2016 Chardonnay, day 177: last racking

Maybe a month later than I hoped, but otherwise pretty much average for us, we've just done our last racking before bottling.

Looking into a 5 gal CB, the lees were
thin had had a little crystalline character.

Three of the carboys were very similar - good color, a little tart but only a little.  Clean.  Lemon and banana?  Yes.  Each of these three tested at about 15 ppm free SO2 by Titrette.  We had not added any sulphur up to this point and I opted for a very modest boost, aiming at under 10 ppm more using 3 ml of 10% solution for every 5 gallons.  (Yes, I realize, I will be booted out of the natural wine society.)

And then there was the outlier carboy - the one that came up weirdly cloudy when we racked on day 44 back in November.  Today it had much less nose than the others, and was downright prickly to the tongue - not frizzante, but unpleasantly prickly.  I racked it but will not blend it into any of the other wine, and might choose not to bottle it - drag.  It also tested just slightly lower for SO2 - 14 ppm.

So we've gone from 5+5+5+5 to 5+5+questionable 5+3+1, using one of the good carboys to top the others.