Racking and Juggling

I expect we will want to add some (5% or so) of the 2010 Malbec to the 09 Cab Reserve.  Since we don't have any "extra" malbec in carboys, we will have to do some juggling to get it out, which we can work into our Spring racking. 

 

Here's the proposed shell game (current wine/barrel listing is at the end of the email). 

 

Troy

 

1. Move 30G WA Merlot from Ray's new American Oak Barrel into Ray's empty 30G French barrel. 

- Mike has cleaned this barrel and it is ready to go.

- We may want to rack out both barrels of WA Merlot at the same time and mix them together.

- We only have 1 extra G of WA Merlot...we may have to top with ID Merlot.

 

2. Combine 2 smaller barrels of WA Cab into Ray's new 30G American

- Clean Ray's barrel good beforehand

- 22G French + 15G Hungarian

 

3. Transfer the Malbec from a 30G Hungarian barrel into a 22G French Barrel (~3-4G will go into the blend).

 

4. Rack the ID Cab in/out of Lee's 15G barrel. We will have to top with WA Cab.

 

5. Rack the ID Merlot in/out of it's current barrel.

 

6. We need to decide if we want to rack the Syrah wines or not.  New information from Angie suggests it is better for Syrah to rack it less often.

 

 
 
Cooler #1:
1. 30G Hungarian, 2010 ID Syrah
2. 22G French, 2010 WA Cabernet
3. 22G French, 2010 WA Syrah
4. 15-18G American, 2010 Idaho Merlot
 
Cooler #2:
1. 15G Hungarian, 2010 WA Cabernet
2. 15G French, 2010 ID Cabernet
3. 15G Stainless, 2009 WA Cabernet
4. 15G Stainless, 2009 ID Cabernet

 
Carboys:
- (1+ 3+5) 9G 2010 WA Syrah
- 3G  2010 ID Merlot
- (5+1+ 5+1) 12G 2009 ID Cabernet
- 1G 2010 WA Merlot
- 3G ID Syrah
 
Cooler #3:
1. 30G French, 2010 WA Syrah
2. 30G Hungarian, 2010 Malbec
3. 26G American, 2010 WA Merlot
4. 30G American, 2010 WA Merlot

5. 15G Stainless, 2009 WA Cab w/ 1G ID Cab (outside cooler #3)

Preparing For Bottling

Today we cleaned 27 cases of bottles, preparing to bottle the 09 cabernet, including some magnums that Bob brought.  Took us about 3 hours.  We tried using one-step this time and liked it.  We think it has some sanatizing properties if the bottles soak for a couple of minutes...although it still isn't clear.  We got some  little sponges and ran them through the large siphon line and the bottling hose, using water pressure. We liked how that worked to clean out the lines.  And we soaked the bottler in a bucket of one-step, so it is ready to go (we will still want to do a quick meta rinse).

 

Blending trials are set for Wed at 6:30pm followed by bottling on Thu at 5:30pm.  This time we're going to pull barrel samples a couple of hours ahead of time so they have time to warm up before blending.  Each of the small carafes holds about 2 cups, or 500ml.  We will probably need 2 full carafes each of the ID and WA cabs plus 1 carafe of the Malbec

 

Inventory of wine in the garage is listed below. I counted fewer gallons of the 2009 wine than expected.  I expected about 60 gallons of 2009 wine and found only 32 gallons (15G of WA Cab and 17G of ID Cab), so I must have missed some. I will go back and double check. Maybe there is another stainless keg with combined 2009 ID/WA cab?  I did double check the corks and we have 300-400 corks, which will be enough.

 

We are tight on extra gallons of some of the 2010 wines, which we need to think about for racking. No extra Malbec and only 1G of WA Merlot (I didn't count any wine in Platypus containers).  We will have to figure out a racking plan.

 

 

Cooler #1:

1. 30G Hungarian, 2010 ID Syrah

2. 22G French, 2010 WA Cabernet

3. 22G French, 2010 WA Syrah

4. 15-18G American, 2010 Idaho Merlot

 

Cooler #2:

1. 15G Hungarian, 2010 WA Cabernet

2. 15G French, 2010 ID Cabernet

3. 15G Stainless, 2009 WA Cabernet

4. 15G Stainless, 2009 ID Cabernet

 

Carboys:

- (1+ 3+5) 9G 2010 WA Syrah

- 3G  2010 ID Merlot

- (5+1+ 5+1) 12G 2009 ID Cabernet

- 1G 2010 WA Merlot

- 3G ID Syrah

 

Cooler #3:

1. 30G French, 2010 WA Syrah

2. 30G Hungarian, 2010 Malbec

3. 26G American, 2010 WA Merlot

4. 30G American, 2010 WA Merlot

 

 

Re: [Riverwoods Wineries] Top and Taste

Clarification. The below statement is in reference to the initial sulfur addition made to sanitize the must before fermentation.

 

> 5. We would like to try changing our sulfur addition from 100ppm to 50ppm on one barrel of wine next year,

> to see what difference it makes. We will have to measure sulfur levels a couple of times in Nov/Dec and Jan

> to see when they drop below 15ppm and then start adding meta early to maintain that level.

On Tue, May 10, 2011 at 7:25 AM, Troy Pearse <ttpearse@gmail.com> wrote:

We tasted and topped all the wines on Monday. All wines are coming along well.   The 2 favorites were the WA Merlot in Troy's barrel and the ID Cab in Lee's barrel.

 

The wine appears mostly through MLF, with a couple of barrels still having a tart taste. Another couple weeks and they will be ready to rack off the fine lees.  One barrel (the 20G barrel in the main cooler) of the WA Syrah had a slight off/chemical nose and we added 20ppm of meta to it. We should watch it carefully and clean the barrel well when we rack it off the fine lees next month.

 

The WA Merlot in Ray's barrel doesn't have quite as strong of a lumber taste/smell, but it still isn't as nice as what is in the other barrel. When we rack off the fine lees in 2 weeks we will transfer it to Ray's empty 30G barrel.

 

The WA Cab has good flavors, but is "weaker" this year. We will rotate it into Ray's new barrel, after pulling out the WA Merlot (and cleaning the barrel good with Proxycarb).

 

Trial blending for the 2009 cabernet reserve is set for Tuesday, May 31st, after Bob and Pam get back from their travels, with bottling the next day, Wed June 1st.  We estimate 5 cases of bottles each (get your bottles ready).  This is the second trial blending for the 09 cab reserve and we will be trying blending in some malbec and merlot, as well as making sure the samples are at room temperature.  We will start off the blending with the 2 front-runners from last time.

 

1. 60% WA Cab, 40% ID Cab

2. 60% ID Cab, 40% WA Cab

3. Add 5% Malbec to favorite of #1 vs #2

4. Add 5% Merlot to favorite of #1/#2/#3

 

We discussed some winery sanitation. Copys of the handouts from the seminar are in the winery for everyone and notes have been distributed electronically. A few items we talked about were:

 

1. Scrub around bung-holes with a strong meta solution before topping and clean bungs better.

 

2. Clean barrels with percarbonate (proxycarb) at the end of the season before letting them dry and sulfuring them. (Rinsing at racking is fine unless there is problem in the wine or barrel).

 

3. Clean hoses by soaking in a cleaner like proxycarb or One-step and running sponges/pigs through them.

 

4. Straight-A is a cleaner, but not a sanitizer. We could switch to One-step for winery equipment cleaning in the red bucket and it will clean and sanitize with 2 minutes of contact time.

 

5. We would like to try changing our sulfur addition from 100ppm to 50ppm on one barrel of wine next year, to see what difference it makes. We will have to measure sulfur levels a couple of times in Nov/Dec and Jan to see when they drop below 15ppm and then start adding meta early to maintain that level.

 

 

--
Posted By Troy Pearse to Riverwoods Wineries at 5/10/2011 06:25:00 AM

Top and Taste

We tasted and topped all the wines on Monday. All wines are coming along well.   The 2 favorites were the WA Merlot in Troy's barrel and the ID Cab in Lee's barrel.

 

The wine appears mostly through MLF, with a couple of barrels still having a tart taste. Another couple weeks and they will be ready to rack off the fine lees.  One barrel (the 20G barrel in the main cooler) of the WA Syrah had a slight off/chemical nose and we added 20ppm of meta to it. We should watch it carefully and clean the barrel well when we rack it off the fine lees next month.

 

The WA Merlot in Ray's barrel doesn't have quite as strong of a lumber taste/smell, but it still isn't as nice as what is in the other barrel. When we rack off the fine lees in 2 weeks we will transfer it to Ray's empty 30G barrel.

 

The WA Cab has good flavors, but is "weaker" this year. We will rotate it into Ray's new barrel, after pulling out the WA Merlot (and cleaning the barrel good with Proxycarb).

 

Trial blending for the 2009 cabernet reserve is set for Tuesday, May 31st, after Bob and Pam get back from their travels, with bottling the next day, Wed June 1st.  We estimate 5 cases of bottles each (get your bottles ready).  This is the second trial blending for the 09 cab reserve and we will be trying blending in some malbec and merlot, as well as making sure the samples are at room temperature.  We will start off the blending with the 2 front-runners from last time.

 

1. 60% WA Cab, 40% ID Cab

2. 60% ID Cab, 40% WA Cab

3. Add 5% Malbec to favorite of #1 vs #2

4. Add 5% Merlot to favorite of #1/#2/#3

 

We discussed some winery sanitation. Copys of the handouts from the seminar are in the winery for everyone and notes have been distributed electronically. A few items we talked about were:

 

1. Scrub around bung-holes with a strong meta solution before topping and clean bungs better.

 

2. Clean barrels with percarbonate (proxycarb) at the end of the season before letting them dry and sulfuring them. (Rinsing at racking is fine unless there is problem in the wine or barrel).

 

3. Clean hoses by soaking in a cleaner like proxycarb or One-step and running sponges/pigs through them.

 

4. Straight-A is a cleaner, but not a sanitizer. We could switch to One-step for winery equipment cleaning in the red bucket and it will clean and sanitize with 2 minutes of contact time.

 

5. We would like to try changing our sulfur addition from 100ppm to 50ppm on one barrel of wine next year, to see what difference it makes. We will have to measure sulfur levels a couple of times in Nov/Dec and Jan to see when they drop below 15ppm and then start adding meta early to maintain that level.