My home computer has been down, so I haven't sent blog entries in for awhile. Here is a quick synopsis of recent activities.
When topping last week, Ray was concerned that the Merlot in his French Oak barrel was getting too much wood. Part of that is his newer barrel that had a raw lumber taste. We have the option to move that barrel of Merlot to Mike's empty 30G hungarian barrel. If we do that we would want to move the WA Cab from the suspect barrel into Ray's French Oak barrel, which is still pretty new and has good oak. Then we can decide what to do with that suspect barrel.
If we decide to transfer the wines then we first need to hydrate and clean the empty barrel with proxycarb (should just need a light cleaning get rid of sulfur). It is important that we don't let the barrel sit out wet for days or it will also get some mold growth inside. The wines are at minimum SO2 levels right now, so we need to add 15ppm before transferring/racking them.
Troy
1. Bottling 2009 Cabs
We bottled the 2009 cabernets in early June. The reserve cab blend is very good. The WA cab has a funny taste--we think it may have gotten some spoilage. Our only guess is the SS kegs we transferred it into for the last 2 months must have not been completely clean and the SO2 levels were too low. There is some WA cab i the reserve blend. Hopefully it doesn't cause problems. The blend ended up being:
2009 Reserve Cab
65% ID Cab
25% WA Cab
10% Malbec
65% ID Cab
25% WA Cab
10% Malbec
2. Topping
We have been topping every 2 weeks. Last date was Aug 6th. All wines are sound and have turned the corner and tasting quite good. The WA Merlot and WA Syrah are excellent as is the ID Williamson Cabernet. The others are tasting fine, just not as good. pping wines tasted suspect. We're not sure what--maybe too high of sulfites added? We marked it as "Suspect" on the container and topped with something else. The wine cooler is working well.
3. Racking
We racked all wines (except the Syrah) off the fine lees in early to mid June. We decided to not do the additional racking on the syrah based on input from Angie who said while racking and aeration is beneficial to bordeaux grapes, syrah is better to rack less. The empty barrels were sulfured.
BARREL CLEANING PROCEDURE
1. Create a proxycarb solution (15 TBSP Proxy Clean for a 30G) into a 5G carboy and mix it up well.
2. Add proxycarb solution and water to fill the barrel. Turn on barrel turner to mix it up.
3. Let barrel sit for 24 hours
4. Rinse barrel with water
5. Rinse barrel with meta/citric solution (1G water, 1 TBSP Meta, 1/2 TBSP citric acid)
6. Rinse barrel with water
1. Create a proxycarb solution (15 TBSP Proxy Clean for a 30G) into a 5G carboy and mix it up well.
2. Add proxycarb solution and water to fill the barrel. Turn on barrel turner to mix it up.
3. Let barrel sit for 24 hours
4. Rinse barrel with water
5. Rinse barrel with meta/citric solution (1G water, 1 TBSP Meta, 1/2 TBSP citric acid)
6. Rinse barrel with water
