Clone-6 cab at .997

Clone-6 is still bubbiling and the cap is modestly strong. Specific Gravity is down to .997. Expect it will need to be pressed Fri, Sat or Sun.

Tasted the cab blushes, they were nice. The #2 carboy had little more sweetness left in it. Both were still bubbling slightly.

Lee's 15G and 8G barrels are smelling much better. :) We'll put the 15G of Cab from the Stainless into Lee's 15G barrel when we press the Clone-6. The extra Malbec can go into the 8G--although we still need to look into a pinhole leak on the top that we saw on Sunday.

New 20G French recoop barell is ordered and will be here by the end of next week. It will hold the Clone-6 Cab.

Idaho Cab and Merlot Pressed

Oct 23 Brix readings were
Merlot 2 - 0 brix
ID Cab - 0 brix
Wa Clone 6 cab - 6 brix

Oct 26th pressed Merlot #2 & Idaho Cab. Got 45G of Merlot and 49G of Cabernet. Plus we have about 6G of the Cab blush.

Sunday Oct 28th the C6 cab was at .999 and still fermenting.

Red Update

Punched down and took some brix and temp readings tonight. Second merlot batch is down to 5 brix. Expect it will be ready to press in 5-6 days. The temp of the carboys and trash-can were low, 70-72, so I put them up onto some foam to help insulate them from the garage floor. Here are the numbers

Wood River Merlot Batch2: 5 brix, 79 degrees
Wood River Cab 10.5 brix, 78 degrees
Cab Blush, 72 degrees (no brix reading taken)
Clone-6 Cab 23 brix, 72 degrees
Mourvedre 21 brix, 70 degrees.

Pressed Merlot Batch #1

Pressed the first batch of Wood River Merlot tonight, after 12 days on the skins (10 days fermentation). What wonderful flavor and aromas. Filled Mike's 32G Hungarian barrel plus 14G of carboys. Gentle pressing. This is going to be some wonderful merlot! Talking with Ray, we think our care to remove more stems paid off.

Wood River Cab and Merlot batch #2 is fermenting strong. Added another 5tsp of nutrient. One carboy of Cab Blush was fermenting. The second wasn't. Poured over a gal of the fermenting blush into the second carboy to get it started.

Grabbed some clone-6 juice for a starter. Already very dark in color.

Updated pictures in the Fall 2006 Kodak photo album.

Merlot at .996 SG

Checked the merlot#1 tonight. It's at .996. Ready to press in the next couple days. Sounding like Wed will work well.

Finished cleaning out Bob's 15G barrel. Oxyfresh overnight, metra/citric rinse, rinsed, and drying.

Lee innoculated the cab, merlot#2 and cab-blush this morning. Added 5tsp ttl nutrient to the yeast starter. Will add another 2tsp to each the merlot and cab after it gets going.

Racked the Chard last night. It had been settling for about 3 weeks, some in wood some in carboys. Did the first taste test to compare the wood to stainless. Both were remarkably tart. May be an indication that we added to much tataric acid to reduce the PH. (Check out the picture of Mike's Bitter Chard Face! ;)

Clone-6 is here

Drove to Milton Freewater this morning and picked up about 500-600lbs of Clone-6 Cab. Great looking fruit. It filled the lg white and sm blue barrel plus 6 5G buckets. Dana was nice enough to lend us 2 cherry microbins, which fit better on the trailer. Also got about 40lbs of Mourvedre and a few clusters of Grenache. What great tasting fruit! First time tasting Mourvedre and Grenache grapes. Huge clusters, big big berries and bursting with flavor. :-D Everyone loved them. Crushed/destemed. Sulfited the must. Waiting 2 days to innoculate.

THE NUMBERS
C6 cab: 28 brix, 3.7 ph. Sweet!
Mourvedre (w/ a little Grenache): 27 brix, 3.6 ph. Higher sugars that we thought (expected more like 25.5). Tested twice with the same results. .

Pulled 6-7G juice off of Wood River cab after 24h maceration. Beautiful pink/rose color. Going to try and make a blush. Think the higher skins/juice ratio may give the rest of the cab more flavor as it sits on the skins.

Lee pulled off some wood river cab juice and is doing a yeast starter. Will innoculate the wood river cab and merlot2 tomorrow. Followed by the WW C6 cab and Mourvedre the next day

Big Day

Lee and Ray picked up 2 bins from Dennis at Wood River Vineyards this morning. A big bin of his Cabernet (est 800-900 lbs) and a microbin of Merlot (est 550-600lbs). Crushed/destemmed and put meta on the must (4.5tsp merlot and 6.5 tsp on cab). Covered and waiting 48h to innoculate.

Estimate 50-55G of cabernet. 18G of the cab will go to Michele's new barrel plus carboys to top, leaving us 35-37G, about perfect for a 30G barrel.

OPTIONS:
1. Could put into Ray's 22G and Lee's8G if we bottle the 2006 Wood River Clone-6.
2. Could get a new barrel.
3. Could hold cab in SS for a few months and then bottle the 06 Clone-6.
4. Might be nice to snag 5-10G after 12-24 maceration and make a blush.

We'll wait until I get back from Walla Walla tomorrow and see how many pounds of RiverRock Clone-6 cabernet I bring back.

The Numbers:
Merlot(2) 25.5 Brix, 3.3 PH. Not quite as ripe flavors as the first bin of Merlot we got last week. Cabernet 26.5 Brix, 3.5 ph. Great numbers.

Pressed the WoodRiver Malbec, which was down to 0.996 SG, into Lee's 30G French plus 12G in carboys. Put fermemtation locks on.

The RiverRock syrah has been lingering and we finally pressed it. It was at 0.992 (almost dry). Filled Troy's 15G Hungarian plus 2 1G carboys. Will be tight after racking and topping. Dana thinks he can float us a little Mourvedre, which would be great. It would lower the ph, give us extra volume, and make a mighty tasty blend. Fingers are crossed. :)

Merlot1 was down to about 2.5 brix. Expect to press it in 4 days or so, depending on temps.

Move to Sunday

Merlot and Cab are coming from Dennis on Sunday. Shifting operations to then. Syrah cap is soggy. Will have to double check it Sat to make sure it can wait until Sun.

Finished cleaning up the barrels. (All except Bob's 15G which has Chard in it.) Lee's 30G has ProxyClean and needs to get rinsed on Sat. Michele brought over some beeswax to try and repair Lee's 8G barrel. Results look promising! :)

Expect the RiverRock cab on Mon or Tue.

Press Syrah and Malbec on Sat?

Everything is fermenting well. Smells great in the garage!
- Syrah down from .998 to .996, but still has a dense cap.
- Malbec dropped from 10.5 to 4.5. Should press on Sat to limit skins/stems exposure and avoid bitterness.
- Merlot dropped from 16 to 11.5. Will hold on skins longer.

Continued cleaning out barrels to get them ready for the reds. 60G is ready for a wick after it dries. Mikes 30G Hungarian is ready for the Merlot or Malbec--just needs a rinse. Put ProxyClean into Ray's 22G french and Lee's 15G french. Both have a VA smell. Hope the proxyclean takes care of it. Will rinse Friday and then fill Lee's 30G with ProxyFresh.

Sat will:
1. Rack the chard from the carboys and barrel into stainless. Keeping the SS carboys seperate as much as possible.
2. Press the syrah into Troy's 15G Hungarian.
3. Press the Malbec into Mike's 30G Hungarian.
4. Crush/destem the next 500lbs of Merlot (expected from Dennis).
5. Clean Bob's 15G with Oxyfresh. Leave in overnight then do a citric rinse.


Grapes still coming--depending on the weather.
500 lbs of Merlot from Dennis (Sat?)
725lbs of "Marsing" Cabernet coming through Dennis next week.
400lbs of RiverRock Clone-6 cab coming next week.
25-50lbs of RiverRock Mourvedre to blend in with the Syrah.

Will rack the Willy Cab into Lee's 30G Barrel sometime next week so Troy's barrel will be ready for the second 500lbs of Merlot.

Fermentation Update

Syrah still had a good cap on it today. SG was 998 tonight. Needs another day or two before pressing. Malbec is fermenting faster than the Merlot. Malbec is down to 10.5 brix (down from 18) and Merlot is down to 16 brix (down from 21).

Troy's 15G hungarian barrel smells sweet. Ready for the syrah. Proxyclean did the trick. :)

Put Oxyfresh into Mike's 30G barrel--which smells good. Put 32Tbsp into Lee's 60G barrell-which has a slight TA smell. Will do a meta/citric rinse on both after 24h. Then dry and sulfur the big barrel, and put Merlot into Mike's 30G barrel.

Red Fermentation Update

Syrah is down to .75 brix. Still has a dense cap. Expect we'll press it on Wednesday or Thursday. Volume appears to be less than expected.

Malbec is fermenting well. Down to 18 Brix.
Merlot is fermenting slower. Down to 21 Brix.

Checked the temp of the must. Merlot was 76 degrees, Malbec 78 degrees, Syrah 72 degrees.

Heard from Dana at RiverRock. The row of Clone-6 there is at 26.6 brix, "seeds brown and cruncy, stems lignified to brown". Concern about a weather change coming. Will watch closely. Want to let hang a little longer. Also possible to get a few lbs of Mourvedre (50#) to blend with the Syrah. We have our fingers crossed.

Syrah at 3 Brix

Checked the Syrah. Still had a firm cap and was at 3 Brix. 1 or 2 more days until pressing. Probably wed. Maybe Thu.

Topped the 06 Clone-6 and Clone-2 cabs. Finished off the Clone-6 topping, will need to switch to the Malbec and "start the blend".

Expect more merlot from Dennis at Wood River Vineyard soon. Williamson cabernet shortly after that, and the RiverRock cab too.

Cleaning Barrels

Trying a new material to clean barrels to try and get rid of VA smell. ProxyClean. Used it on Troy's 15G barrel overnight with a meta/citric rinse. Helped some--but still a little bit left. Doing again at 10tbsp and leaving for 24h. Feel confident it will clean it up and barrel will be ready for the syrah.

Once we've got the mix we think works we'll do the 60G barrel and burn a good sulfur wick. Followed by cleaning out Ray's 22G and the little guy. We'll probably use some on Mikes--but maybe not as much. Depens on how it cleaned up.

M&M Update

Lee innoculated the merlot and malbec on Saturday. 5pgs of Pastur Red each with a yeast starter. Then a couple tsp of nutrient. Fermentation going well. Stirred in 1 more tsp of nutrient today to encourage fermentation. Didn't measure brix yet. Will do tomorrow.

07 Malbec and Merlot

Ray and Lee picked up 600lbs of Merlot and 600lbs from Dennis at Wood River Vineyard today. Fruit was great! Clean, and tasty berries. Merlot had especially heavy skins. Just love that juice. We crushed/destemmed and tried to remove as much stems as possible, then added about 4tsp meta (a little less this year). It is resting for 48h and then will be inoculated with a yeast starter. We also will add some nutrient this year to try and get a better fermentation. Lee will innoculate on Sunday.

Merlot (Dennis reported 25.6 brix, 3.45ph and 0.56 TA)
26.75 Brix
3.6 PH

Malbec
25.5 Brix
3.5 PH

Riverrock Syrah is sitting at 7 brix and we transferred it into the 60G plastic drum to finish fermenting so we could use the bin. (Thank You Dennis! Those bins come in handy! :) We got a report from Dana at RiverRock to not adjust acids, based on feedback from Caleb. We think this is good advise. Thanks Dana and Caleb for your help. :) I put some ProxyClean in my 15G Hungarian barrel to get it cleaned up. Will ask Mike to empty and do a meta/citric rinse on Sat. so it will be ready to recieve the Syrah. Expect that will hapen Monday or so.

Chard has calmed down in the barrel/carboy. Topped all up to full.

Tried a bottle our recently bottled syrah while we worked. It is drinking well already. An impressive effort that we are all proud of. Hope this years Syrah turns out as well.

RiverRock Syrah: 13 Brix

Checked the surgars on the RiverRock syrah. Down to 13 brix. Solid cap. What color!

2006 Syrah Bottled

Bottled the 2006 Syrah. What a nice wine. The hungarian barrel added the perfect complement of smokiness. The group couldn't be happier. It's going to be hard to beat! Sure shows that our selection of Syrah grapes was right on. THANK YOU DENNIS!

Bottled about 13 cases of the Syrah. Mixed up the rest of the leftovers into a nice wine. The blend was about
8.1G Malbec
10G Syrah Rose
1.3G Petit Verdot

We brainstormed a name for the leftover surprise, and Michele coined it Encore! It stuck. Nice name! :) Bottled 7+ cases.

Syrah at 18 Brix

Lee has been punching down the Syrah--which is fermenting well. Today at lunch we punched down and checked the must. It's at 18brix.