BIG day at the winery today and we had some new faces in helping us, which is always fun. Lots of grapes came off this week and we crushed, pressed and racked. Grapes have been sanitized and will be inoculated on Tuesday. The Syrah will get a new Syrah specific yeast and the Malbec and Cabernet will get Pasteur Red. We have enough yeast in house for these grapes but will need more for the final picking of Cab and Petite Syrah.
1. We got some Malbec from Neil at Wood River. We got them Thursday and they've been sitting in the garage on ice in a tall blue barrel. As we started destemming we found that the weight of the grapes had started crushing themselves. We're very glad to have more Malbec this year so we can make Boisique.
Pounds Grapes: 250
Gallons Must: 38-40G
Brix: 25
PH 3.6
2. We gleaned about 600 pounds of Syrah from Hells Canyon on Saturday and crushed it with about 20 pounds of Viognier that we gleaned at RiverRock to co-ferment (about 3%).
Pounds Grapes: est 600
Gallons Must: 68
Brix: 24
PH: 3.4
3. We picked up 500+ lbs of Clone-6 Cabernet from RiverRock vineyards in Milton Freewater, OR.
Pounds Grapes: 500+
Gallons Must: 56
Brix: 28
PH: 3.6
4. Merlot
We pressed the Merlot. It was at 0.998 S.G. and the cap was getting soggy. It had been on the skins 17 days. Color is very deep and dark from those small berries and flavor is good. We pressed moderate and got 46 gallons into a 30G Hungarian and a 15G Hungarian barrel. That only leaves 1 G for racking so we should transfer it to a smaller barrel, probably Troy's 26G American. We checked the PH and it was 3.7, down 0.1. Not quite as far as we had hoped, but better.
5. Chardonnay
The chardonnay was still in the 60G barrel after fermenting--protected by a layer of CO2. We transferred it to a 15G SS Keg plus 8G Carboys. It had been in wood for about 2.5 weeks.
6. 2008 Malbec
Since we got some Malbec grapes this year we need to bottle our extra Malbec. We have an estimated 36G of ID and WA Malbec so we need 15 cases of red wine bottles--3 cases each. We should hold back 2G of Malbec to mix into the reserve cabernet for this Spring (about 3%).
7. Barrels
We did a sanitizing rinse on the barrels and they are ready to go. Bob started cleaning 2 barrels that had a nail polish smell (Lee's 30G French and Bob's 20G French) with ProxyClean. He'll rinse them on Monday and neutralize them with Meta and Citric acid.
8. Grapes
We expect the rest of the grapes to come off this week. We need a picking crew to Glean at Hells Canyon. Roger says his grapes will be ready on Saturday. We need to confirm with Larry when his grapes will be ready--it would be good to get them on Saturday too. It looks like another big crush on Saturday or Sunday.
Remaining 2009 Grapes:
250# of Cab Franc from Hells Canyon
1,500# of Cabernet from Williamson
500# of Petite Syrah from Williamson
300# of Petite Syrah from Larry
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