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Hi Gang,

 

I've set the Main Riverwoods blog up to send an email to all of us when a new entry is added. Below is the latest blog entry that Mike and Margaret added after topping up this week.

 

Troy

 

--Blog Entry from May 20th, titled Topping on 5/19/08

 

Hopefully, this works.

Margaret, Lee, Ray and Mike tasted and topped on May 19th and around 6:30 pm.

Chard in the SS keg. This wine has not changed much. It is still off, with a petrolium odor and taste. After a while, the petro smell/taste dissapates. We should probably watch it for a while and make a decision on go/no go later.

Did not smell/taste the Chard in the Glass.

Merlot 1/2 in the SS keg that came out of Ray's bbl is still a bit off in smell and taste. No scum; some foam (Mal/ferm?)

Merlot 1 in the new Hung bbl. Smells/tastes ok. Still a bit green. no scum

Merlot 2 in Lee's bbl. smell/tastes good. Softer than the Hung. bbl.
NOTE: We have some confusion with topping wine for the Merlot. We have a bag with "topping 1/2 only" for the SS keg, and also some other Merlot 1/2. Need to clarify what we can use to top what with. This will help those of us who have missed a session or can't determine for sure which to use from the label on the topping wine container.

Syrah had a slight oil film. smelled good. tasted ok.

All clone cabs smelled and tasted good. Topped with Cl 6.

Reserves smelled and tasted good. Moved the Willys into the cooler. Broke down the 3 gal carboy into 3/1 gal containers for topping.

Turned the cooler on due to the warm weather. Should probably move the topping containers into the back of the cooler if the warm weather holds.

Noted date and smell/taste/appearance/topping wine used on the bbl data sheets.




Margaret Dimmick
dimmicks@earthlink.net

Topping on 5/19/08

Hopefully, this works.

Margaret, Lee, Ray and Mike tasted and topped on May 19th and around 6:30 pm.

Chard in the SS keg. This wine has not changed much. It is still off, with a petrolium odor and taste. After a while, the petro smell/taste dissapates. We should probably watch it for a while and make a decision on go/no go later.

Did not smell/taste the Chard in the Glass.

Merlot 1/2 in the SS keg that came out of Ray's bbl is still a bit off in smell and taste. No scum; some foam (Mal/ferm?)

Merlot 1 in the new Hung bbl. Smells/tastes ok. Still a bit green. no scum

Merlot 2 in Lee's bbl. smell/tastes good. Softer than the Hung. bbl.
NOTE: We have some confusion with topping wine for the Merlot. We have a bag with "topping 1/2 only" for the SS keg, and also some other Merlot 1/2. Need to clarify what we can use to top what with. This will help those of us who have missed a session or can't determine for sure which to use from the label on the topping wine container.

Syrah had a slight oil film. smelled good. tasted ok.

All clone cabs smelled and tasted good. Topped with Cl 6.

Reserves smelled and tasted good. Moved the Willys into the cooler. Broke down the 3 gal carboy into 3/1 gal containers for topping.

Turned the cooler on due to the warm weather. Should probably move the topping containers into the back of the cooler if the warm weather holds.

Noted date and smell/taste/appearance/topping wine used on the bbl data sheets.




Margaret Dimmick
dimmicks@earthlink.net

Spring Schedule

The group met today to talk about the Spring schedule, the upcoming season and top/taste the wines. We blind tasted the 05 Hells Canyon Syrah against our 06 Syrah. Both were very good! At first we were split 50/50 on which was ours. After a second tasting we were more like 70/30. It's tough to identify your own wine!

Topped and tasted wines. All were sound. Merlot in stainless is OK. Should rack over copper to be sure. Need to re-rack malbec over copper as well. The rest of the reds just need a racking after MLF.

The 06 Wood River Clone 6 has a slight sharpness to the nose--not sure if it's gotten low on SO2--it looks like a while since we have added any. We should consider adding a minimum amount--15ppm would be good before we bottle.

The WW C6 Cab continues to have a strong toast flavor. When we rack out of that barrel we need to clean it good and rotate in another wine--maybe the merlot that is in SS now.

The favorite by far was the Williamson reserve. It is superb. We have to talk Roger out of 1,000lbs of grapes next year (or more) so we have more to hold over for reserve wines.

The bung on the chard in the 15G SS barrel wasn't very tight and some air got in. Unsure of the amount of spoilage. We sprayed with some meta and will check in another week. :( We're still waiting for it to go through MLF before bottling.

Winery Spring Schedule:
1. Clean Bottles: First week of June. We need approx 25 cases of reds and 3C of whites.Everyone check to see how many de-labeled bottles you have.

2. Bottle Reserves & Whites: Sun June 8th at 1pm. Blend reserve cabs with the held-back 06 malbec and petit verdot. Start w/ 95% cab, 4% malbec and 1% petit verdot.

3. Rack the reds the week after bottling and clean barrels. The malbec should go over copper again, as should the Merlot that is in Stainless. We'll rotate wine in barrels with the C6+malbec going into Troy's barrel and the Merlot from the SS to Bob's 20G french recoop (after cleaning it well). A couple days after the empty barrels dry we should sulfur them plus sulfur the other empty barrels (8G & 60G)

4. Troy will post a topping schedule for topping every other week, and a topping checklist.

That should do us until August when we rack again and then bottle in early September, unless something changes.


EXPANSION:
We talked about expanding capacity, with the highest priority being getting more reserves. This means getting more Williamson cab and Wood River Clone 6 cab so we can hold it over. To store them we would need more barrels and expand the cooler around the corner w/ another cooling unit. An easier approach may be to use the SS tanks Mike got and wood dominoes and make a more fruit forward merlot.

2008 Grapes
Troy and Mike will try and talk with Steve from Hells Canyon about getting some syrah this year. Troy will see what we can expect from Walla Walla. There have been several conversations with Roger about getting grapes this year and he seems receptive--we just need to continue to follow up. It would also be good to walk the Wood River Clone 6 row to see what we can expect there. Dennis stopped by earlier this year and we hope to continue to get more of his Malbec and Merlot.