(Our neighbor, Michael Hearst, snapped this while we were culling bad grapes in the destemmer hopper)
So, yesterday morning at about 8:30 Steve & Mike headed to Terminal Market and picked up 8 42# lugs of Pagnini Muscat Treasure - same grapes as last year, but double the quantity and much more expensive than last year - $40. (I have last year's Muscat recorded at $34. A result of this year's late harvest? Are we getting grapes from small early shipments?) Brought a refractometer with us, and the grapes looked to be just above 21 Brix - about the same as the sugar content of last year's Muscat (started on Sep. 27, 2009).I couldn't stop myself from also buying the 100 liter Poly Graf fermenter Lori and I have been eying over the last month.That has to be the end of this year's gear lust. No?
A quick unload of the grapes at the house, Mike went off to get Pam & Carmello, Peter arrives, S & Pe and L start setting up the works. We decide to do everything we can out of doors this year, so the new destemmer and the press both wind up in front of the house, and only the Poly Graf goes downstairs. We get to use the hoses to our hearts' delights (thank you, Jimmy, for the plumbing work).
The work takes on a nice flow - lugs get opened and dumped into the destemmer hopper, 2, 3 or 4 of us pick them over and chat, the destemmer gets fired up, the grapes get transferred to the press where someone futzes with them a bit while the next lug gets loaded into the hopper for picking over. As free run or press juice reaches a couple of gallons under the press it gets carried downstairs to the fermenter.
The grapes were delicious. (Some of them wound up on our late lunch cutting board.) I think condition was better than last year overall, but some of the lugs where better than others. Raisins and broken grapes, a leaf here and there, a fair number of browned broken grapes.
The destemmer worked incredibly well, which is maybe counterproductive for pressing this white but you can see that it's going to save us hours of work on our reds. I think destemming was way over 90% and much of the fruit was whole.
Pressing was just as disappointing as last year in terms of yield. I think we got about 60 liters from the 8 lugs. After we pressed the first four lugs we got into the habit of a couple of us crushing the grapes by hand in the press basket, and I think this made a significant difference. We also crushed each full basket twice - redistributing the grapes and starting again. We also added about 4 inches of blocks to our collection to get a little more oomph.
At some point Mello stopped enjoying himself, Mike took him and Pam home, we started the cleanup (Peter and Lori were heroic), Mike returned, we got the press stowed downstairs and the destemmer out back. Unless we have real bad whether, the destemmer will get used out front again when we do the reds, but the press will likely be used downstairs, next to the primary fermenters for the reds.
Late afternoon now - Accuvin TA test put the acid at about 7.5, where we want it to be - and the must measured at something like 21 or 21.5 Brix in the hydrometer. I added about 1/4 tsp. KS02 per 10 gallons - so about 3/4 tsp. in total, to get us to about 50 ppm. This is part of my fixation in 2010 that we pay more attention to oxidation and try to retain more of the fruit character and stop being the only home wine makers in the world who don't add brother sulfur at this point.
We prepped the yeast (Red Star Montrachet - really wanted to use a white-specific yeast, but didn't get it together in time to do so and this is the only yeast Lapide carries year after year): used three 5 gram packages, which is what the manufacturer would recommend. Thinking about it now as I'm writing, I think it would have been better to use a good deal less and let the fermentation start a good deal more slowly. Next year.
Popped open one of the last three bottles of the 2009 Muscat with lunch. Then popped open a second. It's possible that only Peter and I drank the second one, after which I added the yeast to the must and Peter fell asleep on our couch. Then a wash-up and change of clothes and it was 5 PM - a full day of very sticky white wine making.
At 11:30 PM tested temperature in the ferm, and it was low 70's and the yeast action seemed to have taken hold all across the very broad surface of the tank. Will start icing it down this morning.
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