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.