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