2014 Muscat, day 57, Nov 30 2014

Tested Betty and Charlie for acid: at or just under .75% tartaric, 4.8 ppt sulfuric.  Higher than my hopes, but at least not above the normal white range (though at the very tippy top of it).

Diversion: 187 ml capped Bay Liqueur

Decided to put the latest batch of YVB bay liqueur into 187 ml clear bottles with caps.  Picnic sized! 

Diversion: Whiskey Sour

We were going through some old binders and notebooks of recipes, and Loti came across her Grandma K's whiskey sour:

2014 Muscat, day 54, Nov 27 2014, Thanksgiving

A week's past since our last look at the wine, and 12 days since the last post.  Clarity (almost) happens.  Definitely in range of a second racking - any time this weekend to about 2 weeks from now.  Will taste this weekend to see where the acid feels to be at.

2014 Muscat, day 42, Nov 15 2014

Between 65 and 66F in the cellar at 7 AM - only 33F outside, the coldest evening and morning so far of the fall.

Tasted the Muscat from CB Alice- much less aggressively tart, but still too acidic, much rounder than it was.  I'm thinking we did go through some malolactic conversion.  Color very good in the sample, yellow, though still not clear in the CB.

Did a quick Titrette test and was surprised to see it come back at 15 or 16 ppm.  Was expecting it to be considerably higher since the addition made on Nov 1.  Might check again soon but will take the sample from deeper in the CB.  This morning's sample was scootched off the very top of the neck with a 5 ml dropper.

2014 Muscat, day 38, Nov 11 2014

Continued lightening, still translucent, completely still to the eye.  Colors of Raisin and Muscat are much closer now, with Raisin becoming more yellow, less orange.

Second racking in 2013 was on day 71, and one of the things that surprised me was that what looked like an almost dusty surface to the lees was actually potassium bitartrate crystals.  Looks to me that the lees we have now, at least seeing them through the glass and the suspensions, are very similar.  Totally good with me.  Bring the acid down a bit?  I should get a track on the temperatures down there.

That 2013 that 2nd racking was the last before bottling and we had good clarity in the finished wine.  Follow the same path?

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Listened yesterday to Levi Dalton's interview of Larry Turley.  A couple small things reminded me of what we've seen or done.  He keeps the softer raisins in the wine and only discards the hard ones.  (Though he's talking Zin.)

2014 Muscat, day 29, Nov 2 2014

The wine's moved from opaque to translucent - not wildly so, but definitely so.  The fewest, finest bubbles here and there in two of the CBs, and none at all that I see in CB Alice.

2014 Muscat, day 28, Nov 1 2014

Listened yesterday to Levi Dalton's interview of Jerome Prevost, who is thought to make some of the very good champagnes of the world.  At one point Dalton asks Prevost if he puts his wine through malolactic fermentation.    His answer made me feel good. It's episode 210 at I'll Drink to That.

Action in the wine has slowed tremendously (and leaves me wondering whether the wine had gone through malolactic fermentation or not), a constant lazy bubble here and there, but not the steady fine streams of a week ago.

Titrette tests are 13/14 ppm and so I've added 1 ml 10% solution per gallon to the wine, figuring this to raise things by about 15 ppm, then gave everything a good stirring.  Will check levels before the next racking, and if we think we want the level to be higher we'll do the proper thing and add the solution to the receiving CB so it gets properly mixed in.

I also took a much closer look this morning at parts of a book JG gave us a couple of years ago, Let's Make Wine, authored by his cousin Vince Emilio.  The subtitle is An Anthology of Winemaking Instructions, and it is in fact a really good collection.  Best advice and charts lifted from here, there and everywhere combined with personal experience. Better organized than some of my favorite other sources.