2023 Chardonnay - day 5

 0630

Danger!  Danger, Will Robinson!

• Room 72 F; Outside 51 F
• Juice 78F; Brix -0.1

Things have gone insanely fast in the main tank.  So I'm moving everything to smaller vessels where I can top up and not worry about the lack of a CO2 cover.

The end result is 5+5+5+5+3+1.  Each of the fives has been topped up with juice from the original 3 gallon carboy.  The 3 and the 1 are pretty darn muddy with the bottom juice of the original vessels.  For volume comparison, this is 2.5 gallons more juice than last year, from the same weight of grapes.  It's either from the grapes being on the vine for something like 26 days longer this year, or the pretty intense amount of stomping the grapes gt this year - there was an awful lot of free-run juice.  Or a combination of both things.  Who knows?

Pics are of the boys, and of one of my favorite sites: the intense flow of pinprick CO2 bubbles up the glass walls of a carboy.

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2130

Extremely fine bubbles up the sides of the carboys.  The 5 gallon CBs are popping about 4 to 5 times a minute.  No measurements taken.

2022 Chardonnay: day 37

1600

Well, we did rack yesterday, and only lost a couple of liters of volume.  We're cloudy now.  Free SO2 barely dropped according to today's reading (a surprise), but the pH still shows wildly high (as disappointment).  Have written Musto to see if they know what the pH was at the start - haven't heard back yet.  And i've just ordered some tartaric acid, which should be delivered tomorrow.  

The sample I've tested from has good color and tastes medium acidic, so I'm still puzzled by the pH.  

This article has a formula for raising pH - but using it suggests I'd need a pretty massive dose of tartaric for each carboy.  No way.  So I just gave up and ordered a new pH meter - this time with calibration and storage solutions.  Won't be here until Wednesday.

Meanwhile, I'll make some 10% meta solution and bump the free SO2 to 30 ppm.

2022 Chardonnay: day 9

 0730

• Brix 2.1
• Juice temp 72, room temp 74, outside 59 windy and about to drizzle

Another 20% drop in the last 10 hours.  No foam to speak of, lazy bubbles, and if you put your ear to the side of the tank there's still crackle.  If today's like yesterday we can expect something like 1.6 or 1.7 this evening and maybe 1.2 on the morning of day 10.  Maybe rack this afternoon and let ferm finish ina more airtight place.

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14:30

• Brix 1.5
• Juice 72 F, room 71.5 F, outside 58 and rainy

Boom!  Done.  Lori and I moved the juice from the primary fermenter to 5+5+5+5+1+1 carboys and jugs, leaving behind maybe close to a gallon of watery sludge: maybe we could have used it to get to a 3-gallon CB, but we didn't.

Transfer was as easy as pie and very neat - no spillage.  Took the extra paranoid step of wrapping the carboy caps and drilled stoppers with cling wrap.  Washed the primary fermentation tank out in the street, and if it ever stops raining we'll get it meta'd and stowed.  (Did this now because tomorrow looks just too busy and I didn't want to let the juice go below zero in the primary if we weren't around.)  Took lots of pics & videos.  Using caps on the carboys, drilled stoppers on the jugs, and 3-piece airlocks all around.  

A couple of videos.  What the xfer looks like - long and sort of boring, but, hey, it takes a year to get to where we're going, so relax.  And a look at the sludge at the bottom of the fermenter.  Much more liquid than I expected and, repeating what I wrote above,  I wonder if we should have simply saved it in a 3-gallon CB along with the 2 gallons that went into jusgs.  Too late.

The darlings,

2019 Muscat C., day 9

6:30 AM
Cellar 77 F, outside 71 F, must 79 F
Brix: 0

It's time to move the wine.  Still fizzing, brix readings bouncing around zero.

I have not been checking for acid, pH, SO2, and really want to avoid any fiddling.  Still, since I wanted to look at a sample of the must, I took a quickie.  3.48, a tad high and I will test again before moving the wine to carboys.  If I were a really good person I'd also haul out the acid test chems.  (And after hitting 'publish' I tested pH again with more patience: 3.45.)

Some pics: the hopeful empties getting themselves ready; a sample of the must after it's been sitting a few minutes and you can get a feel for just how much yeast and solids are in it; the slightly too high  pH reading.

Hopeful empties.

Settling.  Lots of gunk.

A more patient reading gave me 3.45.

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11:30 AM
Hoot, mon! 

We've moved from the primary fermenter to 5+5+5+5+3, leaving a fair amount of very yeasty must behind.  The transfers of the firs four carboys were silky smooth. I decided that rather than have a completely mucky fifth 5 gallon I'd go into a three, but that did not stop the three from being insanely lee-filled and nearly volcanic.  Pictures below tell the story.  The three gallon carboy was so out of control I decided to stick a wine thief into the stopper to create an extra long chimney for the gassing off.  when it calms I'll go back to the bubbler. 

Racking off of the gross lees.

2018 Syrah, day 182 - racked again

Really darned good.

Tasting before breakfast it was all black cherry, but still tart, too.  As the hour wore on, and particularly toward the end when I was siphoning directly from smaller vessels through a hose instead of using the fancier gizmos, and was getting mouthfuls of wine, the tartness went away.  Writing about it now, I hear The Young Rascals playing People Got To Be Free.

Where was I?

Looking into a small topping jug,
the lees run off with the inky
wine, and the jammy chunks
show themselves.

There was a pretty astounding difference between these Syrah lees and the Sauvignon Blanc lees from a week ago.

The SB was destemmed, then stomped, then pressed, then fermented in a single tank until around zero Brix, then separated into carboys where it started out opaque custard yellow and threw off lots of lees - fine and not so fine - and, in the 2nd racking, fine lees and salts.

The Syrah was destemmed, fermented whole berries, and at about zero brix much of it went free-run into carboys, and the rest pressed into carboys.  This left the Syrah with very little in the way of fine lees in this morning's racking, with jammy little chunks of lee/grape schmutz.

So.  We went from 5+5+1+1/2 to 5+5+1/2, and also filled two small capped bottles and a pint jar for the winemakers to taste.

I also (don't tell Lieke Maas) added 4 ml of 10% solution to the 5 gallon carboys.

2018 Syrah, day 180: in position

Syrah ready for another racking.

I've moved the Syrah up to the bench, ready to be racked this weekend.  The color is so deep it's just about impossible to suss out how thick the lees are.  Shooting to come out of this with 10 gallons plus a little for tasting.)

(Meanwhile, there's just about zero lees settled out from the day 175 racking of the Sauvignon Blanc.  Excellent.)

2018 Sauvignon Blanc, day 175

Big day, kiddos.  First a trip to Brooklyn Terminal Market for 6 cases of bottles, and then the final racking of the SB before bottling next month.

3 PM:
Outside 44 F
Cellar 68 F
SO2 15 PPM (Carboy C by Titrette)

We went from 5+5+5+1 to 5+5+5 plus three 175 ml soda bottles with caps, losing very little from each CD, and continuing to isolate each CB except for the topping off from the 1 gallon jug.

A little bit of dust-up in carboys A&B while racking.  Maybe there was in C, too: I did it first and possibly was too excited to notice it.  Still, all three vessels look sparkling clear.  We'll see what settles out in the next month.

Taste was great.  A bit green apple / lemon lime.  Chill that baby and it's summer.

Of special note was the layer of bitartrate salts in each vessel under the thin layer of dead yeast and grape particles.  Cellar was never cold enough to make these drop out like they would if we cold-stabilized the wine.  Checking back, I've confirmed that we did not make any tartaric acid adjustment this year.  So, it just is.

21 gallons ready to rock

The rig

Wacky potassium bitartrate salt layer (KC4H5O6)

2018 Syrah, day 41, racked off of the lees

@ racking: 14:30, 54 F outside, 69 F in the cellar.

I've had 10 gallons of the Syrah up on the bench and ready to rack for over a week now.  This afternoon we did it.  Tasted every vessel and they were nearly identical, from large to tiny and from free run to pressed.  (Lori says she can taste the feet, but we didn't stomp this wine - we fermented the whole destemmed - but not crushed - berries.)

Color is whacky dark. I could barely see the racking wand up against the carboy glass.  No great shakes on the nose, but for a wine that's only as old as Noah's rainstorm the taste was surprisingly recognisable (as wine).

The lees were pretty minimal but I still was very conservative and we went from 5+5+1+1+1/2 to 5+5+1+1/2.  There was a liter more, or at least .75, but I chose to salute and say goodbye.

Have not added any SO2.  Replaced the cops & bubblers with stoppers & bubblers.  Zero post-racking activity so far in the wine, but will keep an eye on it.

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23:30, 67 F in the cellar.

All the new stoppers are snug, and there's not the slightest hint of activity.  Going to guess that MLF has happened, and no harm will come of raising the SO2 levels.  Will likely pick a target tomorrow.

2018 Sauv. Blanc, day 29 - racked

12:30
Outside 48 F.
Cellar 65 F.

Erin, Lori and I racked the Sauvignon Blanc.

First the testing.

• I was expecting the free SO2 to be pretty low and was prepared to raise it to halt any MLF.  But, low and behold, it tested above 30 ppm with Titrettes.  We ran the test twice - it was a little hard to believe.  So, we dodged a sulpher bullet.   Was all set to use the sulfite calculator at Winemaker Mag.  Our testing was from CB B - the middle 5 gallons.
• pH 3.36

We racked each of the three 5 gallon CBs into separate carboys, and topped each with wine from the 3 gallon carboy.  We took another gallon from the 3 gal CB and put it into a jug for future topping off.  The old 1 gal. jug, which was about halfway full with lees, was about as foul as you might expect, so we just tossed it.

So, 5+5+5+3+1 => 5+5+5+1.  Depending on ho clean we kept the racking, we can still hope for finishing with 6 cases of wine.

S.B. after 1st racking.

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21:00
With a bright line shining through the necks of the S.B. Carboys... they are still.  Gone are even the fine bubbles that were there before we racked the wine off of the lees.

2018 wines, day 26

The Sauvignon Blanc continues to move toward clear in the 5 gallon CBs, and is clear(ish) in the 3 and 1 gallon vessels.  (The smaller vessels have a hell of a lot of lees: the 1 gallon might be a third lees.)  Probably time to rack, either Saturday night this coming weekend or Sunday day.  The Syrah, too?  Probably.

For comparison, we'd be looking at day 29.  In past years:

• 2016 - 44 days
• 2015 - 20 days
• 2014 - 14 days
• 2013 - 14 days
• 2012 - 14 days

This would put us in the sweet spot between 2015 and 2016 - possibly our two best white wines.  And way past 2012, probably our best red wines.  (But remember, that 2012 red spent a leisurely 31 days fermenting in the primary.)

We'll look to rack and probably add meta: 20 ppm?  30?  Nothing was added at crush or pressing. Happy to have everyone weigh in on this.  And should we do this with both the white & red?  Or maybe let the red sit another week, assuming malolactic fermentation is still going and we don't want to stop it?

2016 Chardonnay, day 339

Holy moly, long time no post.

With the summer new wine party not happening this June we've let the wine cruise in it's carboys.  But we're getting ready to taste & bottle and potentially make way for a batch of 2017 reds.  2 days ago we picked up corks and more clear bottles from Pagano at Brooklyn Terminal Market and put a couple of carboys up on the racking shelf.  Gird yourself.

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Afternoon & 10 gallons bottled.  Zero sediment in the carboys.  Good tasting chardonnay.  No metabisulfites added - the wine was at about 15 ppm and I let it ride.  Some bottles got more aerated than I would have liked, but so it goes.

I did not taste the CB that was questionable back in the spring: will do so.  There's also a 3 gallon CB, which might be begging to become vermouth...

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.

2016 Chardonnay, day 44, racked

Different levels of clarity.

Jon, Jim and Ron came over to help rack.  We went from 21 gallons to 20.  The first three carboys were all very much alike, but the fourth had much looser lees, clouded when we brought it over to the workbench, and you can see from the photo that the new cb that it went into is much less clear than its fellows.

Taste: still grapey, very tart, but very good for only a month and a half into the process.  Am hoping that some of the acid falls out over the winter, as it has with prior years' wines.  Did not measure.

About 16 ppm free SO2 - will measure again in a few days.  We were pretty good about not agitating the wine much during racking.  Will have to make a decision about whether to leave it alone or not.

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.

2016 Chardonnay, day 42: moreso

07:00

Same vessel as in the last post, 17 days later.  Transparent now, still.  Not completely clear but ready to rack this weekend.  The larger carboys are all in similar states.

The 2015 wine we did not rack in November, but waited until Dec. 12.  2014 we waited until Jan. 3.  2013, Dec. 1.  2012, Jan. 5 but we did not start winemaking that year until Oct. 13.  Going to have to make a chart of all this.  Maybe we'll convince ourselves to wait a couple more weeks?

2016 Chardonnay, day 9: less than zero

09:30
Brix -0.5

Still steady CO2, but today is the day to move to carboys.

(Elvis less than zero)

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15:00
Et voila.  Brix -0.8.

We racked the primary ferm into 4x5gal+1gal+1x.750ml.  Tossed what must have been between 2 and 4 liters of muck from the bottom, which we never would do in the leaner Muscat years (and, just as Lori said I would, I already regret it.

Using the silicon drilled cup-shaped stoppers this year rather than either the traditional rubber stoppers or the plastic caps with 2 spouts.  The later I've lost some faith in - I feel like they don't always give as tight a seal as you would want after primary fermentation and settling.  The former I would have used but didn't have enough of them this morning and when I ran out to Pagano at Terminal Market the silicon is what he had left in size sevens.

Chardonnay, with some old Primitivo and Cab Franc behind it.

There was very little foaming going on in the primary tank or noticeable in the carboys, so we filled them very near to full.  Plenty of gassing, though.  If there's no yeast foaming in an hour or two, we'll finish topping.  (OK, I reserved an itty bit of the muck to do this with.)

An hour of work, and now the months of staring begin.  Typical thick cidery color.

2015 wines, day 22 - off the gross lees

Well, this is later than we've come off the gross lees in a long time - maybe ever?

• 2015 - day 22
• 2014 - day 14
• 2013 - day 14
• 2012 - day 14
• 2010 - day 10

Begorah.  Was there a whiff of the devil in the smallest of the rose bottles?  There was, and I dumped it.  Went from 3+1+.5+1-liter to 3+1+1-liter.

Topped off the Muscat with some of last year's wine and so stayed at 3+3+3.  Some pictures of the mud, below.

Muscat mud

Rose mud

Topping needed for Muscat

2014 Muscat day 231, popped stoppers

Oh, yeah, that's right, sometimes after racking I like to use bubblers rather than stoppers.  This time we just put the stoppers back in and two of them popped at different times since racking.  I don't know how long either was out before we noticed.  Sigh.

2014 Muscat day 230, 3rd rack & blend

Well, it seems that no matter what resolutions we make on crush day, we always bottle too late.

This morning we tasted the three cb's of Muscat.  Much better than a month or two ago when I thought we might toss it.  Color is fab - dandelion, that's a photo of it from this morning.  Initial pretty intense floral nose, but it dissipates in 15 minutes or so - too bad.  We found variations in the carboys and found that if we blended the wine and let it sit a little the acid wasn't as whack and the the mouthfeel was pretty nice.

So we decided to rack and blend everything, losing a couple or three liters in the process.  We backfilled with some of the wine we bottled very early from this same making.  (We went to backfill with one of the remaining 2010 bottles but found it metallic.)

We'll let it settle through the week and bottle for the June party.

2014 Muscat, day 91, Jan 3 2015, 2nd racking

1600:
Lori & I racked this afternoon.  Went from 5+5+5 to 5+5+3+ 7x750ml.

Very little waste with the lees, but rather than stretch to 3 full carboys and topping them up or using glass beads for the void, I really wanted to have a little wine bottled for reference & comparison to what we bottle next.  Won't be as clear but it's the taste and feel I want to compare.

I added about 1 ml 10% meta solution per gallon, hoping to raise the readings by maybe 10 ppm or more.  Didn't add anything to the wine we bottled.

I also re-tested the pH - it really the off-the-charts 4.06 I saw yesterday.  In theory, at this pH, we'd need a whacky, tasteable amount of sulphur added to the wine to protect it.  Ain't going there.

Our 2nd racking of the 2013 wine was at about day 75, so we're a little slower this year.  But I'm hoping we'll bottle a month or more earlier than we did last year.

2130:
No visible gassing off - will switch from bubblers to solid bungs tomorrow morning.