Bottling with Periple

Monday we helped Angie Riff and crew bottle Periple's Syrah and Pinot Noir. We bottled more wine in 1 day than we bottle all year!  It was great to get to work with Angie and learn from her.  We didn't get to taste the Pinot, but the Syrah was terrific! It will be hard to wait the 6 months before opening a bottle. 
 
The bottling initially was planned on a large automated bottler but it turned out the bottles weren't compatible so we ended up using a 6-spout stationary bottle filler and an electric corker (labels and foils to be added at a later date).   The automated bottler runs at 2,400 bottles per hour, or 40 per minute.   We did pretty good on the 6-spout filler and managed about 18-20 bottles per minute. We started the bottler using a siphon but ended up using an air pump to transfer the wine.  The bottling process was very similar to what we have been used to, except we got to start with brand new (clean!) bottles and there was A LOT MORE WINE!  We learned that a pallet can hold 56 cases (134.4 gallons) of wine...if you stack it right.
 
Angie pays a lot of attention to sanitation. She used TSP, Water, Citric, Iodine and Water to clean, nutralize, sanatize and rinse the hoses. For the bottler we used proxycarb, citric and water.  And as a final cleaning step every part that came in contact with the wine or bottles was sprayed with alcohol (Vodka).  She also works hard to make sure the wine doesn't come in contact with oxygen by covering the wine with a blanket of nitrogen and adding nitrogen to the bottles before filling them.  Angie used Rich Xiberta Natural Cork with the Periple's name printed on them. Corks were added directly to the automated corker without touching them. Cheryl was the perfect height for adding corks to the machine. ;)
 
Angie added a modest amount of Meta to the wine before bottling to help protect it during the process and in the bottle. She started with 18ppm and targeted 35ppm (see blog photo for her calcs.)  She explained that much of the SO2 is lost in the first 6 month and the majority is gone after 2 years in the bottle.
 

ML Kicker Added

The group met and added ML cultures to the 2009 red wines, except the Petite Sirah and Petite Sirah Port.  We think the wines were starting ML from the residual cultures in the wood barrels, but we wanted to give it a kick to make sure it completes before the barrels move into the cooler.  We added about 2+ bags to the large barrels, 1+ bag to the smaller barrels and a little to all the carboys. Everything has a breathable bung or a bubbler.

 

We also tasted the 2 barrels of 2008 reserve cabs and decided that it is time to bottle because they have as much oak as we want.  The WA Clone6 cab from RiverRock vineyard has been in a 4 year old American Oak barrel. It is a smooth, lighter bodied cab with finer wood tannis--quite elegant. The ID Clone2 cab from Williamson vineyard has been in Ray's 1 year old French barrel. It has heavy french barrel flavor/aroma with vanilla toast and fruit and a very high alcohol level--a real BIG cab.  We liked them blended together the best and the current thought is we will blend them both into a single reserve along with 5% malbec and maybe a half a % petit verdot (both are held back from previous years for reserve cab blending).

 

We'll do a final trial blending tasting in the next few weeks with the entire group to make a decision on the 2008 Reserve Cabernet blend, followed by bottling. We'll need 27 cases of clean bottles, so start scrubbin! The great news is that means we all get over 5 cases of reserve cabernet (yum :).  I'll do a cork count to see if we need to order more.