2012 Merlot, racked off the gross lees, day 34 (Nov 22)

Happy Thanksgiving!

We took the opportunity of having the morning at home to get the Merlot off the gross lees.  Yes, we should have done this a week ago, but there was a lot of life intervening.

Went from 5+5+5 to 5+5+3+1+.750 ml, loosing less than a gallon.

2012 Merlot, Day 25 (Nov 13): tiny bubbles

Three days after pressing and having very quiet carboys, all four of them have started a gentle burping, about twice a minute.  Could be the last of the primary, but might be MLF.  We still haven't pitched the bugs.

Anisette diversion - first of the Fall

A few weeks back I started a triple-batch of anisette using my usual spice ratios, but when I went to strain and sweeten it last night I decided to go with a 1 to 1 syrup rather than 2 to 1.  Nice.  I left it in a Tito's jug.  Next time it'll be a septuple batch and we'll fill the jug.

I'm looking forward to sitting out in the dark this evening, with the anisette.  Maybe build a little fire in the barbie.  

2012 Reds, Day 23 (Nov 11): SO2

On the strength of the Enoferm Beta data sheet's representations about SO2 and the worry, anyway, that we might not be able to maintain MLF-friendly temps in the cellar this far into November, I bolted ahead and added 10 ml of 10% meta solution to each of the 5 gal Merlot and Cab Franc carboys last night, and 6 ml to the 3 gal.  That should bring things from just about zip to about 30 ppm.  I'll breath easier.

2012 Merlot, Day 22 (Nov 10): Pressed!!

Jah, can you believe it?  Lori and I pressed today, at 0.3 Brix!  Three weeks of primary fermentation - something we'd never seen anything like before.

20 gallons - 15 of it free run (5+5+5) and the last 5 mixed about 2 free and three pressed.

Lori feeding the press

The Merlot carboys

Happy family!

Cake.  Or, as the Russian couple who took over Aiello's and about whom the old guys at Rainbow used to say "They're restaurant people!  They have no business in retail!", "Kek!"

Do we add MLF bugs tonight?  I think we need to do that, and try to keep the cb's warmer than the cellar, or throw in the malolactic towel and add meta.

Re Enoferm Beta, from its own fact sheet:

• Acclimatised to tolerate high levels of SO2: maximum 50 – 60 ppm total SO2

I take that t mean we can at least get a moderate t low dose of SO2 in there, for both the Merlot and the Cab Franc, and still go forward with MLF.  And the temperature range seems fore forgiving than a lot of what I read:

• Good tolerance to low temperatures: minimum 14°C (57°F)

Though more general pieces indicate:

Red wines: have an optimum temperature for a favourable MLF of around 70º F (20º C), which is cool enough to limit alcohol toxicity and yet warm enough to maintain full activity.
...
Note that if the temperature of the wine will be falling colder than the recommended range before the MLF has finished (for example: it is not temperature controlled and the cellar temperature drops during the winter), it is important that the ML bacteria has a chance to at least establish itself as the dominant strain in the wine at the recommended temperatures before the wine gets cold. In other words, having one or two weeks at 70º F and then having the temperature slowly drop is better than trying to get the MLF under way at 57º–60ºF right from the start.

Let's see what sort of warmer cave we can build for the reds under MLF.

2012 Merlot, Days 16 - 18 (Nov 4 - 6)

Post Sandy, with me being away from the house so much fitting out new workspace, and Lori being in the house so much working here while her office comes back on line, she's become the full time winemaker.  It is her talking to the wine that has kept it fermenting as  the outdoor and cellar temps drop.

Nov 4, 800: Wine is at 71 F and the cellar at 65.

Nov 5, 1200: Wine is at 70 F and the cellar at 66.  Lori uses the space heater to try to keep the must warmer.

Nov 5, 1900: Wine is at 72 F with a huge cap, cellar is at 65.

Nov 5, 2300: Wine is at 73 F, 3 Brix, the room is at 65.  Hallelujah, we've reached an acceptable pressing point.  Lori writes the partners.  Can we press morning or night, Election Day?

Nov 6, 600: Wine is at 71 F, 2.5 Brix, cellar is at 64.  Turning the heat back on the fermenter for two hours.

2012 Merlot, Day 15 (Nov 3)

800: Room 69 F, must 72 F, 5.2 Brix.

Was hoping we might have had a productive night so switched to the short scale hydrometer (-5 to +5).  Looks like the manufacturer took into account the human need to use a shiny toy too soon, and put an extra three hash marks on the +5 side and that's how I read 5.2.  Our regular hydrometer said 5.

We have to make some decisions about pressing.  The reality is that there is no chance at all that we can assemble the team during the coming week when we might reach zero Brix.  So likely the best we can hope for is to press Sunday afternoon, and hope that we're at least down to 3.  I'm fine with that - we've had beautiful color since the get-go and we've already had the wine in contact with the skins for 5 days longer than anything we've done before.  I also think I tasted a swing toward bitter this morning - but it really was more likely the state of my wrecked morning mouth.  (I didn't get that last evening.)

2012 Merlot, Day 14 (Nov 2)

Well, hell's still a poppin in the real world.  No morning measurements, but Lori was able to punch down the must a few times during the day and also used the space heater to warm the cellar and must a bit.

2200: Room 70 F, must 73 F and 5.5 Brix.  New wine.

2012 Merlot, Days 12 & 13 (Oct 31 - Nov 1)

Superstorm Sandy has stolen a lot of my time in the last four days.  Here's a bit of catching up.

Oct 31 0600: Room 68 F, must 71.5 F and 10.5 Brix.
Oct 31 2230: Room 65 F, must 70 F and Brix 10.5.

With the weather cooling pretty sharply and the must cooling, too, we decided run the heater for a few hours near the fermenter.

Nov 1 0600: Room 67.5 F, must 70 F and Brix 8.5.  That was a pretty gratifying drop from the previous night.  Ran the heater again this morning for a couple of hours.

Nov 1 2200:  Room 69 F, must 74 F and Brix 7.5.  Lori had punched down in the afternoon and run the heater again.  This is really something now.  With our purposely warming it the must is the warmest it's been through the entire ferment, even though we're clearly winding down.

Because of the hours we've been keeping we still haven't added the MLF bugs to the Cab Franc.  Maybe when we're in the 5 Brix range of the Merlot we'll add the bugs to both wines?

And, will we press this weekend?  Where can we expect to be at on Sunday morning?  60 hours away. The last 60 hours dropped us about 5.5 Brix.  Would we be willing to press at 2?  Usually not, but this time around we'd be at day 16 - double anything we'd done before.

2012 Merlot, Day 11 (Oct 30)

0600:  Room a very cool 65 following the brunt of Sandy.  Must 72 F and 13 Brix.  Let's consider moving the Merlot away from the settling Muscat and putting a space heater by it for a few hours on and off.  Don't want things to cool now if we can help it.

2012 Cab Franc, off the gross lees

Cab Franc gross lees

I only want to see you baby in the purple mud...

At about 11 this morning we racked the Cabernet Franc off of the gross lees, going from 5+3+growler+750 ml yo 5+3+750 ml.  This was around 48 hours after pressing.

It's not so obvious in this photo, but when you look at it full-sized, you can see that the steel racking tube in the back left of the photo is pushed into the very thick lees.

And, now, MLF?  Yes?

2012 Merlot, day 10 (Oct 29)

0630: Room 68.5 F, must 73 F and 15 Brix.

The yeast have converted 40% of the sugar now, 10% of it in the last 24 hours.    The cap is maintaining the same height over the last few days.  While the numbers suggest that the fermentation is accelerating there's no great noticeable difference, either audible or from the look of the fermenting juice when you punch down (though maybe Lori thinks differently about the latter).

1400: Room is cooling a bit, with tropical storm Sandy blowing outside.  Must 73 F.

2100: Room 68 F, must 73 F, Brix 13.

2012 Merlot, Day 9 (Oct 28)

0630: Room 69 F, must 73 F and 18.5 Brix.  3+ inch cap.

I've started updating the chart of measurements again.

1400:  Must 73 F, cap equal to largest so far.

2000: Must 73, Brix 16.  I am suddenly reminded of the song we san in school as kids in the 60's - no doubt in commemoration of an awful exercise of colonization, but we were taught to sing it with gusto: We are marching to Pretoria, Pretoria, Pretoria, we are marching to Pretoria, Pretoria hooray!

2012 Merlot, Day 8 (Oct 27)

1130: Room 69 F, wine 72.5 F and 19.5 Brix.  Seen in the light of yesterday's information, it's all good.

Fermaid-K hydrating in
distilled water.

2200: 73 F and 18 Brix - we're a third of the way through the sugars and we are adding Fermaid-K.  30 grams hydrated in distilled water, and punched through the must.

2012 Cab Franc, Day 8, Pressed

Yip!  We've pressed the Cab Franc.  Just shy of 9 gallons, about 7 of it was free run.  5+3+growler+750ml.

Cab F cake

Color is a sherbet-like milky purple.  Very tart!!  pH seems to have raised in fermentation from 3.57 to 3.73 (or was I dyslexic when I recorded the first number?).   Acid, well, here's the range - somewhere between 3.68 and 4.32 ppt sulfuric, or .575 and .675 % tartaric.  How, you might ask, did I come up with such a ridiculously large range?  Well, I was holding the test tube up next to the really bright light in the cellar and I sort of blinded myself at a critical point.  But the middle of that range would be perfect, and we'll take it for today.  Will test again tomorrow and try not to stare into the light.

We haven't decided exactly how long to let the gross lees settle out - 24 hours?  72?  We'll play it by eye.

From this point forward I think I'll post separately about the Cab F and the Merlot, since they are taking completely different paths.

2012 Reds, Day 7 (Oct 26)

600: Virtually no change in the last 7 hours in the Merlot.  71.5 F and 21 Brix.  Three inches of cap and  plenty of bubblegum underneath and audible action, but really the numbers are what you'd expect at the end of day 2 or start of day 3, not at the start of day 7.

We've ordered enough MT to treat the batch as stuck.  We would do that tomorrow at the soonest.  We can also try heating batches of the must to 90-95 F and re-integrating them with the whole must (Crowe).  And I've taken a cup of the Cab Frank, which is still full of happy critters even though it's down in the zero Brix range, and laid it into the Merlot: maybe they'll make friends and play.

When we were all researching our situation yesterday Lori found this post from a Yakima Valley winemaker (John Rauner) and sent it around in email.  Keep in mind, our grapes are from the same region, and our Brix and pH are also just as he describes.  I'm excerpting:

The Merlot that we make at the Yakima River Winery in Washington's Yakima Valley is a big, extracted, full-bodied wine. We age half of the wine in two-year-old barrels and half in new barrels for two years. The Yakima Valley Merlot has a red raspberry and brown spice (nutmeg-clove and cinnamon) flavor.

To make a wine like ours the grapes need to be very small, with a sugar level of 23.5° to 25° Brix with a pH of 3.2 to 3.4 and a total acid of 0.78. The higher Brix level gives the wine a richer mouthfeel than wine made from grapes at 22° Brix. If your pH is too high -- 3.7 to 4 -- you might want to blend in 20 percent Cabernet Franc or Cabernet Sauvignon; this will lower the pH.

Don't worry about the sugar as much as the pH...

...Try to ferment your Merlot at 82° to 86° F (28° to 30° C). This will give you good color from the skins and a rich mouthfeel.

[sjl: He describes his MLF process here.  Ours is different.  but that's still in the future.]

Push down the skins during the fermentation three times a day to keep the cap (fermenting skins) wet. A good yeast for a complex Merlot is Pasteur Red, while EC1118 creates a cleaner, fresher finish. It's best to stay away from Montrachet, because it produces hydrogen sulfide.

I like to keep Merlot on the skins for 14 to 21 days during fermentation. When fermentation is complete, keep your must covered with carbon dioxide. One indication that fermentation is complete is when all the skins sink and no more carbon dioxide is given off. But probably a more reliable way to tell is to use a pill test, taste the wine, or test the Brix with a hydrometer. Press and settle out, then rack within 24 hours to your oak barrels if you have the quantity or to carboys if you lack sufficient quantities (settling is when all the solids drop to the bottom of your carboy, and racking is when you remove all the clear wine from the solids).

Even though our temps are nowhere, it's interesting to hear him keeping the juice on the skins for as long as he does.  Because, brothers and sisters, it seems like that's where the wine is taking itself.

1700: Yes, OK?  I took off early from work to stare at the wine.
Merlot is 72 F, 3 inch cap.  Seems less audible, but n the other hand it seems literally warmer above the cap than the temp would indicate.  Not just wishful.

And Lori just texted this:

Spoke with our vineyard - good news - we're not stuck!  Took notes...

And this just in from Lori:

I spent about 20 minutes this afternoon speaking with Matt, a winemaker at Two Mountain winery in Washington, the source of our grapes from M&M. Here's some of what he said: 

That Washington grapes are not like California grapes. (He said he just met with someone from Gallo who said they purchased land near Two Mts. The Gallo man said, I want to do a cold soak" Two Mt man said- "No need for that- these are Washington grapes!"   

I read to him specifics from our blog re the progress of the fermentation and he didn't feel it was a problem at all. He said he has 12 tons of grapes doing the same thing right now in the winery. He said that after 7 to 9 days of no brix movement at all, that's when he might worry. 

He said that as long as there is a cap and some bubbling, it's still fermenting. It may seem slow, but it should be fine. Suggested that normally with Washington grapes, they try to wait until the grapes are warm before adding yeast. 

To remedy, he suggested a few things:

• to add Ferm-aid or another yeast nutrient.
• to put a space heater near the container to warm it up.

He loves to talk about it and said if we're nervous in a few days and after doing the above, to not hesitate to call. 

I love it!

2012 Reds, Day 6 (Oct 25)

0530:  Room 69 F, Cab Franc 74 F and 0.6 Brix, Merlot 71.5 F and 22 Brix.

Time for a pow wow.  Do we consider the Merlot stuck, and take corrective actions, or do we trust to the very slow fermentation to be generating enough CO2 to keep the juice from spoiling?  If we're taling action, and it's Thursday AM and we're using a yeast not available locally, we need a decision early enough for a supplier to ship overnight.

The Cab Franc, on the other hand, has been a perfect houseguest.  We can plan to press on Saturday and likely be done in an hour.

2300: Room 67 F, Cabernet Franc 71.5 F, Merlot 71 F and 21 Brix.

What can we say?  Let's at least prepare for heating a few gallons of the Merlot Must tomorrow morning to 90 F and incorporating it mack nto the fermenter.

2012 Reds, Day 5 (Oct 24)

Repeat after me: I am not worried about how slowly the Merlot is fermenting, I am not worried about how slowly the Merlot is fermenting, I am not worried about how slowly the Merlot is fermenting...

600:  Room 68 F, Merlot 71 F, Cab Franc 74.5 F.

 The Cab Franc is fine, happy, driving onward.  Not going to fuss too much about the sugar levels.  As fermentation falls off further I'll take readings.  No issue with it not reaching the weekend for pressing.

The Merlot, on the other hand.  Good lord, what's it waiting for.  A couple of inches of cap, and a fair early phase of fermentation underneath, but only a single degree rise in temps.  Anyone home?

1900:  The Merlot looks much as this morning, no temperature rise, but it has lost a couple of points Brix - measuring 22.5 now.  Small blessings.  The color is totally kick-butt - I don't think anything in the cellar has looked that rich so early since we used Alacante Bouchet and it's back juice to blend with the 2006 Zin.

But it's all cool, because tonight while we're sleeping upstairs the Merlot is going to break out into a major sweat, it's going to go torrid, jump 5 degrees F and blow off a quarter of it's sugar.  I know it.  Guaranteed.

2012 Reds, Day 4 (Oct 23)

6:00:  Room 63 F.  Merlot 70 F, Cab Franc 74 F.

Lots of sizzle from the Cab F.  A little less so from the cooler Merlot, but both are in very good shape.  The color of the Merlot is really extraordinary.  Won't take Brix readings until this evening.  Just from temp, the Merlot is about 24 hours behind the Cab F.

The Cab F was so loud I tried to get an audio recording of it on my phone.  You'll need to turn your audio way up, and I don't have a quick way to embed the audio - you'll have to download it - but here it is... Cab F talking.

1600: Well, it's a little odd, isn't it.

Room 66 F.  Cab Franc 74.5 F and 7.5 Brix.  OK.
Merlot 70 F and still reading 25 Brix.  That's a puzzler.  There was a couple of inches of cap and strong fermentation underneath, but the sugar level doesn't seem to be budging, and there was no temperature rise over 10 hours.  What, me worry?

Re the Cab Franc, it's time to nail down when we want to add MLF bugs and when we want to add meta - but only because in our earliest wines that we added bugs to, we did so at the end of primary ferm.  MoreWine's recommendation for Enoferm Beta is that it be added after racking off the gross lees.  So, go dry, press, settle, rack off lees & add Enoferm-B.  Dah?  Looking back at 2010, it was day 16 or so that we added the bugs.  But then do we add Meta before the bugs - at pressing / dry?  Seems like yes, to protect the wine (no more CO2 being produced) and seems like no, to prevent inhibiting the MLF.  Isn't it amazing that we ask ourselves the same questions every year?

2012 Reds, Day 3 (Oct 22)

600:  We marked the must levels in the fermenters last night so we'd be able to get a quick fix on when they start forming a cap.  And the slight rise has begun - about an inch of difference.  Vive la différence.  Opening the lid of the Merlot there's an immediate hello in your nose.  Not yet from the Cab. Franc, but there's also a heck of a lot less of it.

Room 66 F, Merlot 66.5 F, Cab Franc 69 F (wins the race to get above ambient temp).
We'll punch down a little later this morning and take Brix readings, too.  And I've updated the measurements spreadsheet and will keep it going through the primary ferm.

Lori punching down the Merlot at about 7 AM.

700: We punched.  The Merlot is still only budging a few inches, but you can see in the photo that the fermentation is very active.  The Cab F punches clear to the bottom (but, again, there's a lot less of it.)

20:30: Holy corona!  Giant divergence between the two reds.  Room 67 F...

• Merlot 69 F, still about 25 Brix.
• Cab Franc 73 F, 12 Brix!

The Cab F has lost nearly half it's sugar 54 hours after pitching the yeast, meaning it's already time to add the next round of nutrients. Damned fast, and still at very low temps (though heat could be dissipating because there's relatively little must in a big vessel - lots more surface space to volume than the Merlot?).  I'll reach out to the partners and get their nod.

Meanwhile, the Merlot, while clearly bubba-dub-bubbling away seems to have lost very, very little sugar.

---

Merlot in hydrometer tube

Color sidebar:
I'm hoping someone snapped pics of the hydrometer tube on Saturday when we did the initial Brix measurements of the two wines.  The Cab F was yellowish, while the Merlot was lemonade pink.  The Merlot started coloring very quickly in the fermenter.  I didn't get very good shots this evening, but as you might be able to see below, it's damned purple already.  And, meanwhile, the Cab F is darker than pink lemonade, but not anyone's notion of deep.

---

22:00: Pitched 12 grams of Fermaid-K hydrated in distilled water into the Cabernet Frank.  Salute!

2012 Reds, Day 2 (Oct 21)

8:30:  Room is 66.5 and both musts are 63.5.  Fermentation has taken hold.  You can press into both wines a few inches - no cap yet but the juice is starting to flow out from the grapes.  Bubblegum froth when you disturb the surface.

---

Yeast quantity sidebar:

Some of yesterday's angst surrounded the labeling on the yeasts purchased from MoreWine, which refers to must volumes.  Checking through the usual sources this morning I see that Alison Crowe refers to expected liquid yield rather than must.

MoreWine says:
1 gram yeast to 1 gallon must

Crowe says
0.7 to 1.0 gram yeast to 1 gallon liquid yield.

If you read MoreWine's use of "must" as liquid yield, you're in.  If you read it as destemmed grapes sitting in the fermenter, you're out.  I suppose we can ask them which way the wind blows

---

Oh, my.  Mihai and Colleen has sent an amazingly great batch of pictures of the yesterday's  winemaking.  We'll get a slideshow mounted, but for now:

1600: The Cab F has warmed to 65 F, the Merlot is still hanging out around 64.  Pretty typical 24 hour point - bubblegum, but no snap crackle pop.

---

Second yeast sidebar:

Cast your minds back to 2010.  Yeah, I know, it's fuzzy.  But the blog postings are still there.  We had the same discussion re whether to base yeast amounts on expected yield or on destemmed grape quantities.  We went with the former.

We also had a quandary that year about when to pitch the yeast, because the grapes were about 10 degrees colder than this year.  (The difference between having them delivered in a refrigerated truc and in Karen's minivan?)  We waited in 2010 until 9 AM of day 2, by which time we clearly noticed wild fermentation happening.  

2012 Reds, Day 1 (October 20)

7:00
Intense fog here in 11215.  Karen sends this pic of the grapes @ M&M - she's got the goods and is heading east southeast.

Grapes @ M&M.  Gird yourself.

The rest of the day:
Karen and Jake arrived at about 10, and a giant crew started arriving shortly after.  Jon, Doyle, Dan, Nina, Mike, Pam, Carmello, Mihai,  Colleen, Steph.  So many hands that Jon and I absented ourselves for a while to bottle a couple of cases of the 2010 Pooptivo, and so many bodies that we decided to put out a second sorting table so everyone could be hands on.  The quality of the grapes was really excellent - very little to be picked out.

By 2:00 we finishing clean-up  and sitting down to lunch.  (The focaccias with first the Cab Franc berries and then the Merlot berries were yummy.)

The 9 cases of Merlot translated to about 28 gallons of must, and the 4 cases of Cab F translated to about 12 gallons of must.  Merlot was about 25 Brix and 3.27 PH, the Cab F 22 Brix and 3.57 PH.  Both wines tested too low for acid, but I was using old chemicals and will try agin tomorrow with new.

After lunch we prepared MT yeast with GoFerm to boost it.  We purchased a little less yeast than recommended - because we calculated against expected finished wine volumes rather than must volumes.  After a little tension we decided to relax, use what we have and divvy it up and pitch.    There's some minimal fermentation happening already (late evening) but nothing to write home about.

Lots of pictures got taken throughout the day.  Hopefully we'll get some posted tomorrow.

2012 Muscat, Day 15, racked off gross lees

Racked the Muscat off of the gross lees this morning.  All together lost a gallon of volume, going from 5+5+5+1 to 5+5+5.  I gathered some of the mud and put it in a cold spot and will look tomorrow if there's been enough separation to get us 750 ml for topping off.  Did not add any meta, as that was done when we consolidated out of the 100 liter poly.

(Allow me to say that last evening was a late night out with friends hearing music and catching up, and this morning Lori said I smelled of alcohol.  And a half hour later, cleaning the lees from the slop sink I couldn't help but notice that they smelled like alcohol induced puke - like the wine had thrown up.  Not me.)

I worked out a method while racking the third carboy that was a little more efficient and might have saved us a liter of wine, but the images below show what was typical of the first two.

Gross lees in carboy

Volume lost to gross lees in new carboy

2012 11th Street reds are locked in!!

Kids, it's 9 cases of Merlot from Two Mountains (Zillah, WA), and 4 cases of Cabernet Franc from Lanza (Wooden Valley, Suisun, CA). 



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View Larger Map

The plan for 11th Street 2012 reds takes shape

We're targeting Washington State Merlot and Cab. Franc, to be purchased from M&M in Hartford, Saturday October 20.  Grape selection may shift with availability.  Sister Karen & Nephew Jake will bring the groups down and work with us.  We'll likely ferment the varietals separately and then bench-blend.  That will be a first for us.  In past years we've fermented the grapes all together in proportions that mimic commercial bottles we've liked.

Meanwhile these past few days say Autumn.  Cellar temp is down to 65 or so.  Muscat is sending up a bubble every minute or so.  Dead yeast and lees are drifting but not so much yet that you can really see into the wine.  It would be good to rack the wine off of these gross lees on Saturday.

• October 13 -  Likely date to move the Muscat off its gross lees
• October 20 -  Likely red wine day 1
• October 28 -  Likely red wine pressing
• November 10 -  Likely Muscat 1st racking and possible fining

2012 SI Cab Days 2-7

Day 2 Temp increased to 65; the cake was already about 18 inches thick. The froth was already purple, and the must began to produce quite a bit of fizz when we punched down the cake and stirred. Day 3 Temp 70; specific gravity 1.08==19.1 bris. Grapes going red, juice already pink purple, loads of froth and fizz. Cake 2 ft thick Day 4 Temp 72;spec grav 1.045--brix 12.1. Grapes are soft and going limp. They look and feel cooked. The juice is much more alcoholic than sweet--we're at about 11% alcohol on our way to 13.8 or so. The tartaric acid I added--about 3 tablespoons per barrel--took us up from .53 to about .63 acidity. We're not into day 5; day 6 starts Thurs morning at 10. I'm anticipating that we will press about 6 hours into day 7 on Friday afternoon. Predicting brix will be at or very close to 0 by then. Malo bug was introduced. Still no meta. Temp still 72. Day 6 saw a reading of 1.03 and a temp of 70, and on day 7 we got down to about 1.015, which is about 3 brix. Doug at PIWines concurred that we could press even though the must was still producing some froth and fizz. We went 11 large and one small 3 gal cboy for a total of 48 gallons. I'm guessing after racking, we'll have about 43 gallons, which is less than the 50 gals (240 bottles) I was shooting for, following the red rule of thumb that 2 cases of grapes usually yield a 5 gal. But the wind blows for no man and so does the grape. Basement temp is 64, and the cboys are bubbling more than I've seen before. Once they calm down, we'll add some meta and stir up the sediment to flush any yeast out of hiding--I'm guessing two weeks or so. We'll rack a couple weeks later, probably before Thanksgiving.

2012 Muscat, day 12 (Oct 10)

Despite the occasional bubbler pop, the muscat is now reading -1.5 Brix.  I've added a bit more 10% meta solution (another teaspoon to each 5 gallon carboy) and have topped up each carboy with some 2011 muscat.  Should be quiet times until the first racking.

2012 Muscat, Day 11 (Oct 9)

Muscat 1 is bubbling every 4 to 5 seconds, down from every 3 (highly scientific calibration).  Room is at 69.  Took SO2 and PH of both wines.  Muscat 1 3.63 and about 25 ppm.  Ramato 3.7 and about 20 ppm.  Will raise the sulphur in both wines now by about half.

2012 Muscat, Day 9 (Oct 7)

It's turned sharply cooler outside, into the 50's.  The cellar also dipped a bit, to 68 this morning.  The Muscat 1 is still throwing off a lot of CO2 and the ramato none.  Thought it might be worth taking a reading or two.  Muscat 72.5 F abd 0,8 Brix.  Ramato is at -1.5 Brix: dry.  Color differences are becoming a more pronounced as there's a slight bit of settling out.

Peaches & Cream
top up growler of ramato, and
gallon jug of muscat #1.

Shameless plug for Brooklyn Homebrew.  It's really great to have a shop just a few blocks away where we can pick up odds and ends that otherwise would have meant a drive to Terminal Market or ordering by mail.  In the last week we've grabbed hosing that fits the odd-sized spout on our 100 liter poly tank (by fitting inside the spout) and the spout on our 100 liter steel tank (fitting on the outside of the spout, potassium matabisulfite, airlocks, carboy caps, #6 rubber stoppers, a disassembling wine thief, and Titrettes. Ain't life grand?

2012 SI: Cabernet Sauvignon Day One

We bought 16 cases of cab and 4 of merlot from Mrs. Lapide this morning--we were interested in mimicking Coppola's Rosso, but Mrs. L's Syrah was lost in Jersey and the son who lost it was in the doghouse. Grapes excellent--the cab in particular is full of hints and undertones that I can't read at this point. Crushed, specific gravity 1.100, pointing towards a 13.7% wine. Acidity a little low--.52. Adding 50 tsp of Tartaric acid later. 50 grams of yeast already stirred into the three vats. First bubbles showing about 5 hours later. Forgot to note must temp--60. Good numbers

2012 Muscat, day 8 (Oct 6)

Sent out an email call to all hands early this morning - time to press the experimental Muscat 2.  Just an hour of work, I think.  There will only be between 5 and 10 gallons.  Press is cleaned and in place.

6:00: Muscat 1 carboys are still foaming, but not nearly so heavily as yesterday when they were made.  Will clean and refill the airlocks now, but not finish topping up until they are a bit calmer.

The Muscat 2, ramato, cake
 after being pressed

10:00: Finished pressing the ramato and cleaned up, too.  8 gallons plus a growler.  The first 6 + gallons were free run.  Even in it's custardy state it's very noticeably more orange than Muscat 1.  And it is much more still.  (Muscat 1 is still popping the airlocks every couple of seconds.)  Ready to add meta.

14:00: Made a new batch of 10% solution and dosed each of the carboys to bring them up to 30 ppm.

2012 Muscat, Day 7 (Oct 5)

6:00 Room 71.5.  It's been warm the last few days and the room last night was the highest it's been since we started.  Today and tomorrow are forecast to be very warm, but then sharply cooler Monday (by which time we'll have moved the wine.)  With the warmth of the last few days and the fact that there was too much garbage to put out this past Tuesday, the remaining bags of skins - out for collection this morning - are fruit-fly heaven on the curb.  They're fermenting in the bags - which had swollen to near bursting before I punctured them last night.

Muscat 1, 71 F and 4.9 Brix on the short scale hydrometer.  A little below room temp, and I did put new icepacks in to try to keep it that way.

Muscat 2, 79.5 F.  First time it's been below 80 F in 72 hours.  Tasting a little astringent and asking, Why are you doing this to me, Mister?

14:00: Racked & rocked.  My afternoon meetings were cancelled at work and I rushed home to work the Muscat 1.  Easily drained the poly into three 5 gallon carboys and one 1 gallon jug.  (Was actually just a cup or so shy of 16 gallons, and so topped the jug with a bit of the 2010 Muscat production.)  Looks good, kids.  No extraneous skins or pips, and while it was the typical veggie juice consistency there was not much in the way of yeast mud.

The carboys are very happening.  Foam is getting up into the airlocks.  When they are a little calmer maybe we'll top them a bit more.

Tomorrow we press the experimental Muscat 2.

2012 Muscat, Day 6 (Oct 4)

7:00: Room 71.5.

Muscat 1 is on the downward slide.  Not pumping the waterlock.  72 F (even after the larger than previous cooling that went into the wine last night) and down to 7 Brix.  Gone is the thick gloppy lather of yeast, replaced no by more polite fizzing.  By tomorrow morning we may be at or below 5 and will want to transfer the juice. into topped up carboys, on the theory that there will no longer be enough CO2 production to protect the wine from oxidation.

Muscat 2 is still hot - 83 F.  Very thick cap.  (Part of the thickness of the cap comes from the relatively narrow shape of the steel tank compared to what we have used as a primary in the past.  The 100 liter steel tank is about the same height as the 50 gallon drums we usually use.  So the cap is tall.  Probably slower to ferment if a smaller portion of the grapes stay in contact with the juice?)

23:00: Room is warmer than it's been so far - 74 F.

Muscat 1: 73 F, 5 Brix, ready for transfer, though this might not happen until Saturday.  Changed the cooling, though we are now at te cusp of the range where it does not matter much.

Muscat 2: 81 F, still putting up a big cap and still well above ambient temperature.

2012 Muscat, Day 5 (Oct 3)

Outdoors was much warmer overnight than it's been, maybe 10 degrees warmer, but the cellar temp stayed down.

Inside the Muscat 1 poly tank,
with the cooling paddles.
Yeast heaven.

6:00: cellar is 71 F.  Loud down here!  The water trap on Muscat 1 is popping every three or four seconds, and the whole grapes of Muscat 2 are pinging around like the steel tank they are in is a drum.

Muscat 1, 73 F and 11 Brix.  Disappointing on the temperature front.  Comparing it to last year the cellar has stayed cooler this year but the wine warmer.  Right now the wine is 3 degrees warmer and 2 Brix drier.

Muscat 2, though, makes all small worries embarrassing.  It's doing a full blown red style fermentation. 84 F and down to 6 Brix or so.  The juice I'm able to extract and measure is so thick with particles that I'm not wildly confident of the hydrometer reading.  It's ahead of where the last reds we did were at this point.

18:00: Scorched!  Room is 71F.  Muscat 1 is 73 F and 8 Brix, close to ready for transfer to filled carboys.  Muscat 2 is still at 84 F with a very thick cap.  I thought I might try to press it myself this evening or tomorrow morning, but to heck with it.  Am thinking now that I'll let it go still and we can work briefly as a group on the weekend to press it.

Jon brought over a bunch of different ice packs this evening, and they went into Muscat 1 along with the rapi-kools.  Even though there will be little need for temp control once we hit 5 Brix, maybe we can stretch it out one day more than we would have otherwise.

2012 Muscat day 4 (Oct 2)

6:00: Room a bit above 69.

Muscat 1 73.5 F, 15 Brix.  Changed the paddles for 2 out of the freezer, and ditto 2 icepacks.  Relieved to see the temp no higher and that we only burned 2 Brix over 9 hours at the highest temp.  Looks healthy.

Muscat 2, now really caking, and look at the temp: 76!  I won't do anything to try to cool it.  There's enough juice to make filling the hydrometer not an ugly chore: 15 Brix - same as it's skinless cousin.  Here's a low-res view of what punching down the whole-grap muscat looks like:

18:00:  Room 71 F.
Muscat 1 73 F and 12 Brix.  The juice is staying warmer than we want, but as cool as we can keep it without the fabulous frozen Mexican water balloons of yesteryear.

Muscat 2 is up to 82 F and we punch it down but do not take any other readings.

2012 Muscat day 3 (Oct. 1)

San Jamar Rapi-Kool Cold Paddle

6:45 AM: Sharply cooler outdoors overnight, but sharply warmer and more active in the Muscat.

Muscat 1 rose nearly 5 degrees and is now warmer than the celler.  72 F and 20 Brix.  Now it's sounding like it's in full gear.  Changed the ice (I never did say what we're using instead of water ballons: why, it's the San Jamar Rapi-Kool!) and also added a chemical ice pack in a sealed, meta'd bag.

Muscat 2 is also in real ferment now, not yet a cap but enough juice has been released so that it can be punched a bit.  Still no real plan, but it does seem that we'll get a usable amount of juice this way.

18:00: Hot damn!  Room 73 F or just a tad below.  Muscat 1 74 F and 17 Brix.  Need to hit the brakes! Anticipating this from last year's numbers I bought a couple more cold paddles on the way home - not that we have the freezer space for them.  (They are getting to recognize me at the restaurant supply place and gave me the 15% discount for non-civilians.)  Even getting the paddles fridge-cool will be a big help.  So the one paddle and one ice pack in Muscat 1 from this morning came out, replaced by 1 frozen paddle and 2 ice packs.  Will hopefully add a fridge-cooled paddle before bed-time, and in the morning there will be two frozen paddles to put in. We need more cool!

FYI, we're about 50 hours into the process.  Last year at this time we were at 72 F and 18 Brix.  By the next morning we were at 74 F and 16 Brix.

Muscat 2 is at 70.5 F and developing a nice, whole grape ferm.  Punching down you can now get to the bottom of the tank, so lots of juice is letting loose.  Smells!  Tomorrow it will be easy enough to fill the hydrometer  tube and we'll get a Brix reading.  We'll want to pull the juice pretty soon, or we'll be in uncharted territory - past Orange and into the unknown.

2012 Muscat Day 2 (Sep 30)

The pressed Muscat juice in the poly tank.  The mixed crushed muscat grapes and 2nd choice muscat grapes in the stainless steel tank.

8:45 AM - 16 hours after pitching the yeast the juice is covered with yeast animals but no audible or visible fermentation happening yet.  Must temp unchanged, but Brix appears to be down by 2.  Maybe just a better Brix reading than the initial 25, which seemed very high?  Room temp is down a few degrees.  I swapped out the ice bullet for a new one.  Am thinking it would not be bad to buy a third - we can't keep three in the freezer at once, but now that they are in use one or two will always be in the wine.

Obvious slight action on top of the grapes in the steel tank, but again no snap crackle or pop.  Those grapes were very cold to start with (59 F) and are up 3.5 degrees.

3:15 PM: Just a peak,  Wavy thick folds of velvety yeast on the surface of the juice, but no audible or visible percolating.  Bubbling coming up through the grapes of Muscat 2 - kind of a classic whole grape fermentation starting to take hold.

8:00 PM: Brix down to 22 and temp up to 67.5 in Muscat 1.  Lori changed the ice.  Room is at 72, so the ferment is still happening at lower than ambient temperature, which is nice, but we know from past years that it might spike sharply upward.  Will be prepared in the morning to change the ice bullets and also add other ice packs if needed.  Real audible fizzing happening now.  But not so much action as to lift the airlock.

Muscat 2, Muscat of Orange: temp is up to 65 F.  Fizzing, but not enough juice released from the graps to allow for a punchdown yet.

2012 Muscat A Day 1 (Sep. 29)

Perfect day.

Steve & Mike to market at 8:30.  Bought 12 cases of the usual Muscat Alexandria from Mrs. Lapide.  42#, $42 each.  Why 12 and not 10?  One of the gents there gave us a taste of his old, gold Muscato he makes in whiskey barrels - ambient yeast, no racking, 5 years before drinking - and we thought we might make an experiment.

Back at the house by 10.  Unloaded the grapes.  Lori had prepped the focaccia and we popped grapes into the dimples.  Jon arrived just as we were hustling the press and destemmer out of the cellar.  We decided to also go with a sorting table this year.  Doyle arrived a couple of cases into the process, and Mike's buddy Nick dropped in for a while in the middle.  Mike picked up Pam and Carmelo right about then, and we were at full force.  Lots of folks stopped on the street to chat, a few brought their kids in to  taste a grape or look into the scary destemmer as it worked.  One dad, born in Italy and raised in South America, looked longingly at the crushed grapes and yearned for grappa, grappa miel.

The grapes were a mixed bag - not as uniform as last year.  Some boxes nearly perfect, but just as many with lots of bad fruit or raisins.  So with the 12 cases we actually wound up with a slightly smaller yield than with last year's 10 cases.  Lets say just above 65 liters.

And here's the experiment:
We took about 60 liters of mixed crushed grapes and less than perfect grapes and put them in a tank to ferment on the skins.  For how long?  We don't know.  A few days?  Until fully dry?  We don't have any set expectations and it won't cost us anything but labor.  My guess is that when we have any significant amount of free run going under the cap we'll drain that off and finish fermenting along side the original pressed juice.

Measurements?
The day was overcast and hovered around 70.  The cellar was a few degrees warmer.  The individual boxes and grapes tested all over the place, but the crushed juice was at 25 Brix, 3.77 PH.  We did not sulfite during the crush this year (why?  forgetfulness).  We pitched standard Montrachet Red Star yeast at about 4 PM - mixed at our late lunch table (last year's wine, 2nd focaccia, cheese:  could have added a roast animal.  Next time.)

Clean-up was great.  Everything hosed out at the street, boxes broken down and tied.  Crushed grapes bagged.  Destemmer moved to the back yard to await the red grapes, press to the cellar.

Doyle, Jon, Pam sorting grapes.

Mike at the press.

Jah, tomorrow ids the day for Muscat

Weather looks good, a little warmish.  Cellar is 73 F, one degree cooler than starting day 2011.

The old hands look to be:
Cheatle, Grimaldi, Lewis, Savino, Sclafani.

The new hands look to be:
Fabricant, Rakoubian, Warren.

On the road, but hopeful for cooling & racking are:
Badulescu and Bothwell.

We have a seriously good spread of surnames.
New tracking spreadsheet is created and posted in the right hand column.
Focaccia dough will go into the fridge tonight for a long, cool rise.
Savino to be at the house at 8:15 for the trip to terminal market.
Giddayap!

Ready? Set? 2012?

Pagano is listing three different Muscat labelings from Lodi - each at $47 per 42# lug.

Last year we paid $43 at Lapide, 10 cases.  We started on September 24.  Nu?

Last of the 2011 Muscat bottled

Yes, late.  But there you have it.  Mike came over this morning and we bottled the last 2 cases.  Taste: tart!  But not out of balance, very nice.

I had put the carboy up on the bench yesterday but didn't check the free sulfur until this morning - down to 13 ppm.  I didn't want to stir things up too much, there was a little fairy dust at the bottom, so I added enough 10% solution to bring things up to a nice range, and hoped that the racking / bottling process would get the meta incorporated.  I doubt much of it will be around come spring.

Kissing the 2008 Cab S. good-bye

Well, it was just hanging fire.  About three months ago the seal on the 100 liter tank of the 2008 Long Island Cab S. got cranky and was loosing pressure every day or two and I finally decided to just let it go.  The grapes were too low a brix in the first place, we chapitalized some, we fussed and we hemmed and we hawed and we never got to where we wanted to be.    This morning I just threw in the towel, setting aside 2 gallons of the oxidized wine / vinegar to boil down into a reeducation we might use for cooking, and kissing the rest good-bye.  It's gone, the tank cleaned and dismantled.  There's still 5 or 10 gallons of the un-chapitalized wine in car boys.  Onward and upward.

Here's a pic of a gallon of the wine, reduced to about a quart and a half.  Not thick yet.  I'm aiming for syrup.

2nd 2011 Muscat bottling

Mike came over and we bottled another couple cases of the Muscat.  I think this is the first Mike's tasted the finished wine.  I'm very happy with it.  More floral and more complex than the prior two years.  I think the effort we put into keeping the fermentation temperature down and then getting it topped off early really paid off.  (Or were the grapes just better than the prior two years?  No!  It's all about us!)

I went back and looked at some of the March bottling.  Some bottles have a fine sediment, some don't.  One bottle that I've kept very cold for the entire intervening time has bitartrate crystals that settled out, but that's no surprise.

We'll be using the Muscat to start the Honey, I Shrunk the Puttanesca party next week.  Hello, summer.

First 2011 Muscat bottling

On the spur of the moment Lori and I bottled a couple of cases of the 2011 Muscat.  Very happy!  The goal this year was to preserve more of the aromatics of the wine, and we did it.  Pears and citrus and honey.  And a pretty big, mellow mouthfeel.  Yip!

We did not test for or add sulphates.  The carboy was very clean, with what I first thought was a light coating of lees on the bottom but what turned out to be titrate crystals.  Was it cool enough in the cellar to drop them out?  I guess it was.  Color is similar to last year - a little less strikingly yellow I think.

Four more cases to bottle - partners, bring your bottles.

And there's also the two cases of bee-sting.

Hello, Berry Bros....

Likely going to bottle Uh Oh No. 1 tonoght or tomorrow.  Meanwhile, another diversion:

Hello, Berry Bros.  

It's snowing here in New York and I was rummaging around in the cellar for rock-salt when I came across a dusty unopened bottle labeled "Vinatage Port / 1966 / Gould Campbell / Bottled 1968 / Berry Bros. & Rudd LTD London / Produce of Portugal". It's not a typical Gould Campbell label - no graphics or logos, just the text I've included above. I have a vague memory that I might have purchased this in London, maybe in 1993 or 94. Are you able to tell me anything about this mystery bottle? (Not how it got to be in my cellar, that's just a miracle, but how it got to have the label it has.) I'd be very happy to send a picture if that would help. 

Thanks. 

Steve Lewis.

 

Vermouth, phase 1, a la Yvette van Boven

More diversions.

This is from Yvette van Boven's Home Made.  The fist phase of a vermouth that can be red or white, dry, semi-sweet, or sweet.

Infusing in the alcohol for two weeks are grapefruit zest and juice, orange zest, juniper, clove, saffron, cinnamon, thyme and oregano.  After straining, the alcohol will be combined with a white or red wine and a varying amount of sugar.  (YvB uses sugar rather than sugar syrup, and I say, Yeah, if you can get it to dissolve, why dilute the drink? I'm expecting to finish at about 19% alcohol.)

Whether red or white, I'd like to use one of our own wines.  I'm thinking one of the 2007 reds, which were pretty light, and semi-sweet.

---

And an update on that ginger beer made with wine yeast:  I let it stay at room temp for 48 hours or so, then put it in the fridge.  This morning I opened it to see if there had been any brix drop - whoa!  Only a slight drop but carbonation out the wazoo.  I might just do another, larger batch in a jug with an airlock and leave it at cellar temp for a week or so to see what sort of poison we get.

Diversion: Ginger beer. Ginger wine?

Yesterday I made ginger beer in the way described by Yvette Van Boven in Home Made - 3 cups water, 3/4 cup demarera sugar, juice of 1 lemon, 1/4 tsp. yeast, 2 inches of ginger grated to a pulp, all into a big PET bottle and 24 hours later the bottle is rock hard with CO2 and you have a delicious ginger fizzy drink.  (I had it with dinner.)

Then I wondered, 'What if I made it with winemaking yeast?'

So, just now:  1 quart water, 3 inches of ginger, 3 1/2 cups demarera sugar, juice of 1 really big lemon, and somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2 tsp. Montrechet yeast.  The mixture was 22 brix before adding the yeast - maybe really slightly higher, since some of the sugar might not have dissolved yet.  Let's see what's happened this time tomorrow...