Wine Library TV Vin de Pays

Really, I just couldn't resist.

And the ancestral equipment migrates to Staten Island

Bernardo and Laura just carted off the old press, crusher, bottler, washer, carboys and assorted gear.

We salute you, vintners of Richmond County!

Shopping list, 2010 pre grapes

(Yeah, this is like my Aug. 1 post, only with a little more urgency.)
OK, destemmer and stand already ordered.
Much of our other equipment will be going to B's new place on Staten Island, so here's a list of what we're looking to acquire, with notes. 

Primary fermentation tanks,

• at least one 44 gal., one 32 gal.,  one ten gal.  James Guido thinks he can get them for us at a commercial restaurant supply here in NY.  We'll know on Monday, Aug. 30.  Food grade: would like to avoid plain trash cans.  Lids yes, dollies no.
• one 50 gal purchased @ Lapide, 8/29/2010
• another 50 gal @ Lapides, 9/4/2010
• We have plenty of 5 gallon buckets already on hand.  
• We'll want additional large fermenters if Mike and Pam want to make a different wine than S&L&P.

Bottling:

• corker, 
• Portuguese floor corker @ Lapide, 8/29/2010
• bottle washer, 
• @ TP&S, 8/29/2010
• large plastic funnels (2), 
• @Bowery Restaurant Supply, 8/30/2010
• 12 feet of 3/8" tubing, 
• @TP&S, 8/29/2010
• 150 colmated corks (for the remainder of our productions still in carboys).  
• 100 @TP&S, 8/29/2010

We can get this either from Presque Isle or one of the other houses we've used, or from Terminal Market.

Secondary fermentation, aging:
another stainless steel variable capacity tank is what we would really love to get, but it's a little too rich for us this year after the destemmer, so

• just more carboys.  M&P own four, S&L own two, but two have P's 2007 Cab. S. in them, and three have 2009 wines in them.  I think we're going to want to have a total of 10 empty at press time at the end of next month.  Probably best to buy these at Terminal Market.  
• one 5 gal cb @ TP&S, 8/29/2010
• 3 more 5 gal cb @TP&S, 9/4/2010 
• 6 more 5 gal cb @ TP&S 9/18/2010
• We'll also want new caps and bubblers for these, which I'll order from P.I.
• 6 caps & bubblers @ TP&S, 9/4/2010

Chemicals, additives, tests:

• KS02, 
• 2 # ordered 9/6/2010 from MoreWine.
• malolactic bugs.  
• ordered 9/6/2010 from MoreWine - enough for 66 gal. 
• Anyone want any extracting enzymes?  (I'm willing to pass on these this year, though I've been the one who's suggested them in the past.)
• Clinitest (which I think I might like to use for the white wine)
• Accuvin acid tests
• Tartaric acid ordered 9/6/2010 from MoreWine.

Stemmer, no crusher, it's official

Laddies and lassies, it's official.  After much back and forth the House has decided to go with destemming and no crushing.  The final nudge came from Alison's Crowe's entry on the topic in the Wine Makers Answer Book.  So, we're there.  We've ordered the Eno 10-S (pictured above) with the standard height stand, which will accommodate a 5 or 10 gal bucket under the chute.  We'll destem and not crush, trusting that there will be enough gentle damage to the grapes in the process to put the juice into contact with the yeast.  And if we're wrong, Lori goes into the tub with the grapes. Purchase was from St. Pats.

2009 yield notes for the Merlot blend

As we're getting ready for 2010, here's a red wine yield guideline:

2009:

• 7 x 36# Merlot +
• 2 x 36# Cab S. +
• 1 x 36# P. Syrah
• ------------------
• 25 gal. pressed, fermented juice
• - 1.5 gal. in 1st rack
• - 1.5 gal. in 2nd rack and carelessness
• = 22 gal. finished wine
• = 100 to 110 bottles

10 cases require five 5 gal carboys plus smaller vessels.
10 cases require either a 50 gal primary, or two smaller primaries

Field trip: North Fork

Might as well mention here that we spent some time on the North Fork earlier this month, visiting the Shinn Estate, Sherwood House (right next door to Shinn in Mattituck), the Tasting Room in Peconic, and then dipping down to the South Fork to visit Channing Daughters.  We bought wine everywhere (Comtesse Thérèse at the Tasting Room). 

We spent two nights in the farmhouse and Shinn, and were blown away by how much farmland is still there - OK, now that's where we're moving.  Chatted with Barbara Shinn and were free to walk the vineyard which we did a couple of times (and sat out by the vines all dark and starry one night with a bottle of their 9 Barrels.  Be there).

Also loved Sherwood House.  The vineyard is zoned for agriculture only, no permanent structures, so the tasting room is a shed on blocks and a bunch of rustic (ahem) furniture in the field and under a tent.  Walked in from Shinn. (Sherwood's built a 2nd tasting room, a real one with walls and floors and all that somewhere else: we ain't going.)

We're going back to Shinn 9/11 for a vertical tasting of their Merlot.  And staying again at the farmhouse.

A funny thing happened on the way to dumping the 2008 Cab. S.

Prepping the cellar for the 2010 production.

We have a plumber coming in (Jimmy) who is going to put a spigot in the front of the cellar so we can have a hose more easily up front, replace a few valves, extend some pipes to the back cellar well so we can turn things on and off from out back, and put in a slop sink.  The sink should save a hell of a lot of trips up and down the stairs.

I bottled another cb of the 2009 Merlot blend, and it's tasting very nice.  Will be the main red for next year's party.

And then came the biggy:  the dumping of 60 liters of the 2008 Cab. S.  Lori said, Let's just taste it once more before we dump it.  Because, you know, stranger things have happened.  I mean, if the British secret service could plot the death of Princess Diana...

And guess what?
It's wildly improved.  All the aftertaste issues are gone.  The taste is almost OK.  Color is good.  Alcohol is good.  So we're not going to dump it.  I cleaned the tank, added a very little KSo2 and sealed it back up.  Maybe we'll taste it again on it's 2nd birthday, about 40 days from now.

Cellar prep, decisions

Lori and I have decided on a stainless steel hopper crusher destemmer, with an appropriate stand.  (I nearly swallowed my tongue when Lori started leaning toward stemmer crushers with must pumps...)  Not yet decided on manual or motor - I'm leaning toward manual.  (Aside from the motor, many of the powered versions have screw augers rather than the agitator paddles like we have on our plain crusher.)

B will be making wine on SI, so for sure we'll be moving equipment there and ordering more for 11th St.

Will also order two 32 gallon and one 10 gallon food grade primaries (or look to see if the same can be had locally).  Carboys I'll wait on until I know who else is in and out.

I've set up a 2010 Timing sidebar.  The 18th is out for Lori, so it looks like the September 25th is our crush date.  I've thrown in other dates based on that.  (Track the grapes you want at M&M's harvest pages.  The 11th could turn out to be a better date, though not likely.)  Of course, if our dream comes true and we can get premium grapes dropped shipped here, we'll work whatever date the grapes arrive.

In the cellar...
It's damned crowded and dirty down there.  Spent a part of yesterday cleaning things out.  Will bottle another CB of 2009 Merlot blend today, to make a bit more room.  Need to repaint the floor and the ceiling over the winemaking area.  We'll be calling a plumber tomorrow to see if we can get new valves and a slop sink installed before crush date.

Time to be seriously thinking and prepping for the 2010 production

(For anyone looking in - I'm going to refine this over the next couple of days.  Shout if you want something included - fact or opinion.  S.)

Well, it's not shocking, but we haven't done much in the way of prepping for this year's production yet.  Here's what I've been thinking.

Who's in, and how far in?

• Pietro?
• Bernardo and Laura?
• Pam and Mike?
• Sebastian?
• Len and Annie?

Is every one wanting to make their own wine, or just wanting to get wet?  If making your own wine, how much and red or white?  I'm assuming that Lori & Peter and I will pool our grapes again.  I'm guessing the House will make a red and a white, hopefully much more white than last year, but still will likely do the white primary fermentation in carboys, unless we use the steel tank.  I think the max number of primary fermentation barrels we've had going in the cellar at one time is three.  Lori, can we fit four?  It's not obvious.


Where will be be getting our grapes from?
We need to decide whether we're going with Central Valley grapes (from the terminal market here in Brooklyn) or whether we want to choose from other parts of CA or from WA or OR.  For the latter three we would have to go to M&M in Hartford or find another supplier (and there is one in southern Jersey, I think.)  Hartford adds either an over-night and 2.5 hours, or 5 hours to day 1.  Unless we can get the grapes shipped here.  I'll start researching.

When is day 1?  When is day 8?
Saturdays in September are the 4th, 11th, 18th, 25th.  If we go with grapes from outside the Central Valley, then the date might get determined by harvest, but if in the CV then certainly there will be grapes at terminal market on the latter three weekends, and probably the first, too.  If we get to set our own date, I'd suggest the 18th with the 25th backup date.  For red wine makers, that means pressing on the 26th or October 3 (Sundays) or possibly 1 to 3 days later, mid-weeks, if fermentations go slowly.

What equipment do we need to purchase?
Depends. 

We have our press (and need to bet Bernardo's press to S.I.)

We have a crusher, but Lori and I have been talking about buying a new crusher / destemmer to save an hour or two of labor each year.  Pricey, but it is backbreaking labor.  Lori and I need to decide this week or so.

If B wants to make wine on S.I., we need to get the existing primary tanks to S.I..  And, even if he doesn't, since they aren't stored at 11th Street, we might find it good to purchase.  Research time.  Food grade, or 32 gal heavy duty trash?

There are lots of carboys, but again we need to figure out if B wants to move them, or some of them, to S.I. for wine making there.  We won't need any for day 1 except for white wines.  We can figure it out as we go (and visit terminal market on day 8), or work it out before hand.  What I think we'll definitely need to do in the next few weeks is bottle some of the 2009 reds to free some carboys and to make some room.  (And pitch the failed Cab. S. from 2008 to free up even more room.)  We have 4 1 gal jugs and a couple of 3 gal carboys: need more?

Funnels, buckets, masher, thermometers, refractometer, regular and low-scale hydrometers are all in hand. 

Test kits, chemicals, yeasts
I'd like to order everything in mid August and not sweat any last minute needs.  I'd like to test total acid, ph, sugar, free SO2.  Depending on the reds we buy, I'd like to force malolactic fermentation, and will buy appropriate bugs whether we use them or not.  Maybe enzymes for extraction.  More meta.  Maybe yeast nutrients.  Anything else anyone wants?

Need to 2x check whether a ph meter seems worth the cost.