winery work on 12/23/08

Today we racked the WA Malbec over copper plate twice and added approx. 1/3 tsp. Meta to approx 19 gals.    It has a strong rotten egg smell, although Ray and Bob don't think it was as bad as the Sangio. 

 

Sangio smells OK and tastes a little tart, almost lemony/grassy.  We did not rack it any more.

 

We racked the SS 15.5 gal of Chard.  Tastes great! 

 

We topped the rest of the barrels. They all smell good. 

 

 

topping report

At 1pm today (12/10/08) Bob, Lee and Mike checked all the containers/barrels and topped the Malbec and Chard. 

 

The Chard (stainless steel keg) smells great, tastes good (could use a touch of wood) and containers are good to go.  We racked the 3 gal carboy and got rid of about a 1/2 gallon of goop in the bottom.  jTasted the 3 gal carboy and it is the same good taste as the stainless keg.

 

The Washington Malbec smells strong of rotten egg.  The barrel was down about 2 bottles.  Need to rack it over copper soon.  (did not smell the carboy of Wa/Malbec.  (Sorry)

 

The Idaho Malbec smells great, tastes great and has been topped (about 3/4 a bottle)

 

The bungs, bubblers and corks are looking good in everything else.  We did open one barrel of 08 cab and the level has not dropped since we racked on Sunday 9/07/08, so we left the other recently racked containers alone. 

 

Empty barrel smells really good.

 

One barrel that appeared to be slightly leaking still shows a stain, and I was able to feel about a drop of wet red wine on my finger after I ran it around the head, but it seems to be OK.  Maybe it has swollen and sealed itself. 

 

Bungs that were removed were meta'd and returned. 

 

I'll send an e-mail to Quality Nursery to inform David of the rotten egg smell in his Malbec. 

 

That's it!       Mike

 

 

Margaret Dimmick

dimmicks@earthlink.net

 

 

Cab & Malbec Racked Off The Gross Lees

The group met and racked the barrels of Merlot and Cabernet off their gross lees today. We spot checked the sugars and the merlot was down to .994 and the cab was at .996. Both down a little since we pressed, but could use to drop a little further.  The cab had considerable sediment on the bottom and we lost 2 gallons or so in each barrel.   Troy's 15G Hungarian was emptied out while racking the cab, and needs a meta rinse.  It will stay empty until the Sangio is ready.

 

We re-racked the sangio over copper again. The sangio continues to smell better. The stainless kegs that have been racked once more than the others had very little to no rotten egg smell!  We are delighted to be rid of the nasty smell and we plan to filter the sangio in the next week or so to (hopefully) keep it from coming back.  Some of the sangio still had considerable gunky-ness settled to the bottom as the precipitants have been coming out from adding extra meta and racking over the copper.  We've been aggressivly discarding any sediment when we rack.

 

We plan to keep the sangio in stainless kegs and glass until we are sure it is "sound", so that it doesn't contaminate a barrel. Once we're confident it is good (a couple weeks after filtering) we'll combine it with some of the cabernet to make the base of the Super Tuscan.  We tried some blending today and about a 60% cabernet and 40% sangio was good. Could use a shot of Petit Verdot too.  I think the first Super Tuscan had approx 10% petit verdot.

 

The group reviewed the Fall expenses and Troy will finish the accounting and get the results out to the group.  This year we crushed 5,800 pounds of grapes, compared to 4,100 pounds last year. Both this year and last year we had 6 crushings and 5 pressings.  We pressed out 376 gallons of wine this year!

 

The group decided to create a new category of capital equipment called "Group Capital" that we split the cost of evenly. New items for the category are microbins and the new bottler. We decided to not go back and try and account for previous items, but just keep track of new items from here forward.

Cab and Merlot are Pressed!

We pressed out the Wood River Merlot and the Williamson Cabernet today in about 4.5 hours. 1,000lbs of Merlot and 2,000lbs of Cab.  Wow, that's a lot of grapes!! It's great to finally have all of them pressed out. With the high alcohol levels it was a real struggle getting through fermentation this year.  The merlot and cabernet are around .998 brix and still showing signs of fermenting a bit.  We'd like to see them drop to .995 or .990 over the next week.  We'll measure brix again when we rack them in a week or two.

 

The merlot was very tasty.  Big flavors and color from a full MONTH on the skins. Still lots of fruit--or maybe a little sweetness. It's hard to say.  The Cabernet was on the skins for about 3 weeks and was a bit harsh/bitter and alcoholic--maybe from the extra exposure to seeds from the way the grapes got crushed.  We pressed the cabernet pretty lightly, trying to avoid a rise in PH and to minimize the hard tannins.  We pressed the Merlot a little harder.  We got 88G of Merlot out of 114G of must. More than we expected. A 77% yield.  Maybe we had more merlot than we thought?  We got 84G of Cabernet out of 246G of must--34% yield.  Much less than we expected, although it was pressed very lightly.  Maybe we had less Cabernet than we thought?

 

We racked the Clone-6 cab off it's gross lees and it tastes very good. We racked about 1/2 the Sangio over copper.  The Sangio is smelling better, and is tasting better too. Still a little ways to go before we can filter it and call it "good".

 

Photos are uploaded to the group's 2008 online photo album.

 

 

Pressing On Tuesday

We checked the Merlot and Cab this afternoon and they are all at or below zero brix. Yea!  We plan on pressing on Tuesday, starting at 2pm.

 

Cab Bin A: .998

Cab Bin B: .998

Cab Bin C: 0

Merlot: .998

Fermentation Update: Looking Good!

Lee and I measured the wines today at 2:00.  Merlot:  68 and 0.5,  Cab A: 66 and 0.5,  Cab B: 66 and 1.0,  Cab C:  67 and 1.2.  As a little experiment, we filtered a sample of Cab A though a gold coffee filter and measured Brix as 0.   Fermentation still going on and taste is good. 

 

Bob  

Brix Update

Just finished measuring at 3:00. Merlot: 66 and 2.2 temp and brix respectively, Cab A: 64 and 2.5, Cab B: 65 and 2.7, Cab C: 66 and 3.5. Lee had punched them down earlier. All tasted pretty good.

Caps were solid. Still foaming, too. We thought they looked OK and fermation still going on.

Bob

Cabernet Brix Adjusted

Bob, Troy and Lee checked the fermentation status. The merlot continues to make good progress and has a solid cap. Merlot flavor and color is very good. The two smaller bins of cab continue to be slow with temps dropping a degree.

 

We discussed options and the unavoidable fact is that the yeast is unable to continue to ferment because the alcohol levels are reaching the 16% toxicity range for the Pastur Red yeast. The dropping must temps are of concern because we cannot easily get the temps back up after they drop below the min level of 64 degrees.

 

Since the brix adjustment with water is working well on the merlot we decided to do it on the cabernet. Not much water is needed and the benefits are much higher than the risk of a little dilution.

 

We added approx 1.3G of 105 degree water to each small bin and 2.6G of 105 degree water to the large bin. We hydrated and added 3 paks of Pastur Red yeast to each small bin and 5 paks to the large bin. Each has been stirred well and put to bed.

 

Cab Bin A: 64 degrees, 2.75 brix. Dropped to 2.5 brix after water added.

Cab Bin B: 65 degrees, 3+ brix. Dropped to 3 brix after water added.

Cab Bin C: 65 degrees, 4 brix. Dropped to 3+ brix after water added.

Merlot 68 degrees, 3 brix.

 

Bob and/or Lee will punch down once during the day on Wed. Bob and/or Troy will take brix and temp readings, either mid-day or in the evening. Watch for the daily report.

Merlot Fermentation Imroved!

Troy, Bob and Lee checked progress tonight and the merlot is doing very well. Fermentation has definitely increased with bix dropping more than in the last week!  The temp has also come up from 68 to 69 degrees and the cap was very solid.  Taste is less sweet with very good flavors. :-D  We were all very happy with the results.  We hydrated and added 5 paks of RC212 yeast to the Meta to help ensure good yeast to finish fermentation.

 

Cabs continue fermenting with the big bin having the densest cap and the smaller bins having a softer cap.  Temps in the smaller bins dropped a little from 65-66 degrees to just under 65 degrees. Bin A has made no progress in Brix. Between the softer cap, lower temps and no change in brix on Cab Bin A the smaller bins of Cabernet appear to be slowing down fermentation. A reading of 2.75-3 Brix would have the Cab around the 16% alcohol--the toxic level for the yeast, which Bin A and B are nearing.

 

Merlot 66-99 degrees. 3.5 Brix -- DOWN FROM 4.75 BRIX

Cab Bin A 65- degrees. 3 Brix  -- NO PROGRESS

Cab Bin B 65- degrees. 3.75- Brix  -- DOWN FROM 5 BRIX

Cab Bin C 65+ degrees. 4.75 Brix -- DOWN FROM 5 BRIX

 

We will take another reading on Tuesday. If the Cab in Bin A hasn't made progress, then we will have to take steps to keep the fermentation from becoming stuck. Since the water addition worked well for the Merlot, we may try it with the Cabernet. The amount of water needed is pretty small: 2.8G for the big bin and 1.4G for each of the small bins.

Sangio Much Improved

We racked the Sangio over copper again on Sunday. It smelled much much better. :)  We are optimistic that it has turned the corner!

 

We added 20ppm of meta before racking. Racked over copper 1 way, and then back into the SS kegs, breaking 1 down into carboys and a platypus since we were out of Sangio for topping.  We discarded the bottom of the keg if it contained any sediment.

 

We will let it sit for a few more days and check it again. Once we are free of the rotten egg smell we will filter it to remove any elemental sulfur and yeast cells that may cause it to come back.

 

 We were initially going to add some cabernet right away (once it was pressed), but we will want to give the sangio a month or so to make sure the problem is solved before doing any blending.

 

 

Merlot Brix Reduced

The group met to discuss how to handle the Merlot and cab to avoid a stuck fermentation.  We took measurements of the brix and temp of all the bins.

 

Merlot: 5.5 brix, 66 degrees

Cab bin C 5 brix, 65 degrees

Cab bin B 5 brix, 66 degrees

Cab bin A 3 brix, 65 degrees

 

The cab continues to ferment some, with one bin dropping more than the other. Interestingly it is the bin with the higher PH that wasn't adjusted with acid. The Merlot hadn't changed brix in the last 24h, and only 1/2 brix in the previous 24h. There was still a cap and foam to indicate activity, but it has really slowed down.  Temps were at the low end of the spectrum for the first yeast pitched but well within the range for the EC1118 yeast. This supports the concern that fermentation is stalling and therefore not generating much heat.   

 

We talked about the fact that the EC1118 yeast hadn't taken over. It seems that you can't establish a second yeast after the first is going--something we were not aware of when we started. If we would have started with EC1118 yeast we likely would be OK right now.

 

We discussed the options of letting the Merlot sit for another day or two and seeing if it made progress. However there is a concern that if the temps drop below the minimum that we won't be able to warm the must up enough to get it going again because of the colder weather (low 30, high 50)

 

We decided to add the minimum amount of water to the Merlot to see if it would improve the "living conditions" for the yeast and restart it. We added 9G (with no acid correction) of 100-104 degree water (the temps recommended for yeast hydration) to the Merlot must and stirred vigorously to mix it up and get the yeast stimulated.  The ending measurements were 4.75 Brix and 68-69 degree must.

 

We covered the bins with several painting tarp/cloths to try and improve heat retention. We will measure the temp and brix and check for fermentation indications on Monday, as well as add a booster of the initial yeast used on the Merlot, which was RC212.

 

We will continue to monitor the cabernet. We decided to not add water to the cab yet, as we wanted to see if it worked on the merlot first. Plus the cab was still showing some signs of fermenting and lowering brix.  We did not press the merlot or cab because we want to have skins contact with the water added.  Plus the skins do give some amount of nutrient to the fermentation which we thought would help it progress better than being off the skins.

 

Wine Dilution Details

The following wine website has a handy calculator for adjusting the brix of the must. Both adding sugar to increase the brix and adding water to dilute the brix.

 

http://vinoenology.com/calculators/chaptalization-and-water-dilution/

 

If we targeted a brix of 27.5 (alcohol level of 15.6--within the 16% limit of pastur red  and RC112), here is the amount of water we would have to add.

 

Cabernet:

256G total must volume

29 initial brix

27.5 target brix

15.72G of water needed to reduce brix to target level (5G needed if the target brix is 28.5% or 16.3% alcohol)

 

Merlot:

114G total must volume

30.5 initial brix

28.5 target brix

14G of water needed to reduce brix to target level (9G needed if the target brix is 28.5 or 16.3% alcohol)

Prepared For Pressing

Fermentation is still steady on both the Merlot and Cabernet, but has slowed down to 1/2 brix a day the last few days.  Both are nearing alcohol toxicity for the Pastur Red yeast. Additional EC 1118 yeast has been added, which has an alcohol tolerance of 18%.   We will have to monitor both very closely for a stuck fermentation.

 

The merlot started at 30.5 brix and has been on the skins 22 days and is around 5.5 brix. The final alcohol level is estimated at 17.5% and the current alcohol is around 15%. 

 

The cabernet started at 29 brix has been on the skins 16 days and is around 5 brix. The final alcohol level is estimated at 16.75% and the current alcohol is around 14%.

 

We have 114G of Merlot must. Assuming 63%-65% yield with a moderate pressing we will get 70-75G. That will fill both of Mike's 2 30G hungarian barrels plus 10-15G carboys.

 

We have 246G of Cabernet must. Assuming a 60-63% yeild with very light pressing we will get 147G-155G (130G barrels and 15-25G carboys). Note: We are pressing lightly because the harder you press the higher the PH, and we want to keep the PH down as much as possible.

 

Bin B & C of the cabernet have had acid adjustment to reduce the PH. Bin A has had no adjustment and we plan to mix it into the Sangio--once we're confident the H2SO problem is solved.  We should mark the barresl that get the cab pressed from Bin A so we can keep track of it.  There will be approximatly 42G, which would fill Bob's 20G french and Ray's 22G french.

 

The following barrels are clean and ready for the Merlot and Cabernet.

 

- Mike's 30G hungarian #1 (Merlot)

- Mike's 30G hungarian #2 (Merlot)
- Ray's new 30G French (Cab)
- Bob's 20G French (Cab Bin A)
- Ray's 22G French (Cab Bin A)
- Bob's 15G American (Cab)
- Michele's 13G French  (Cab)

- Troy's 15G hungarian (Cab)

- Michele's 15G hungarian (Cab)

 

The group is undecided about when to press.  We are discussing the pros and cons of pressing before the wines are "dry".   The grapes have been on the skins long enough to get color and flavor extraction (22 days for the merlot and 16 days for the cab). Usually we would let them stay until the cap is ready to fall. However, there is some concern that the high alcohol levels will extract harsh/bitter tannins from the seeds if allowed to have contact for very long, especially on the Cabernet because more seeds got exposed during crush than normal.  Pressing is currently scheduled for Sunday at 1:30pm. We may press nothing, everything, or part of the cab and leave some of the cab for another week.

Sangio 2nd Racking

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The Sangio still has a strong rotten egg smell, but is definitely better than it was--we continue to be hopeful that we can fix it.  We added 20ppm meta and then racked it over copper.  We will wait several days and check it again.  Once we feel it is better we plan to run it through a fine filter to remove any "elemental sulfur" that has precipitated out of the wine.  There was already some amount of sediment on the bottom of the SS kegs that we threw out. We ended up topping with clone-6 cab as we didn't have enough sangio to fully fill all 4 of the 15G tanks.  After the next racking we'll switch to topping with the Williamson cabernet that will be used in the Super Tuscan.

 

Merlot is at 6 brix and Cab was around 7 brix. We plan to press them in 3 days on Sunday, around 1pm in the afternoon.

 

We put proxyclean in any barrel that had a sulfur wick burned in it.  They will get a meta/citric rinse before we fill them with cab on Sunday.  Several of the barrels were leaking and are being hydrated.  The 2 30G Hungarian barrels need a good meta/citric rinse.

Yeast booster added

Hydrated 6 packages of 1118 yeast in 2C 110 degree water and added 3/4 of it to the large bin-C of Cab and the other 1/4 to the smaller Bin-B of cab. Bin A got a booster yesterday as did the Merlot.

Both cab bins (B & C) were around 9.5 Brix tonight.

Clone 6 Press. Wines racked

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We pressed the WA Clone 6 cab tonight, it had been on the skins for 21 days and the cap was very soggy. It has great color and flavors! :-D  We pressed moderately hard and got 33G of wine from 52G of must--about a 63% yield. (Note: Earlier we had moved about 10G of Clone6 must into the sangio for co-fermentation.)  The Clone 6 is in Troy's 26G American barrel.

 

The Merlot is at 10 brix, compared to 12 brix 5 days ago and the Cab at 11 brix, compared with 23 brix 5 days ago.  Since the merlot is fermenting slowly we added 3 more packets of hydrated 1118 yeast to give it a boost. We also added about 2 packages to Bin A of the Williamson Cab. We'd like to add more to the other cab bins--we just ran out.  We expect to press the cab and merlot on Saturday and let them finish any last fermentation off of the skins and seeds, to help avoid harsh flavors from the high alcohol levels on the seeds.  That will give us 15 days on the skins for the Williamson cab and 22 days on the skins for the Merlot.

 

We racked the Chard, ID Malbec and Sangio.  The Malbec was good, the Chard tasted a little different (not bad, just different) but the Sangio had a very very bad case of rotten egg smell. :-( We racked it out over copper and then put it back into 4 15G SS kegs and a carboy.  We'll rack it again over copper in another week or two, and add some meta.  We are hopeful that we can clean it up, but we agreed we didn't want to blend in any Williamson cabernet until we were sure it was clean. So we'll need to keep track of the "uncorrected" Williamson cabernet with the higher PH in the meantime.

 

The 2 small Hungarian barrels that had the Sangio have some residual rotten egg smell. We will clean them good with Proxy Clean before putting more wine back in them.

 

 

Checking PH After Adjustment

Ray got some more calibration solution for the PH meter and we checked the PH on the Williamson cabernet.   The control sample (bin A) that had no adjustment was at PH 3.7 (it will get blended with the low PH Sangio).  Bin B was now 3.5-3.6 (reading vacillated) and the large bin C was at 3.5.  Those are good numbers and we are very happy with them. We'll continue to monitor the PH through fermentation.

 

We checked the sugars on the wines still fermenting:

Clone-6 Cab .996 brix  (will press in 4 days)

Merlot 12 brix

Williamson cab ranged from 23 to 26 brix, with the higher sugar in the big bin.

Correcting the Cabernet

Troy, Lee and I met again last night to measure again the pH of the cab must and also to take a TA measurement. The pH numbers came in at 3.8, 3.8, and 3.7 for the two small bins and the large one, respectively. As Troy stated in his email, we'd like them to be at most 3.6 and preferably below that. The TA (titratable acids) came in at just 8.6, 8.2 and 7.9 for the three. That's quite a spread. I don't think that we stirred the first batch well enough before taking a sample. But the numbers are slightly w/in the recommended limit of 9. After some discussion, we thought that if we could bring the pH down about 1 to 2 units, we'd be OK. Since we're not very experienced at this, we discounted the 2 number. We're a little hesitant to do too much too soon. The discussion turned 1 or 1 1/2 units of adjustment and we settled on the 1 1/2 pH adjustment number for our target. Well, today I set out to buy the appropriate amount of tartaric acid and all I could come up with was just enough for a 1 unit adjustment. The brew shops were virtually sold out of the stuff. We'll have to do a check in a few days to see if more is available and if we want to add more. Lee, Bob and I added the acid to the must this afternoon and we'll probably measure again tomorrow. Lee pitched the Pasteur yeast this morning and it took hold immediately. We'll add the EC1118 high alcohol yeast in a couple days.The fermentation is under way.

Cabernet PH Adjustment Information

Some research findings on adjusting PH.  But before we decide to adjust, we should verify the PH reading again. Our last PH adjustment didn't work out well partially because of a bad PH reading because the meter was going out. However, we are not surprised by the high PH reading because of the unusually high sugar/brix in the cabernet.  We should do a 2 point calibration with the meter. We should stir the must well and then filter some juice thru a coffee filter to ensure it's clean. We may also want to measure T.A.

 

The risks of not adjusting the PH are:

1. The wine will loose color.

2. The wine will become microbally unstable and will spoil.

3. To protect the wine we will have to use very high levels of Sulfites.

 

Adjusting PH:

The book "Techniques in Home Winemaking" advises against using acid blends because they contain citric acid which will make the wine taste sour. Instead use Tartaric acid.

 

You adjust the PH based on the volume of wine, not must.  In general estimate gallons of wine = 60% of total must volume.

 

We estimated 71G of must in each microbin. That would be about 42G of wine, or 159 liters.

We estimated 104G of must in the macrobin. That would be 62G of wine, or 235 liters.

 

We estimate that the average PH of the combined wines will be around 3.8, realizing it will increase by 0.1 to 0.2 after Malolactic Fermentation. We would like to get it down to 3.6, but may want to be conservative and just shoot for  PH of 3.7. Although remember that PH will rise again after MLF. So a 0.2 adjustment may be the minimum we want to do. We will have to discuss the options and decide. In general the less we do to the wine, the better.

 

PH Adjustment Formula & Amounts:

1 gram per liter of wine reduces the PH by 0.1 units.

 

159 grams of tartaric acid would lower the PH in the a small microbins by 0.1.

235 grams would lower PH in the large macrobin by 0.1.

 

The references state there are 5 grams of tartaric acid in 1tsp. So 0.2 tsp = 1 gram.

 

SMALL MICROBIN: 0.2 * 159 = 31.8 tsp (10.6 TBSP or 5.3 OZ) to adjust PH down to 3.7.

 

LARGE MACROBIN: 0.2 * 235 = 47 tsp (15 2/3 TBSP or 7.8 OZ).to adjust PH down to 3.7.

 

 

Last Crush Of The 08 Season

Ray and Bob went out to Williamsons and got 2,000lbs of cabernet. The fruit was picked that morning and into the afternoon and put into fruit boxes. Approx 20 pounds per box, and 100 boxes! All 100 boxes stacked into Troy's trailer with no problem.

Berries were small size, and smaller clusters. Seeds were evenly brown and stems were turning brown too. The fruit came in with some small leaves mixed into it. We picked them out as well as possible, but quite a few of the smaller pieces ended up in the must. The leaves were mostly dry.

We used the motorized crusher rented from BrewCon, which went fast. We crushed all 2,000lbs in just under 2 hours. Much faster than if we had to use the hand crank crusher.  We did several adjustments on the machine to try and get the crush size right. We may have ended up too small because the grapes were crushed/squashed more than usual which exposed the seeds. It also had a side-effect of more "empty" skins were ejected out with the stems (we estimate 50# of skins went into the trash).

We measured 246G of must total, split into 2 microbins (71G each) and 1 macro bin (104G). Volume of must was calculated using the following formula, which we've used several times now. We added just under 3TBSP of meta to sanatize the microbins and 4TBSP + 1tsp to the larger macrobin.

(Depth In Inches of the Must) *(L X W of microbin which is 43*43) * 7.48 / 12 * 12 * 12

We factored out the constants and simplified the equasion to:

Depth in Inches * 8.0038 = Gallons Of Must

The cabernet sugars were again higher than expected, with the PH coming in higher than we wanted. We sampled each bin and they had slightly different numbers, with an average of around 29 Brix and 3.8PH. We may want to do some acid adjustments on the must, but we agree we want to be cautious as our acid adjustments on the Chard in the past hasn't worked out very well. More investigation and discussion is needed. We will need to switch over again to the EC 1118 yeast to handle the higher alcohol. We might consider starting with the Pastur Red as we like the results--but we will need to have some of the EC1118 to finish the job.

MicroBin 1 29.5 Brix, 3.7 PH

MicroBin 2: 30 Brix, 3.9 PH

MacroBin 1: 28.5 Brix, 3.7 PH

We measured the Brix on the Clone 6, and it was around 3. It was at 10 Brix 3 days ago and will probably go another 4-5 days before the cap falls.

The day before we added 2 more TBSP of nutrient to the merlot, which is fermenting well but still very sweet.

We noticed the Sangio wine in the 5G carboy showed asignificant color gradient. We think the darker color on top is the cabernet that is still fermenting (it had higher sugars) and the lighter red below is the sangio. A very interesting effect. We should take a photo! (Photos from today have been uploaded to our shared online photo album.)

Sangio and ID Malbec Pressed

We pressed the Wood River Malbec and WA Sangiovese last night, Oct 28 2008. Both were fermented out with a soggy cap.

 

The Malbec was crushed on 10/18 and was on the skins 10 days. Color was immensely dark purple and flavor was very good--maybe the best Malbec we've had at this point. No hint of green flavors this year.  We got 48G of Malbec, pressing only lightly, and filled Lee's 30G French barrel, a 15G stainless keg, 2G carboys and 1G platypus.   

 

The Sangio was crushed on Oct 19th,  9 days on the skins.  The color was a lighter red color, until the pressed wine which was much darker and had much more flavor.  Flavors were a bit under-developed because of the low Brix, but it really picked up a lot of flavor the last couple days of fermentation. The Sangio included about 10G of clone-6 cabernet must that was co-fermented to help increase the low Sangio sugars and add extra flavor from the Cab skins (estimate 10% cab co-fermented). 

 

We got 70G of Sangio wine, more than expected because of the added 10G of cabernet must and we pressed very hard to get more flavors and tannins out of the lighter flavored must (WOW! What a difference in color and flavor.)  We put the Sangio into Troy's 15G Hungarian barrel, Michele's 15G hungarian barrel, 2 15G SS kegs, 9G carboys and 1G Platypus.  Michele will pick up her barrel and some carboys after the first racking in a week or so.

  

The Clone-6 Cab cap is starting to be less firm and the color/flavor is fanstastic! We want to keep the wine in contact with skins as long as possible to increase flavor/color/tannins. We moved it into the 2 plastic blue barrels to free the microbins up for Roger's cab that will be coming later this week (ETA Thursday 10/30).

 

The is Merlot fermenting well now with a very dense cap. Still very very sweet.

 

 

malbec & sangio ready to press

We checked sugars tonight.

malbec .996
sangio .997
clone-6 cab 10
merlot 30

We will press the sangio & malbec on tue. at 630pm

Merlot is starting slow. We added 6 pkgs of EC 1118 yeast & 2 tbsp
nutrient, as the initial starter got made with the 212 yeast..

Merlot Crushed Friday Oct 24

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Ray and Lee picked up a macro-bin of Merlot from Dennis at Wood River Friday morning .Estimate is for 900 pounds.  They also brought back an empty Macro Bin from Dennis to use for fermentation. We need to decide if we will keep it, or return it. Cost is $150.

 

Sugars were much higher than anticipated on the Merlot, coming in at 30.5 Brix! PH was 3.6, which is good (with the abnormally high brix we thought PH may have been too high).  We switched from Pastur Red to Lavin 1118 yeast, which can handle up to 18% alcohol. (30.5 brix will be about 17% alcohol!--good thing we are blending it).

 

Ray estimated we had 114G of must based on converting cubic feet in the macrobin to gallons, which he sanitized with 4.75 TBSP of meta (1/8tsp per gallon of must).  A note on our meta application this year vs. last year. Last year I believe we added meta based on gallons of finished wine. This year we are adding meta based on gallons of must.  The general range of SO2 application in the books is 50ppm to 100ppm.  We should sit down and figure out how the change in meta application will impact our SO2 ppm of finished wine.

 

Troy

Finished Bottling 07 Wines

Bottled the last 2 wines for the year. A Cab/Malbec blend and a Syrah/Malbec blend. About 22 cases total.  We expect 1,000lbs of Wood River Merlot on Friday in it's own bin, plus an extra bin for fermenting Roger's cab.  We can borrow buy the extra bin from Dennis.  The cab from Roger is expected some time next week, weather depending.

 

We did some other winery work while we bottled.

1. Racked the 08 WA Malbec from SS and glass into Lee's 15G barrel plus some carboys.

 

2. Transferred about 10G of Clone-6 Cab into the Sangiovase to help offset the low Sangio sugar levels and add some cab skins for co-fermentation flavor.  Lee had inoculated both earlier in the day: The cab with 5 of the Pastur Red yeast (to handle the higher alcohol) and the Sangio with 5 of the Lavin 212 yeast.  The ID Malbec is now fermenting strongly in the 2 plastic barrels w/ liners. Mike moved them on top of some foam to get them off the garage floor and keep them warmer for fermentation as it is getting cooler outside.

 

3. Got started cleaning barrels, starting with the ones that are needed first. Any barrel that had a sulphur wick burnt in it or had any off smells will get a 24hr soak with Proxy Clean followed by a meta/citric rinse. Otherwise they just got a meta/citric rinse and are upside down. Here are the ones that have been treated so far. The proxy soaked ones need to get emptied and meta/citric rinsed tonight.

 

• Lee's 15G French got a meta/citric rinse and now has the WA Malbec in it.
• Troy's 15G Hungarian got a meta/citric rinse and is upside down drying.
• Troy's 26G American got a meta/citric rinse and is upside down drying.
• Bob's 15G American is in a proxy soak because of the seep on the lower front head. We need to rub some wax into it or use some epoxy (we have another container) to try and seal it up.
• Lee's 30G French is in a proxy soak.
• Michele's 15G hungarian is leaking so it will be hydrated and then proxy soaked.

 

2008 Barrel Plan

• WA Malbec into Lee's 15G French barrel
• WA C6 Cab into Troy's 26G American barrel
• Sangio into Troy's 15G Hungarian barrel plus Michele's 15G Hungarian barrel
• ID Malbec into Lee's 30G French barrel
• Merlot into Mike's 2 30G Hungarian barrels
• Roger's cab into
  - Ray's new 30G French
  - Bob's 20G French
  - Ray's 22G French
  - Bob's 15G American
  - Michele's 13G French

 

 

 

Adjusting Sangio For Low Sugar

I looked at several references on how to handle the lower brix (21.5) of the WA Sangiovase.  In general the minimum acceptable is 21-22 Brix, so we are in that range and are OK.  We have several options.

 

1. Do nothing. The wine will get blended with more ripe cabernet when we make our Super Tuscan, and that will balance everything out.

 

2. Mix in a couple of 5G buckets of the Clone-6 cabernet into the Sangio for fermentation. That will raise the sugars some now and give extra co-fermentation advantages. The wine will get blended with more cab when we bottle the SUper Tuscan, which will round out the sugars and acids.

 

3. Mix in some sugar water. This raises the brix, which doesn't add any flavor just increases the alcohol level.

 

Option #1 is OK with me, but I think option #2 is better. The Clone-6 cab has high sugars (27 brix) and the co-fermentation with the cab skins will have some added benefits to the super tuscan flavors (co-fermentation is common for Super Tuscans).  I'd rather avoid adding sugar. The alcohol level will be plenty high by the time it's blended.

 

No matter which option we do, we need to press early because the sangio seeds are partially green, so we want to avoid extended contact with them. A faster fermentation and earlier pressing would help limit contact. So we should switch the yeast to Pastur Red and plan to press after a week.

 

We can talk about the options tonight and make a decision.

 

Troy

WA Grapes Crushed

Mike picked up the WA grapes on Sunday and drove them back to Boise. We got 625lbs of Sangiovase from Quality Nursery in Zillah and 500+lbs of Clone-6 Cabernet from RiverRock vineyard near Walla Walla. Quality Nursery packaged up the Sangiovase in a large cardboard box lined with heavy plastic, and the grapes were in good condition when we got them home with little crushed at the bottom. RiverRock picked the Clone-6 Cab into our small Microbin.  Both grapes came to use very very clean with very few leaves.  The Sangio berries were very large berry tight clusters and the Clone-6 was small sparse berries.  Both were very tasty! :-D

 

We crushed Sunday night using the electric crusher rented from Brewcon for $50.  The electric crusher worked great and chewed through the 1,200lbs of grapes in no time at all.  We defiantly want to use it for the TON of Roger's cabernet if possible.  The Sangiovase and Cabernet are both in Microbins for fermentation. We scooped the Wood River malbec out of 1 microbin and put it into 2 large plastic bins with fermentation liners so it would be easier to crush into the microbin.  We had lots of help from friends and neighbors that came by for the crush and cleaning out the extra stems that made their way into the must.  The stem-free must will make for nice clean flavors in the wine without any green stem taste.

 

The clone-6 cabernet was good and ripe and seeds were evenly brown.  Brix were a bit higher than expected, because our row is next to an access road in the middle of the vineyard and so it gets more sun. Brix were a solid 27 and PH was a bit high at 3.7.  (A spot check by Dennis at the vinyard a row or more over showed 25.5 brix.)  The Sagiovase was not quite ripe. Seeds were just starting to turn brown and the grape pulp was still tight around them. Although there weren't any "Green" flavors in the Sangiovase grape taste.  Brix was low at 21.5 with a high acids and a PH of 3.3.  We will have to decide if we want to do any modification to the Sangio to balance acids or sugars.  Since it is going to be blended with Cabernet, we might be fine as it will balance out the wine. We'll have to see what the numbers are on Roger's cab that we are going to blend with. It might work out by itself without any additions.

 

Must was sanitized with about 2.5TBSP meta for the cab and 3.33TBSP meta for the Sangiovase. Lee pulled out juice from each to do yeast starters before they were sanitized with the meta and will do a starter in 48 hours.  We are going to use the Lalvin RC 212 Bourgovin yeast on the Malbec and the Sangiovase because the Pastur Red yeast we normally use wasn't available.  We do have some Pastur Red and will use 5 packages for the Clone-6 cabernet as Pastur Red handles higher alcohol levels than Lavin RC212 (which peters out around 14% alcohol and 27 Brix will get closer to 15%).

 

 

WA Malbec Pressed

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We Pressed the 250lbs of Malbec from Zillah, WA last night. Brix were down to around 0.5 but the cap was still firm. Great flavor and color. Very promising.

We got about 20G of wine with a moderate pressing. The free-run was very fruit forward and even a little sweet while the pressed wine picked up tannins and became more tart. The wine is in a 15G stainless keg and glass carboys with bubblers or breathable bungs while we wait to bottle the rest of our wine. We will rack it into Lee's 15G French barrel after it settles for 2 weeks.

Malbec at 5 Brix

Fermentation on the Prosser Malbec is coming along very well. It has been in contact with the skins for 9 days now. Sugars are down to 5 brix. Color is amazing! Flavor still has some fruit sweetness and is very smooth.

 

We plan to press on Thursday into a stainless tank to finish fermentation. We're not pressing early on the Malbec this year as we don't taste any green flavors like we've had from the Idaho Malbec. will be interesting to see how it develops.   We aren't putting it into a barrel right now because the 15G barrels all have wine in them yet.

 

The fermentation liner bottom failed in the blue barrel. For the first couple days we just stirred around it, and then we took it out last night. I contacted Debra at Nampa Brewers who said she would replace it and contact her distributor about the failure.

 

Troy

 

New Barrel and Bottler

I just received a barrel to replace the 22 gal recoop that had been leaking and had been tainting the red wine.  This time I tried a different company, but I got essentially the same product.  The new company is 'Barrel Builders" from, I believe, St Helena, CA.  It is a 30 gal reprocessed French oak barrel, medium toast.  It cost $308 delivered.  Upon inspection, it appears rougher on the inside that the ReCoop product and the staves are thicker.  Perhaps less wood was removed during the refurb process.  The rep at BB said that they use a router rather than a plane to remove expose new surface in the barrel.  Don't know if that makes a difference.  It was used for red wine, obviously, since there are still stains around the bung hole.  The barrel is now in Lee's garage, ready to go to work.  The company also sells new American (Minnesota) oak barrels for $250.  They say that the American oak works very well for the heavier red wines such as Cab or Malbec.  We might consider one of those next.

 

The bottler came mail order from EC Kraus.  I purchased it blindly with absolutely no information as to how it worked, its quality or reliability, or anything else.  I just knew that a new bottler was badly needed and the sooner the better.  The description said that it was perfect for 50 to 500 gal batches.  Good enough for me.  It was delivered for $131.  I subsequently bought a couple hoses to fit it for another $22, but the hoses have large enough diameter and are long enough for multiple uses around the winery.  The first bottling proved that it probably was worth the investment.  It filled about 25 cases in an hour with only one person operating it. That should satisfy our needs for the foreseeable future. 

Malbec Fermentation Update

Mike brought back 250lbs of Malbec back from Zillah Washington and it was crushed on Monday into the small blue barrel with a fermentation liner and sanitized with approx 1 tbsp of meta (there was about 20-25G of must which will press out to 15-20G of juice).  Lee pulled some juice out before we added the meta to do a starter. He started it right away, but we wanted to wait 24-48h before adding to give the meta time to work. In the mean time the starter fizzled out.  :(  This hasn't happened in the past because we didn't pull the juice until we were ready for the starter (24 hours after crush). So we either need to be ready to add the starter earlier or to delay waiting to pull the starter juice.

 

I did a second starter Wednesday evening with 4pkgs of Pastur Red yeast and once it was going added a tbsp of nutrient and stirred it into the must at about 11pm. We will need to check it today and see if it is taking. The weather has cooled off so we may get a slower fermentation. We should probably get the bin off of the floor so it stays warmer (up on a foam block or rubber mat).  Also, the small bin is over 75% full which means the cap has the potential to push out. If it gets close then we will need to move it to a larger barrel. That may be a bit difficult because of needing a fermentation liner. We have a second we can use. We will order more.

 

Time to start the punch down rotations! Everyone please coordinate with Lee and help manage the punch downs.

 

Troy

2008 Wine

Here is a list of the grapes we are set-up to get this Fall, and which barrels I propose putting them in.  By dropping the dropping the Viognier and Syrah and scaling back our Malbec order from Dennis to a more reasonable level we have enough capacity to take all 2,000 pounds of Roger's cabernet! That will give us enough to do some great Cabernet blends this year and hold over 60G for a Reserve Cabernet.  Yea!

 

Take a quick look at the numbers, volumes and barrels and see if it looks right.

 

Troy

 

Wood River

 

- 500lbs Chard

 

- 1,000lbs Merlot

- 500 lbs Malbec

Williamson

- 2,000lbs Clone 2 Cabernet

RiverRock (WA)

- 400 lbs Clone 6 Cabernet

Prosser

- 250 lbs Malbec

- 700 lbs Sangiovese

 

Barrels:

2 15G Stainless Kegs: Chardonnay

Mike's 30G Hungarian #1: Wood River Merlot

Mike's 30G Hungarian #2: Wood River Merlot

Lee's 30G French: Wood River Malbec

Troy's 26G American: Williamson Cabernet

Ray's 30G New: Williamson Cabernet

Bob's 20G French: WA Clone 6 Cab

Ray's 22G French : Williamson Cabernet

Bob's 15G American: Williamson Cabernet

Troy's 15G Hungarian: Prosser Sangiovese (plus carboys/stainless for extra 10G)

Lee's 15G French: Prosser Malbec

Tom&Michel 15G Hungarian: Prosser Sangiovese (Moved to Michele's house after fermentation)

Tom&Michele 13G French: Williamson Cabernet (Moved to Michele's house after fermentation)

Chard racked off the gross lees

The chard was done fermenting and on Thursday we racked it out of the 60G fermentation barrel into 2 15G stainless steel kegs and and a 3G glass carboy.  We took a quick taste and liked what we have. It has lots of  body and acids, but isn't that tart squirt flavor.  We look forward to getting it into a bottle earlier this year to capture that clean fruit taste.  We'll let it settle for 3 weeks and then rack it again off of the settled lees and yeast cells.

 

The stainless kegs and carboys have breathable bungs on them so they can finish the last bit of fermentation.  The bungs are very tight and take extra effort to make sure they are in. We have moved to the larger size bung to make sure the bung doesn't get pushed out like the smaller one did last year.

 

The 60G barrel was rinsed clean and then a meta/citric rinse to help inhibit bacterial growth. In a few days once it is good and dry we will want to burn a sulphur wick and close it up.

 

07 Magnafique Bottled

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We bottled our 07 Magnafique last night. And it was MAG-NA-FIQUE!  It is a very tasty blend with a higher amount of Merlot this year making it smooth with ripe fruit flavors.  It has good complexity, structure and fruit from the cabernet and the malbec with a grippy finish from the 1% petit verdot.  It may be our best Magnafique yet!  Good thing, because we each have 6 cases of it! :P

 

We bottled about 72 gallons, 30 cases.  We used Ray's new triple-bottler, and it went very fast.  1 hour 15 minutes!  It was the largest single bottling to date and we had to blend into 2 different batches and then combine them as we bottled.

 

The blend ended up being

 

50% Wood River Merlot

40% Wood River Cabernet (Clone 8)

9% Wood River Malbec

1% Wood River Petit Verdot

Chard fermenting fast!

Lee innoculated the chard Fri late, and on Mon eve it was down to 2.5
brix! It was still fermenting strongly and should be done in a day or
two. Troy added 1 more TBSP of nutrient as it is highly reccomended
when using the Cotes des Blancs yeast with Chardonnay.

We are fermenting in the 60G barrel with a breathable bung. A good
way to keep air out and still let CO2 escape.

The wine will be ready to move the wine into stainless kegs on Wed or Thu.

2008 Chard crushed

Lee and Mike picked up a microbin full of chard on Thursday. Est
500-600 pounds. We crushed Thu night. A good 35-40 gallons are in the
60G fermenter, sanatized with just under 4tsp meta.

Chard has more body, great acids and is less sweet this year. More
like the 2006.

24 Brix
3.1 PH

Lee pulled a quart of juice off and is doing the starter. He will add
it tonight or Sat. We are trying a different yeast this year, Cotes
Blanc, to get more fruit flavors. 5 packages plus 2 TBSP nutrient.
We will want to add another 2 TBSP right after fermentation starts.

Troy made a bentonite slurry of 2oz bentonite, 3 cups boiling water
blended and added it Fri morning. GLOP GLOP GLOP!

Quick Grape Report

Lee and I went out to Williamsons on Sat and then stopped by and saw Dennis. Wanted to pass along a couple notes from our discussions.

 

Roger indicated we could have up to 2,000lbs of Cab.  Syrah is unlikely as Koenig wants all he can get. Roger did say we could go in and pick after the mechanical pickers, though. It is worth a try to see what we can get.  Same with the Viognier, we will likely have to "gleen" after the regular picking.  Roger only has a little petite syrah and he doesn't know what they are going to do with it. So they may have some for us.  Roger did comment that the grapes were coming along nicely.

 

Dennis indicated that 1,000 lbs of merlot was easy to do, as is 300-500lbs of Chard.  We could also likely get some cab, but we told him no as we are getting lots of cab from Roger this year.  The malbec is more difficult because the new owners want all the malbec. Dennis may be able to get us a bin of malbec--but doesn't know for sure. And if we get a bin, we likely will get a 1,000lb full bin and not the smaller bins.  On the microbins, I think we'll be able to get 1-3 of the "smaller" microbins from Dennis, with the expectation that we keep them (price yet to be determined...). 

 

So here is how the 2008 order is rounding out. If we don't get any Malbec from Dennis,we have enough coming from Prosser to make Boisique and Maganfique. But we won't be able to do a cab/malbec or syrah/malbec blend.  Since the 500# of Syrah from Roger is unknown and we didn't get the 500# of Clone-6 from Dennis we have extra capacity for more of Roger's cabernet so we should do 1,000 pounds and could do 1,500 pounds. 

 

Wood River

- 300-500lbs Chard

- 1,000lbs Merlot

- 0 - 1,000lbs Malbec

 

Williamson

- 500lbs Viognier (gleen picking)

- 1,000-2,000lbs Clone 2 Cabernet

- 500 lbs Syrah (gleen picking--not sure how much we can expect)

- 100 lbs Petite Syrah (gleen picking? -- not sure if we can, and how much we can expect)

 

RiverRock (WA)

- 400 lbs Clone 6 Cabernet

 

Prosser

- 250 lbs Malbec

- 700 lbs Sangiovese

 

 

 

07 Boisique Bottling

We bottled 20 cases of Boisique last night, with the bottle washing being done the day before. Everyone got 4 cases of pure vino excitement!  Boy the Boisique sure tastes good out of a barrel! :-D

We had a double bottling line setup for awhile, which works great, but the second bottler kept failing to keep a siphon. Ray has ordered a nifty 3-bottle filler that will be more sturdy and really speed up bottling. Check it out at: http://www.eckraus.com/RK760.html . We will wait for our next bottling until it arrives. We'll have to work around the arrival of the Chard grapes (expected 9/25) followed by the Viognier grapes, ETA Oct 1.  We have a big run of Magnafique to do. It will be close to 30 cases!

Photos from my phone-camera are uploaded to the RiverWoods 2008 photo album, linked to our web page.

http://picasaweb.google.com/riverwoodswinery/Wine2008

 

Trial Blending #2

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Trial Blending #2

The group met and tried lots of blends. After much discussion (and some purple tongues) we decided on the following. Number of bottled cases of each wine is an estimate. We need to validate how many gallons we have in carboys.

1. Magnafique

We increased the merlot by 5 percent over the last tasting trials and added 1% petit verdot. We tried it both with "blended" cabs and the just the idaho cab. No clear favorite. The blended cab was a stronger flavor, for sure. We increased the merlot another 10%, and blended it with just the Idaho cab and liked this blend the best. So this year we have a "Left Bank" style Bordeaux blend. Tasty!

 

Est 70G (29+ Cases)

40% Idaho Cab (28G)

50% Wood River Merlot (35G) ** Need to hold back 35G of Merlot from the Boisique blending.

9% Wood River Malbec (6.3G)

1% Petit Verdot (0.7G)

 

2. Cab Blends

We kept the WA clone-6 separate. It's very strong this year--over ripe from hanging a long time (28 brix). Plus it picked up strong flavors from the MH toast French recoop barrel. We Tried blending it with Syrah and Malbec. We all liked the 60/40 Cab Syrah (better than the straight syrah) and the 60/40 Cab Malbec blend, but liked the Cab/Malbec blend the best. So we have a new blend that needs to be named.

 

(12.5 Cases)

60% RiverRock Clone-6 Cabernet (18G)
50% Wood River Malbec (12G)

3. Encore

Last year we made an Encore blend of syrah rose, malbec and a heavy dose of petit verdot. This year we liked the blend better without the petit verdot. It is amazing how well Syrah and Malbec blend together! Our blend this year is:

 

25G (10.4 Cases)

73% RiverRock Syrah (18.25G)

27% Wood River Malbec (6.75G)

 

4. Boisique

We decided on 80/20 at our last tasting.

(21 Cases)

80% Wood River Merlot (40G)

20% Wood River Malbec (10G)

First trial blending results.

The group met to try some different blends for the 2007 wines.

Bosique: Everyone liked the 80/20 merlot/malbec blend the best. The
difference between it and the 75/25 blend was amazing.

We tried 2 different Magnafique blends with no favorite. We will try
dialing up the merlot a bit to 50/40/10 cab/merlot/malbec. We may
also try just blending with the ID cab as the clone6 has a strong
menthol cherry smell (the initial blends were 50/50 cabs).

We will meet again on Monday at 730pm to try more blends, including
some encore blends to use up our extra cab and malbec. Here are some
potential blends.

- 50/50 cab syrah
- 60/40 cab malbec
- 33/33/33 cab syrah malbec
- 50/40/10 syrah malbec p verdot
- 95/4/1 cab malbec p verdot
- 100% syrah

Tasting Trials

Time to do some trial blending! Get your taste buds ready. :)

First trial is Wed at 7:30pm with the second the following Mon or Tue.

We will decide on our Magnafique, and Boisique Blends plus try some
options for our "Encore" blend.

Troy

Fall Schedule

Here are the dates we've gotten grapes the last couple years. We expect everything is a week or two later this year. But it's hard to say.  The cab will likely need to hang as long as possible to ripen--until frost is eminent.

 

Lee has mentioned several times that he would like to get some Chard in addition to the Viognier. I don't see any reason not to do it. It doesn't take a barrel and we have the capacity in Stainless. Anyone object?  The bonus of doing 30G of the Chard is it will come in a 500# microbin, which we can use for fermenting and possibly on our 2 runs to Washington for grapes this Fall.  Please reply-all with your thoughts. If we're going to do it we need to contact Dennis with the request ASAP.

 

Everyone should be getting bottles ready. 15 cases each, including 1.5 cases of non-shouldered for the syrah.  If you can, pre-rinse them with some straight-a to get out the stains to help make the bottle washing go faster.  I expect we'll want to do some wash-days before our bottle days.  We've got a lot of wine to bottle this Fall, and it will take 2 or 3 bottlings.  What are people's schedules between Sept 21 - October 5th so we can start to coordinate bottling?

 

We need to do some blending trials as well for this year's Boisique and Magafique. Plus we need to decide how we want to handle the syrah and the extra cabernet and malbec.  Here are a couple options to think about--we need to taste them and vote on what we like. (These are only a few options to start the discussion).

 

1. Keep Varietals Separate

Bottle 100% syrah. Bottle 95% cab + 5% malbec. Bottle 100% Malbec.

 

2. Separate Syrah and a Cab/Malbec Blend

Bottle 100% syrah. Bottle cab and malbec together at a 60%cab 40% malbec ratio.  Like the Amencya blend we tasted a few weeks ago.

 

3. Encore blend of Cab/Malbec/Syrah

Combine the syrah cab and malbec together. It would be similar to our "Encore" blend last fall. We found that Syrah and Malbec blended well, and I've seen several wines on the market that do this blend.  We need to taste it and see what we like!

 

Troy

 

PS: Ray--have you decided on your new barrel? You might consider holding off ordering it until we have confirmation that we'll get all the grapes we want. We have stainless and carboy storage where we can hold the wine for a few weeks if needed.

 

 

Chard

- Sept 16 2006

- Sept 20 2007

 

Viognier

- ~ Oct 1 2006 (we picked a little later than everyone else. grapes were ready a week before)

 

Merlot

- ~Oct 1 2006

- Oct 5 2007

- Oct 14 2007 (Wood River

 

Malbec

- Oct 14 2006

- Oct 5 2007

 

Syrah

- Oct 6 2006 (hells canyon)

- Oct 27 2007 (River rock)

 

Cab

- Oct 14 2006 (Wood River Clone 6)

- Oct 19 2006 (Williamson)

- Oct 23 2006 (River Rock clone 8)

- Oct 14 2007 (Wood River Clone 8)

- Oct 15 2007 (Riverrock Clone 6)

 

 

 

8/19 Topping Report

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Troy and Mike did a quick top-up on Tuesday and added the final dose of meta to prepare for bottling and protect it from oxidation. We added 15ppm SO2 (about 8ppm will get bound to the wine) which is about how much SO2 will get dissipated as we rack the wine out and bottle it.  We didn't add extra Meta to the Malbec as it had earlier additions of meta from the rotten egg smell treatments.  We also broke out a gallon of Merlot into a Platypus for topping, and we sprayed Bob's 15G barrel where it is weeping.

 

We counted up about 185 gallons of wine, which equates to about 15 1/2 cases of wine each. Start washing bottles! :)  Last year when we were bottling Lee suggested using non-shouldered bottles for the Syrah. That would be nice to have this year. So 1 1/2 cases of non-shouldered and 14 cases of shouldered.

 

In looking at the gallons of wine we will have some extra cabernet and malbec.  While topping Mike and I tried a 50/50 blend of malbec w/ the Idaho cab and with the Clone 6 cab. Then we poured the leftovers together to be a blend of the 2 cabs and the malbec. Interestingly we again liked the blended ID Cab and WA clone-6 cab mixed with the malbec the best (just like with the recent Reserve cab blend).  More tasting trials are needed to get others thoughts and try other blends. :)

 

 

 

8/7/08 Topping Report

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The gang met tonight to top-up and talk about the 2008 grape order.  We also got to taste Michele and Tom's Chard and Cab they recently bottled and a bottle of Zerba cab from WA that Ray and Sharon brought.  The chard was nice with a nice oak balance and a buttery texture from the MLF.  Still some tartness--but it wasn't over powering.  A good result with the oak dominoes. The cab had some malbec and merlot. It was the first wine in their new 15G Hungarian barrel and had a strong wood campfire nose to it. The taste was smooth. After a few months of bottle age it should drink nicely. :)  The Zerba cab was nice--but the group liked our cabs better!

 

We spot tasted the wines as we topped. All were sound. Bob's 15G barrel continues to have a slight weep on the bottom front. The wine is sound (merlot 1/2) so we sprayed it down again w/ meta and we will need to seal it after we bottle this fall.  We smelled the empty barrels and burned a sulfur wick in the two 20G french and 8g American as they were getting a slight VA smell. The flame got a bit tall and we blackend the wood a bit. Troy's not as good at it as Lee. (cough cough). We need to start hydrating the little 8G barrel with some water and meta.  We also need to add 15ppm meta to the reds (except the malbec and merlot 1/2 which already got extra meta).

 

We discussed the 2008 grape order and the change in Wood River Vineyard access. We believe we can get grapes from Dennis this year, but we are uncertain about access after that. Most likely the malbec access will be gone, but we may be able to still get merlot.  We need to make contact with the new owner.

We agreed our #1 priority this year was getting some extra Malbec in case we need to hold some over for next year.  Other priorities are to get merlot for Boisique and to try out some grapes from the Prosser source that has Malbec to see how it is and see if we can get some syrah from Roger or Hell's Canyon. Since it's a late start year it will be difficult to get ripe cab, but we would still like to see what clone-6 we can get from Dennis and what clone-2 we can get from Roger, plus we have some clone 6 cab from Walla Walla.  For a white this year we'd like to do some more Viognier.  We'd like to try a super-tuscan again and get some Sangiovese from Prosser. We can blend it with cab or merlot. Since the cab may be green this year we may be better off with Merlot--which is reflected in our order. But we may change last minute to get some Cabernet to blend instead.

 

We would like to contact Hell's Canyon about getting some more of their syrah. Sharon thought she could get us in contact with them through Bob. Mike and Troy will take a bottle of our 06 Syrah over and talk with them and see if we can get some grapes.

 

Here's the grape order we are looking at, followed by the proposed barrel allocations.  Grapes will shift around as we find out what we can get from where.  If we end up getting Syrah from both Roger and Hells' Canyon then we'll have to store some wine in the 15G stainless kegs with oak dominoes.  We're getting a couple different grapes from Prosser to try out. The price is reasonable, but there will be extra cost from the drive over and back for gas.

 

Wood River

- 800lbs Malbec

- 1,000lbs Merlot (sunny side clone)

- 500lbs Clone 6 Cabernet (est. could be more)

 

Williamson

- 500 lbs Viognier

- 500 lbs Clone 2 Cabernet

- 400 lbs Syrah

- 100 lbs Petite Syrah (to blend with the syrah--may need to pick ourselves)

 

RiverRock (WA)

- 400 lbs Clone 6 Cabernet

 

Hells Canyon

- 500 lbs Syrah (hope for--not a sure thing)

 

Prosser

- 250 lbs Malbec

- 700 lbs Sangiovese

 

Barrels:

 

Mike's 30G Hungarian #1: Wood River Merlot

Mike's 30G Hungarian #2: Syrah (+ 25% Petit Syrah if we can get some)

Lee's 30G French: Wood River Clone 6 Cab

Troy's 26G American: Williamson Clone 2 Cab

Ray's 22G French: Wood River Malbec

Bob's 20G French: Wood River Malbec

Ray's 20G French (new): WA Clone 6 Cab

Bob's 15G American: Wood River Merlot

Troy's 15G Hungarian: Prosser Sangiovese

Lee's 15G French: Prosser Malbec

Lee's 8G American: Prosser Sangiovese

Tom&Michel 15G Hungarian: Prosser Sangiovese

Tom&Michele 10G French: Wood River Merlot

July 24 Topping Report

BLOG ENTRY

 

Troy, Mike and Lee topped up wines tonight.  Tasted the ID Cab, Clone 6 Cab and Malbec. ID cab was the surprise of the night--it continues to get better as it gets more tannins/body from the barrel. The Malbec is smoothing out and the Clone 6 is like a blackberry liquor!  (Note: The WA Clone 6 was 28 brix, which translates to a potential alcohol of 15.5%!)  Other wines were smelled and we decided to try the Merlot 1/2 because the barrel has a small weep and a small amount of film was seen on top. It seems fine--but we sprayed the weeping area plus the wine.

 

Broke down 3G of Id Cab into two 1G carboys + 1G platypus for topping.

 

Broke down 5G of Malbec into a 3G carboy + 1G carboy + 1G platypus for topping.

 

Taped the vent-tube to the A/C again to try and improve air flow. We could use to get the return air fan working to help keep it cool.

 

We briefly discussed  meta additions for barrels. We started with less meta (25%?) on some of the grapes--at least the malbec and merlot #1. Plus our wine schedule calls for 15-20ppm in the summer, which we haven't added yet.  A 20ppm addition across the board would suffice.  We could also use to do a light additional sulfuring on the empty barrels soon.

Chateau Meesha

BLOG ENTRY

 

Michele and Tom stopped by to borrow the bottling equipment as they get ready to bottle their 07 Wood River Cabernet and Chardonnay.  They have the:

 

- Bottle Washer

- Bottle Filler

- Bottle Tree and Meta Washer

- Corker

- A 1G platypus

 

Their Cabernet has been aged in a 15G Hungarian barrel now for 8-9 months, plus they added some French Oak Dominoes to get some more oak flavors about a month ago.  We still "owed" them another gallon of wine from the 2007 grapes and Lee and I sent them home w/ some Malbec and about 500ml of Petit Verdot to add to their blend.  That will make their blend be roughly:

 

89% Cabernet

5% Merlot

5% Malbec

1% Petit Verdot

 

Sounds yummy! Looking forward to tasting it. :-D

July 11 Topping Report

BLOG ENTRY

Topped and tasted Friday evening. All wines were sound and tasting
good. The malbec is starting to smooth out and the WA C6 cab is
mellowing in the nutral barrel. We didn't find any ID cab in a
platypus or a 1G carboy so we topped with the clone6. We need to
breakdown a 3G carboy next time.

Bob's American oak barrel is showing a small seap leak at the bottom
of the front head. We sprayed it down with meta, but we need to keep
an eye on it.

The cellar was about 68-70 degrees at the far end. We connected the
dryer hose up to the A/C to try and improve circulation. We should
hook up the return air fan too.

We had some friends (Kurt and Stephanie) over to barrel taste, and
they enjoyed the tour.

6/23/08 Racking

Group met Monday and finished racking the reds (Malbec, WA Clone6 Cab, Merlot #1). We started by tasting the chard to make a bottling decision. We made 3 samples

1. Oaked Chard Only

2. Blended Oak and No Oak Chard

3. No Oak Chard Only

The oaked chard definatly had too much oak flavor. Looking back in the blog we added the oak dominos March 21. So they have been in 3 months, which is too long. Our blog tasting notes show that on April 20th the Chard had a good oak flavor that everyone liked--so 1 month is a better duration (although one reason we left the oak in longer this time was to try and cover up the oxidized/spoilage flavors). The No Oak chard was very tart and had grapefruit flavors. The blend of the two was still too oaky (approx 3 parts oaked to 2 parts non-oaked). We tried 3 parts non-oaked to 1 part oaked and the grouped liked that the best and decided to bottle that.

The 2 lessons learned here are:

1. Make sure the bungs are in tight so air can't get to the wine.

2. When using oak additives check the flavor of the wine regularly to avoid over oaking.

We racked the Malbec over copper to continue to treat the HSO2. The smell is gone--but we wanted to be safe plus we need to blow off some of the extra sulfites we added in earlier treatment. The Malbec went back into Lee's 30G barrel. The Clone-6 cab had a tremendous vanilla bean smell as we racked it from Bob's new French oak barrel. We think the barrel is more of a Med Heavy toast as it has really given the wine a strong barrel flavor, which is why we've moved the Clone 6 into Lee's 15G neutral french barrel. The Merlot #1 is tasting very good and was put back into Mike's 30G Hungarian barrel.

Racking went smoothly this time with no spills. :) We stopped racking as soon as we started getting sediment, to help clarity. But we racked the extra wine that wasn't too cloudy into a bucket and then blended the leftovers together into a Bordeaux-like sludge blend and put it into 1G carboys to settle out. We did a pre-blend on Magnafique with about 60% cab, 30% merlot and 10% malbec and it was very good. The Clone 6 cab this year is very strong flavored--plus the extra barrel flavors--but it blended well.

We tried a bottle of 2006 Amencaya, which is 50% malbec 50% Cabernet, and talked about trying to make that blend. The group thought it had potential--although the Amencaya's malbec flavor was a bit too overpowering. We also talked about the possibility of making a "Left Bank" style bordeaux blend that is more merlot. Something like 80% merlot #1, 15% cabernet and 5% malbec. Maybe a dash of Petit Verdot. Sounds like some fun blending trials ahead of us! :P

We put some proxyclean into Bob's 20G french barrel and left it overnight to clean and then Bob and Lee emptied it, did a meta/citric rinse and a fresh water rinse the next day. We need to let it dry a few days and then sulfur it and the other empty barrels.

Our winemaking schedule calls for adding 15ppm SO2 after MLF (now) to all wines except the Malbec because we added extra sulfites to it to treat the rotten egg smell earlier. Here are the amounts we need to add. They should be added here in the next month or so (ideally we would have added the SO2 before racking). How about the next time we top up?

15PPM SO2

- 1/4 tsp meta = 15ppm in 15 gal

- 1/3 tsp meta = 15ppm in 20 gal

- 1/2 tsp meta = 15ppm in 30 gal

Meet Tonight

Hi All,

 

Everyone is set to meet tonight at 6:30pm. We'll blind taste the chard combined and separate and make a decision on bottling.  We'll also continue working on racking the reds.  The wines that still need to be racked are:

 

1. Malbec needs to be racked over copper and goes back into Lee's 30G French barrel.

 

2. WA Clone-6 Cab is racked into Lee's 15G (neutral) French barrel.

 

3. Merlot #1 is racked and goes back into Mike's 30G Hungarian barrel.

 

 

Our winemaking schedule calls for adding 15ppm SO2 after MLF (now).

 15PPM SO2

    - 1/4 tsp meta = 15ppm in 15 gal

    - 1/3 tsp meta = 15ppm in 20 gal

    - 1/2 tsp meta = 15ppm in 30 gal

We need to clean Bob's 20G French barrel w/ Oxyfresh.

 

We need to sulfur (or re sulfur) empty barrels.

 

See you at 6:30pm,

 

Troy

 

 

Initial Thoughts On 2007 Wine Blends

Blog Entry:

 

Started thinking about the wines we have in the barrels and what wines we might blend this Fall, and how many bottles each we would get (makes a guy thirsty!).  We got lots of merlot and malbec, so we will make a lot of Boisique! Which is good because we *love* our Boisique! We may even consider holding the Merlot #1 over and making a "Boisique Reserve" this year.  We will have some extra Malbec and Idaho cab, so we might try a Cab/Malbec blend. We should start some taste trials to see if we like a cab/malbec blend--and then come up with a fitting name. :)

 

Here's a swag at the blends (this is just an early estimate--blends will be set after we taste).

 

Troy

 

35G of Boisique (~ 3 cases each)

30G Merlot 1&2

5G Malbec

 

Hold 35G of Boisique for an additional 6 mo for our reserve (~3 cases each)

30G Merlot 1

5G Malbec

 

48G Magnifique (~ 4 cases each)

20G WA Clone-6 Cab  42%

10G ID Cab 21%

15G Merlot 31%

2G Malbec 4%

1G Petit Verdot 2%

 

15G Syrah (~1.25 cases each)

 

41G New Blend (~3.5 cases each)

20G ID Cab 49%

20G Malbec 49%

1G Petit Verdot 2%

6/16/08 Racking Report

Blog Update:

 

Lee/Bob/Mike/Troy met on Monday to rack. We managed to combine and rack the ID Cab into Troy's 26G American barrel, combined the merlot 1/2 and merlot 2 into a 30G hungarian and Bob's 15G American Oak barrel (after verifying if we wanted to keep Merlot 1 or 2 separate) , and racked the Syrah out and back into Troy's 15G Hungarian barrel.  We ran some of the merlot 1/2 over copper and stirred it some. We'll have to check it and see if we need to rack it over copper this summer.  We spilled a little more wine than we should have.....something to keep in mind is when racking back into the barrel, always ask yourself if there is more wine than the barrel will hold.  :)

 

Here are the barrels that still need to be racked. We'll also need to sulfur the empty barrels.  How about Monday June 23rd? 6:30pm?

 

1. Malbec

Keep in Lee's 30G French barrel. We'll have several gallons left for topping.

 

2. Merlot #1

Keep separate, as it's the better clone. Keep in the current Hungarian 30G barrel. We'll have to top-up with Merlot 1/2.

 

3. WA Clone 6 Cab

Move from the new French 20G Recoop as it's getting a strong toast flavor. Move it into Lee's 15G older French (neutral) barrel, plus carboys for topping.

 

All the barrels are in the cooler, but we ended up putting 2 of them onto the low dolly carts because the barrel holders failed when moving barrels around.  It will work for now--but it will be difficult to lift them.  We need to re-evaluate the barrel ordering and supports to get them set "right".  One possibility is to modify the barrel cradles with wheels so they will roll into the cooler and still accept the barrel lifter. Bob almost had one figured modified on Monday that fit.

 

 

2006 Riverwoods Reserve Cabernet

The group met on Sunday June 8th to bottle our Reserve Cabernet. We had a 26G barrel of 06 Williamson Cabernet and a 22G barrel of 06 Wood River Clone 6 Cabernet--both of which had 18 months of barrel age. We also had some gallons of Malbec and Petit Verdot held back from last year to blend.

 

The first order of business was to determine the blends.  Should we keep them 100% Cabernet, or blend in some of the Malbec and Petit Verdot we held back. Last fall when we bottled we all liked about 4% Malbec and 1% Petite Verdot--so that was our starting point. We did 3 blends. One of the things we were trying to ascertain was to see if we liked the Petit Verdot, given how overwhelming it was in the 06 Magnafique at 2%.

 

THE TRIAL BLENDS

1. 95% Cab, 4% Malbec, 1% Petit Verdot

2. 95% Cab, 5% Malbec

3. 100% Cab

 

We made up carafes of the different blends for both the Williamson and the Wood River Clone 6 Cabernet and began tasting them.  The wines were all very different. The Petit Verdot definitely added to the finish of the wine, and the Malbec added red fruit. The Williamson cab was more dry and the Wood River cab had more dark fruit.  All the blends were good, but we needed to vote on which we wanted to bottle.  To our surprise, we had a split vote on which was more popular.  In general, half liked #1 blend and half liked #3, no blend.  What to do?

 

The suggestion was made to blend both the Cabernets together. We took and combined the "leftover" wine from several carafes and proceeded to taste. This time it was unanimous that everyone liked the blended cabs better! The only question was, what blend did we end up with???  We figured that in the combined blend we probably reduced the petit verdot and malbec percentages by 25%-50% and given the amounts of cabernet and malbec we had available, here is the blend we got.

 

55% Williamson Clone 2 Cabernet
42% Wood River Clone 6 Cabernet
2.5% Malbec
0.5% Petit Verdot

 

And thus the 2006 Riverwoods Reserve Cabernet was born!

 

Mike coordinated getting 23 cases of bottles washed the previous day so we had all the clean bottles we needed and in a few hours we each walked home proudly carrying 4+ cases of Riverwoods Reserve Cabernet. Yum Yum!  It certainly *deserves* some bottle time--but who knows if it will see any! ;)   In the interim, an hour of decanting will help bring out the flavors.

 

Next week we will rack wines to clarify them and then put them into the cooler for their summer nap.  As we rack we need to rotate barrels to balance the volumes, and adjust some for flavors. Here is the proposed racking and barrels. Note: We need to verify which barrel of Merllot (#1 or #2) we want to manage speratly. The below list is keeping #1 out.

 

 

1. Malbec

Keep in Lee's 30G French barrel. We'll have several gallons left for topping.

 

2. Syrah

Keep in Troy's 15G Hungarian. We'll have just enough to rack and top.

 

3. Idaho Cab

Combine the 15G American & 15G French into Troy's 26G American. That will give us enough for topping.

 

4. Merlot #2 + Merlot #1/2

Combine the 30G of Merlot#2 and the 22G of Merlot 1/2 that is in Stainless and Carboys. Put them back into a 30G Hungarian plus Bob's 15G American (that had ID cab in it).

 

5. Merlot #1

Keep separate, as it's the better clone. Keep in the current Hungarian 30G barrel. We'll have to top-up with Merlot 1/2, though.

 

6. WA Clone 6 Cab

Move from the new French 20G Recoop as it's getting a strong toast flavor. Move it into Lee's 15G older French (neutral) barrel, plus carboys for topping.

 

That leaves the following barrels empty:

- Ray's 22G French

- Bob's 20G French

- Lee's 8G American (currently empty, and sulfured)

- Lee's 60G French (currently empty, and sulfured)

 

After racking, we will need to clean both Ray's 22G French and Bob's 20G French w/ Oxy-clean, dry them for a couple days and then burn a sulfur wick in them. We also need to burn another sulfur wick in Lee's 60G French and his 8G French.

 

Topping June 5th, 2008

Topped the red wine barrels. All wines smelled good. We tasted the malbec and merlot 1/2 and they both are fine, although they could each use to be racked over copper again.  There was some evidence of MLF--but not much.

 

- We are out of ID cab, so we topped it with Malbec.

 

- We thought the Merlot 1/2 was fine (no defects), so we resumed topping the merlot with it.

 

- We cleaned a 1G platypus for Syrah topping.

 

When we rack we'll move wines around into different barrels to better fit the volumes and balance flavors.

 

 

Auto Blog Email

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.