OK, sports fans, here's a recap of day 1, written the next morning:
With the grapes already here, and all of the heavy gear already up from the cellar, it was a very relaxed start to the day. We set up with a single sorting table and the bladder press rather than the basket press. Focaccia before the first grape got sorted.
As we did last year we decided again to do all of the pressing after all of the sorting, destemming and washing up of the other equipment. We collected the grapes pre-pressing in a 50 gal. drum and gave them something of a mashing in there to help free up the juice (undoing as much of the extra spend we made to get a destemmer rather than a destemmer-crusher. Hmmm.) Crates were also getting broken down while the sorting was happening. We destemmed the grenache for rose after the muscats, and they went directly into a steel tank for primary fermentation.
Pressing went at a stately pace and left a loft of grapes relatively & frustratingly intact. Note for next year: more mashing. Also more filling and emptying the bladder to get a bit more yield? Probably only worth going beyond a second filling if the lid comes off and the grapes are redistributed.
The muscat were in much better shape than last year. The grenache were picture-book beautiful.
Who made the wine? In more or less order of appearance: Mihai, Colleen, Savino, Phil Englander, Danny Levy, Michael Hearst, Doyle, Marcelo de Oliviera, Judy Lieff.
Who else helped make the day? Peter, Kellie & Nathan, Noemie & Asher & Jeremiah, Danny K and Lieff, Becky MacDonald, Emily Miller, Ella & friend. Many thanks to Rich & Ellen's tomatoes and Paola's as-yet-undone laundry. And the Syrian lady who stopped her car and got out to talk to us.
It was pretty dark out when the winemakers' lunch wound down.
What did we make:
- 60 liters Muscat Alexandria, 26.5 Brix, 3.765 pH, .5 tartaric. Pitched 15 grams of Lalvin EC-1118 at about 9 PM. Also 1 oz weight tartaric acid with a view toward making a modest rise.
- 84# Grenache, 26 Brix. Pitched 5 grams of Lalvin RC-212.
- No nutrients added to either grape or juice.
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