Looking back at racking histories

Year	Date pressed	Days in primary	Days to next racking	Days to next racking	Days to next racking
2016	10/1/2016	8
2015	9/19/2015	7	11	64
2014	10/5/2014	6	7	75	115
2013	9/22/2013	6	8	56
2012	9/29/2012	7	8	82	78

Holy mackerel.  

Turns out that I've had a language shift that's created a racking shift.  2012 through 2015 when we took the must out of the primary and into carboys it was active enough so that we left air-gaps and a couple days later, as things calmed, we topped them off.  In those years, 7 to 11 days after topping off, we racked the wine and I called that racking it off its gross lees.

2016, with a different varietal, when we went from primary to carboys we topped immediately, and I also dumped the bottom couple inches of must calling them (in my mind) the gross lees.  Whatever!  But it means that if we rack this weekend we'll be at 40 days where we'd previously been at a max of 11.  I'm fine with it - things are looking beautiful.

2012 blended reds bottled

We bottled 10 gallons of the 90% Merlot / 10% cab Franc this morning.  That leaves maybe 5 gallons of straight Cab Franc for us to play with.  (Note to selves: buy a bottle tree for next year.)

2012 reds, blended, partially bottled

Lori tasted the reds again this morning and decided to stick with the 90% Merlot, 10% CF mix.  We put together 10 gallons of this in carboys, and bottled the remainder of the 14 gallon Merlot fusti straight, and the same for the remainder of a 3 gallon CF carboy.  Tomorrow or some time during the week we'll bottle the blend.

2012 Reds, sulphites raised 10 ppm

I had been thinking of raising these by 20 ppm prior to bottling, but looked back over notes and saw that we'd raised them 30 ppm back in November of 2012.  Can't be a heck of a lot left - there were subsequent rackings, but still I decided to keep things on the low side.  Didn't use 10% solution - just bought a decent scale so I could measure out tenths of a gram and diluted the right amount of meta in a random amount of water.

2012 reds, time to get serious

We've draw off 187 ml bottles of the 2012 Merlot and Cab Franc.  Bringing them to cellar temp and we'll taste them for blending over ne next couple of days.  When we looked at this last year we were leaning toward 10% Cab F, and if we stick to that we're going to have a lot of it to bottle straight - 6 or 7 gallons, I think.  Even more if we decide to bottle any of the Merlot straight, and I think we might.

I've downloaded to sulphite calculator from fermsoft.com (on the recommendation of Alison Crowe in her book).  Why the heck hadn't I done this before.  Excellent!

And looking back to a May 2014 post I see that Mike and I bottled a 3 gallon CB of the 2012 Merlot then.  Jeez, where is it?  I don't remember drinking it - or labeling it.  Drag!  Now we need to search the mystery cases.

---

Quickie Ph reading: 3.86.  That puts the amount of meta to add to the 14 gallons of Merlot to raise it 20 ppm @ 1.86 grams.  Lat addition was in November of 2012 when we added what we thought would raise the level by 30 ppm.  Maybe I should only shoot to raise by 10 now?

The thrillah from Zillah

Thanks, Two Mountain and M&M, for the grapes.  Yummy.  Maybe this is the label we'll use for the little bit that we've bottled for the June party.

Last of the 2013 white, and first of the 2012 red bottled

Mike came over and we bottled the last cb of the 2013 Muscat.  This was the one we had topped off using glass beads rather than other wines.  Worked well - going to clean the beads in a jelly sack in the dishwasher.

I also bottled a 3 gallon batch of the 2012 Merlot so we'll have some recent red for the June new wine party.   While cleaning up I discovered that we have 8 gallons of the 2012 Cab Franc, not the 3 or 5 I imagined.  And we have 14 more gallons of the Merlot.  Going to be a whole lot of blending and bottling going on when we finally get to it.

2012 reds, tasted and thinking about blending

We tasted the 2012 Yakima Merlot and the CA Cab Franc.  Hopefully Lori will add her notes.  Unbelievable color in the Merlot - it was three weeks in primary fermentation.  Neither has a striking nose but both taste more complex than you'd think - maybe especially the CF.

We did a quicky blend- 89% Merlot, 20% Cab F, and that was nicer than either wine alone.  We're thinking May might be a good time to have a few people come and do some real testing with us and then bottle all 17 gallons of it.  (I feel like I might have hidden more of the Merlot somewhere... but where?)

Very happy with how the Merlot has kept in the Fusti and how the CF has kept with the silicon bung in the carboy.  Wondering (as usual) if I should have been more aggressive with Meta for both: now would be a good time to catch up on that.

Attending to past sins

5 hours in the cellar this morning and it looks like we're in shape to at least make white wine next weekend - grapes and time providing.

Spent a chunk of time going through past posts and other notes and see that our white wines seem to loose about 10 to 15 ppm per year in carboys. Seems to be true regardless of fermentation with or without skin contact, and whether or not the wine was left on its lees. With zero proof or correlation to the reds I decided to treat them the same way, so where we've raised them by N in the past I figured a year later we were N-10 to 15. Sue me.

Made a new batch of 10% solution, and this time did it in a wide jar so I could easily draw off by the ml instead of pouring out into spoons.

Added 3 ml 10% solution to the 3 gal WA Merlot.
Added 14 ml 10% solution to the fusti of WA Merlot.

Took a taste of Peter's unchapatized 2008 LI Cab S. Remember, these grapes measured a very low brix, and finished ferment in 3 or 4 days. Bernardo and I decided to chapatize and restart the fermentation, Peter didn't. (Lori would have stopped me if I didn't decide so quickly.) Got this wine to my lips and gasped That's Not Wine!! It was something like wine, but I don't know what exactly. Down the drain I sent it.

Then there was a 5 gal CB of my chapatized version. It was wine, but it was not good. Salute!

Then there was a 5 gal mystery CB. Salute!

Then there was a 3 liter growler of 2006 Zin that I decided to re-oak as an experiment, then forgot about. It has a bubbler n it that, no surprise, had gone dry. Salute! and the glass was so stained that I pitched it.

Then there was a 1 gal bottle of the 2009 Merlot / Cab S / P Verdot blend that was overflow from one of the rackings. Another dried out bubbler. Idiot. Too bad, because this was good party wine. Salute!

Then I tasted the two remaining 2010 Primitivo carboys. The first one, honest to god, seemed to have zero barnyard odors and I quickly decided to rack it. The second was not so completely clear (this was the CB I referred to as Charlie in all of my notes) and I decided to add so2 and set it aside. I also decided to raise the so2 in the bottles I was making - I did that by mixing 10% solution with wine, and that adding that mixture to each bottle before filling.

I've got to say that I was not so confident in the lack of barnyard odors during the bottling, while there was lots or aerating happening, but I persevered. It left me less sure of what I would do with the 2nd cb of primitivo, long term.

What was left to deal with was the 8 gallons of cab f. But by now it was 1 PM, I hadn't showered or eaten yet, and called it a day.

2012 Merlot - productive morning

Up early to start condensing things in the cellar.

2 5 gal cbs racking into the fusti.

14 gallons of the 2012 Merlot into a fusti - 13 of it free run, one of it from a mixed free run and pressed cb.  The remaining wine got racked into a 3 gallon cb, and a half dozen 750 bottles: we'll have one this evening with Mihai and Colleen.

My first taste from the 1st carboy got the immediate reaction from me that this is the best wine we've made.  The 2nd carboy I thought was a bit sweeter, and by the third I was lost.  Help!  Someone else taste this wine.  (Or maybe I should again after breakfast.)  Need to figure out what to do re meta.  I'd like to keep this 14 gallons together for at least another half year.

I also racked the 2012 Muscat ramato.  This was left on it's lees for a year.  And there were plenty of them.  I decided to not get too crazy, and just take the top 3 gallons of the 5 into a clean cb.  That worked well - I need to bring the SO2 up - it's down below 15 ppm or so.

Did not touch the 8 gallons of 2012 Cab F.

Unearthed a case of the 1st wine Mike and Pam made at our place - the Syrah from juice.  Awaiting instructions.

Tidied up all of the empties - decided to chuck about a dozen bottles that looked like they got less than a good cleaning back in June after the party.

And I'm hoping to deal with the last of the Cab S. we made with Bernardo and Peter from Long Island grapes back in 2008.  At least 10 gallons of it.

Empty CBs are piling up.

2012 Muscat 90 / 10 bottled

We had one carboy that was 90% straight muscat alexandria, and 10% ramato made from those pressed grapes.  We bottled that this afternoon.  Clean and, at least at room temp, pretty zippy.  Titrette test put SO2 between 25 and 30 ppm and we left it there.  The only muscat now left from 2012 that's not bottled is the straight ramato that I expect to use for vermouth.

2012 Muscat, 2nd bottling

Nephew Jake and we bottled the next carboy of Muscat on Friday the 7th - good thing we did because we went through four cases of it at the big Puttanesca & New Wine blowout.  Clean as a whistle.  What we have left now is another carboy that is 90% regular Muscat and 10% ramato we made from the same grapes, and another cb that's 100% ramato.

2012 Muscat, 1st bottling

Bottled one carboy of the Muscat this morning, a little late, but then everything with this year's wine making has been between a little late and very late.  It'll be in the bottle just shy of a month when the new wine party comes around.

Very clear, reminds me a lot of last year's wine in taste.  This CB was at about 15 ppm according to Titrettes, and I decided to leave it that way.  Depending on when the other CBs get bottled we can look at boosting things.  No sediments - everything made it to bottle except a cup or two.  26 full 750s.

2012 Muscat A racked

Lori and I racked the Muscat A this morning.  Went from 5+5+5 to... 5+5+5, and here's how.

There was very little loss from the first two 5's.  Turned out to be about a quart each.  So we topped from the third 5, and left ourselves about a half gallon shy in the third.  What to top off with?  The 2012 ramato!  First we did a 9 to 1 bench blend, liked it - actually liked it better than the individual wines - and went ahead and topped off.

Why didn't we like the plain Muscat as much as we expected to?  Testing later I found that the cb we were working from was over-sulfited (50 ppm or more).  The ramato Muscat we were working from was around 20.  I need to go back through each cb and see what the deal is.

The wine is clear enough to go to bottle when we like.  But first we figure out the SO2.

2012 Merlot and Cabernet Franc racked

About time.  Racked both red wines and added Barrel Mill spirals of medium toast American oak (6 weeks until neutral).

Lost extremely little - the lees were light and thin in the Merlot, much more mucky in the Cab F. but just not a lot of it.  And a little volume was taken up by the oak.  Merlot went from 5+5+5+3+1 to 5+5+5+3.  Cab F was a little more complicated.  We only had 5+3 to start with, and that turned into 5+2.5 or a little more.  So?  Topped off with the remaining Merlot.  All is well.

Haven't added more SO2 - need to think that through and look at when it was last added.  Should probably up the level, since it will be 6 to 8 weeks before we touch it again.  (Now I see it's been 4 months since last SO2 - will definitely add today or tomorrow.)

The Cab F is candy-apple red, clear, not much nose and a little low in acid.  The Merlot is ruby red, has a real attack when you first sip it - acid is up in the white grape range, and I like it a lot.

Cab F pH was about 3.73 at the end of fermentation and it measured 3.71 today.  Need to look to see if we have a pH for the Merlot from the end of fermentation: I see one from the start, which was only 3.27.  Today it measured 3.77.

As though waking from a deep slumber...

We've set a date for this year's new wine party, and almost forgot that we've been very sorely neglecting that wine.

Settled on american oak medium toast for the 2012 reds and have ordered it from Presque Isle. The reds have been wanting a racking for a while.

Would like to bottle the 2012 Muscat at the end of the 1st or 2nd week of April so that it will have been in the bottle for a couple of months (as opposed to our couple of weeks or even sometimes a couple of days) before our party.  That means there is just about exactly enough time for us to rack and fine with Bentonite if we want to. I think I'd be OK with just racking - we're very clear now.  (Mine might be the minority opinion.)

2012 Muscat racked - day 96 (Jan 5, 2013)

Happens very year, doesn't it?  We want to rack the Muscat early and bottle it early, and before we know it it's January and the only prior racking was to get it off the gross lees.

Went from 5+5+5+growler to a liter shy of 3+3+3.  So we topped it off with 750 ml of 2011 Muscat and the remainder from an unlabled bottle: I'm guessing 2010 (and the remainder of that bottle will go into taralli tomorrow morning).

Color's good.  Will test later in the day and post the results here.  Didn't really tast yet either - sleep was still in my month.

Should we fine?  I think the group should decide in a week or so, with the notion of doing it soon and then racking & bottling February and March.

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.

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.