on this. It is going to be  a very warm week…in the 80’s. That should be good for the grapes.

I checked the sugars today (and managed to drop the wine thief into the carboy..).

• 1 Brix by hydrometer

So there is probably a week left before it goes totally dry..It has taken 1 week to ferment. That is actually pretty fast. I would have like two or three weeks. Oh well, it is almost done.

Also, there is a very slight H2S smell. Not enough to do anything. It goes away when I take a sample for tasting. It  will probably blow off when I rack it.

The taste is very crisp, citrus, very acidic. I will be doing a cold stabilization on this wine this winter.

After pressing the Pinot yesterday, I took a sampling of grapes in the Block 3 syrah:

• 21 Brix
• 3.2 pH

Those numbers look good. We just need a few more weeks of ripening! And the weather forcast looks pretty good right now.

I checked the sugars…5 Brix.

Because of the intensity of the tannins, and the bitterness, I decided to go ahead and press off the  skins and seeds. I started with about 12 gallons of must, and ended up with maybe 7 gallons of pressed wine, in a 6 gallon carboy plus two 1 gallon jugs.

There is still quite a bit of the ferment to finish, so I will keep the glass up in the wine making room, which is a bit warmer than the cellar.

The bladder press worked great! It is a 90L press, or about 22 gallon. I prefilled it most of the way, so that the 12 gallons of must would fill the press the rest of the way. I was off only by a few inches. I got about 4-5 gallons of free run, the other 2 gallons of press run.

The carboys are topped with airlocks, and are bubbling away as the ferment completes….hopefully within a week or so. I also put in the 4 wood staves into the 6 gallon carboy for the rest of the ferment.

The SB looks good. The browning in the must is gone. I am not sure why. I wonder if the CO2 content makes it go away? Or maybe the yeast produces enough SO2?

I added 2 g each carboy of FermaidK. (First half of 1 g/gallon…1/2 /gallon * 4 gallons)

The aromas were extremely citrusy, just like all the SB’s I have made. I just don’t know how to hang on to them at the current strength! Looking good!

I stopped by the cellar just now.

• Sugar at 7 Brix. it is almost done. I should press tomorrow.
• Temp at 78F. So it never got as warm as I wanted, but not too bad.
• I think I smelled some H2S. I put in the 2nd half of the FermaidK. It should have gone in at 15 Brix. I missed it!
• In tasting in a seperate jar, I got no H2S. Just very yeast must. But there was a distinct bitterness and noticeable tannins. I don’t know if any of this is going to dissipate. I hope so, as it won’t be drinkable if it doesn’t!

After punching down the Pinot, I checked the SB in the cellar. It now has a steady bubbling going, so the ferment has started, though slowly. The ferment smells fine, so far. I have not used any nutrients in the SB.

Checked on ths Pinot this evening.

• 17 Brix. The ferment is really moving now. That is 5 or 6 Brix in a day.
• 75 F…so it is warming up, as it should be. I am not sure I’ll ever get the must to 80. We’ll see.
• Big cap tonight. Punch down was a lot of fun.
• Smelled great. Taste was good, with a strong sour component. That may be the acidity coming though, but it seemed like it was something more that that. We’ll just have to wait and see. It is funny, but I still don’t get the Pinot character. Hopefully, at some point that will come through.
• Tomorrow I will add the final nutirent addition.

I spent a couple of hours on the SB.

1. The SB has been settled over night, so I pumped the juice off the sediment layer. I started with around 9 gallons, and ended up with about 8 gallons. I pumped equally into 2 5 gallon carboys, which leaves some space (hopefully not too much) at the top.
2. I mixed up a batch of Prise de Mouse yeast, per the Lallemand Yeast Rehydration procedure
   • 10 g yeast (1g / gallon)
   • 12.5 g GoFerm re-hydrated in 250 mL H2O
3. I added it to the carboys, and put on the airlocks. Let the fun begin!
4. The room temperature is 66 F, which is a little warm. I may have to use an ice bath to bring down the temperature.