Racking

We racked the ID Syrah off the Gross Lees today. It has some rotten egg smell so we added 20ppm meta and racked it back into the barrel over copper

 

We racked the ID Cab off the Gross Lees. It smells great.

 

The Malbec is better, but still smells. We added 20ppm meta and racked it out/in over copper.

 

We found that the 15G Hungarian barrel had WA Cab in it....still on the gross lees. Ooops.  We racked it and added 20ppm meta. No problems detected.

 

We still need to rack the Merlot off the Gross lees, sometime in the next 2 weeks.  The Syrah and Malbec need to be checked in a couple weeks and racked again.

 

All barrels were topped.

 

Possibly Low SO2 in WA Cab

Bill's group that got Dennis' Sangio grapes and Larry's red-grape blend did some testing at WineWise. I thought the results were worth passing along.

 

The pH was about what we expected, but the SO2 levels were much lower than expected.  I expected about 15ppm and they had 4ppm.  What I think happened is that their 60G barrel was down 5 gallons while they waited for Larry's wine to ferment. During that time they had more air exposure, which drained down the SO2 level.

 

One reason I bring this up, is because we experienced the same thing in our WA Cabernet. We found the barrel down considerably when we went to rack it off the gross lees (it sat for over a month this way).  I expect that this means we also burned extra SO2 and are down close to zero.  I recommend we add some meta to the WA Cabernet.  If we want, we can have WineWise measure the SO2 levels (for  $ 13), or we can just add 10-15ppm to the wine (remembering that only 1/2 of that makes it into Free SO2).

 

Troy

 

 

Sample # 1		Result:		Date:		Method:
2010 Sangiovese
pH		3.14		12/15/2010		ph probe
Free SO2	<5		mg/L (ppm)		12/15/2010		Auto Titrator
4.03				mg/L (ppm)
Sample #2
2010 Grenache
pH		3.46		12/15/2010		ph probe

Last Pressing

The ID Malbec finally dropped below 0 brix and we pressed it Merlot today.  We pressed moderately hard and got about 21 gallons. It's resting in a SS Keg and carboys until we have an open barrel from bottling the Cab reserve.  The Merlot had been on the skins for about a month and picked up quite a bit of skins/seeds tannins.  It took a long time to ferment because of the cool temperatures.

 

We racked the ID Malbec off the gross lees.  It had a very bad rotten egg smell (HSO2) so we added 20ppm sulfites and racked it over copper flashing in and out of the barrel.  That helped the smell some, but we'll need to rack it again in 2 - 3 weeks to get it off of the precipitants.

 

We also racked the WA Cab off the gross lees. It had been sitting for quite awhile finishing fermentation, as we pressed it with some sugar left.  We were surprised to see the barrel down a good 3 inches. We didn't realize it was that far down.  The taste in the barrel was OK, but not as much fruit as a carboy.

 

We still have the ID Syrah, Cab and Merlot to rack off the gross lees, and we need to rack the Malbec again.

 

Idaho Cab Pressed

We pressed the Williamson Cabernet today.  Flavors and color are great. We are very pleased with how it turned out.

We pressed pretty hard and got almost 19 gallons from 27G of must (about a 70% yield).  It was a small batch and went very quickly.

Wine is in Lee's recooped Demtos barrel plus a 3G carboy and platypus.  

Pictures are updated in Picasa  http://picasaweb.google.com/riverwoodswinery/Wine2010 

ID Cab Ready To Press

The Williamson Cabernet has dropped below 0 brix (0.998 specific gravity), after fermenting for 25 days (31 days on the skins, including the cold soak).  Flavor and color are excellent and it's time to press it.  It's a small batch (26G of must) so it will go quickly.  The cab will go into Lee's re-cooped Demtos barrel plus a few carboys.

The ID Merlot is still fermenting slowly. It is at 4.5 brix and 65 degrees. It will take another week to finish fermenting. It was crushed on Nov 13th, so it has been on the skins for 3 weeks so far.  We are tentatively set for the following Sunday, Dec 12th, to press the merlot.  The merlot will go into a SS keg until we bottle the 2009 reserve cab.

Because of the late harvest and cold temperatures this year we have had to put warm water bottles in the must and wrap the fermentation containers with blankets and run a garage heater to keep them warm enough to ferment.  We are avoiding pressing before they are done fermenting to ensure that they don't get stuck with some residual sugar.  The WA Cab (which was pressed early because of green seeds) has taken a month to drop the last few brix. It is at zero, but still bubbling slightly.  

The platypus containers with Malbec and WA Cab had quite a bit of gas build-up in them, showing they are still fermenting some.  We vented the excess gas and you can really smell the HSO2 on the Malbec. We need to rack it off the gross lees in another week and should consider running it over the copper flashing.  The ID Syrah and WA Cab also need to be racked off the gross lees.

Malbec and Tempranillo Pressed 11/27

We pressed the Tempranillo and Malbec on 11/27. We got 36 gallons of Malbec from 56G of must (64% yield) and  65.5G of Tempranillo (63% yield).    The Malbec is in a 30G Hungarian barrel.  Here is the count of gallons of Tempranillo that everyone took.  We got less Tempranillo than we expected so Riverwoods ended up not keeping any, although Michele said she might be interested in doing a Tempranillo/Syrah blend with us.

 

Tempranillo Gallons

Michele and Tom: (15G + 3G) 18G

Jim: (15 + 2.5) 17.5G

Kirkland: 15G

Casey: 15G

 

The cab and merlot are still fermenting slowly. Today (11/28) the Cab was at 3 brix (down 2 brix in 2 days) and the Merlot was at 10 brix (also down 2 brix).  We are continuing to put warm water jugs in them to keep the temps up. We might consider trying wrapping them in a blanket or something to help them retain heat better.  They will be ready to press by the end of this week. It could be done Thursday, before the Williamsons come over, or on Saturday afterwards.

 

Troy

Malbec and Tempranillo Ready To Press

The cap is falling on the Malbec and the Tempranillo is at 0 brix, but still active.  They are both ready to press.

 

The Merlot is fermenting slowly at 12 brix, and so is the cab which is at 5 brix. They haven't dropped muchin the last 4 days because their temperatures have dropped to 58-60 degrees, below their desired range for good fermentation, due to the near record cold temperatures outside. We've been trying to warm them with hot water jugs and running a heater in the garage to get them going better, but they likely won't be ready to press for another week.

Winery Update

Punchdown tonight. The malbec has fermented fast and is at 1 brix, with a slight HSO2 smell. The Tempranillo is at 5.5, the Id cab 7.5, the Merlot is 15.5. We will try and press saturday at noon.

We got a ph report back and phs are down in the 3.57-3.63 range, which is great.  No further acid additions needed.

Fermentation Update

We punched down and checked the grapes around noon today.  We put a 2G jug of warm water into the ID cab to get its temp up.  Everything is fermenting well. We'll re-check the pH on Monday and do a second adjustment where needed.

 

• ID Cab is at 8.5 brix, 62 degrees
• Merlot is at 21.5 brix, 66 degrees
• Malbec is at 12 brix, 72 degrees
• Tempranillo is at 16.5 brix, 66 degrees
• The WA Cab still appears to be fermenting slightly in the carboys. We should check it's brix.

 

Upcoming Activities:

• Transfer Merlot from Mike's 30G Hungarian into Ray's new 30G American Barrel
• Press the ID Cab and Malbec after Thanksgiving. The ID Cab goes into Lee's 15G Demptos. Malbec goes into Mike's hungarian 30G.
• Press the Tempranillo and Merlot no later than Dec 1st, to give us time to cleanup the winery.
• Rack the ID Syrah and WA Cab off the Gross Lees around Dec 1.
• We would like to get the winery cleaned up and everything put away in time for the Williamson's visit, Friday Dec 3rd.
• Rack the Tempranillo/Malbec/Merlot/IDCab off the Gross Lees the second week of December.

Acid Adjstments on Kornze Grapes

We adjusted the acids today on the Tempranillo, Merlot and Malbec we got from Larry to get the pH down to 3.7 or so. We added 1/2 of the adjustment now and we'll re-test the pH before adding more.  Our pH meter isn't working so we'll get the must re-tested at WineWiseIdaho (re-tests are no charge).

 

We used the acid addition calculator on vinoenolgy.com (http://vinoenology.com/calculators/acid-addition/) with 1 slight adjustment. Instead of using gallons of must we used gallons of wine--which is how we've done the calculations in the past.

 

All of the grapes are fermenting well and tonight we added nutrient at the punch-down.  The additions are listed below.

 
 
Tempranillo, 104 G Must, est 73G wine
- Sarting pH is 3.92,  Target is 3.72.
- Acid addition total of 2 g/l,  553 grams, 37 TBSP (add 1/2 at a time)
 
Malbec, 56G Must, est 39G wine
Starting pH is 3.85, Target us 3.75
- Acid addition total of 1 g/l, 148 grams, 10 TBSP (add 1/2 at a time)
 
Merlot, 27G Must, est 19 G wine
Starting pH is 3.99, Target is 3.74
- Acid addition total of 2.5 g/l, 180 grams, 12 TBSP (add 1/2 at a time)
 

Williamson Syrah Pressed

We pressed the Williamson Syrah on Tuesday 11/16.  It was at 0 brix and the cap was starting to fall.  Flavor and color were great!! We're very happy with it. We got 53 G of pressed wine out of 73G must (plus 7G water). We pressed pretty hard--flavors were good. Unfortunatly we lost some wine including 5G carboy that was dropped and some wine that was spilled. Jim took home 6G in carboys and we set aside a 5G carboy for Casey (Ray's friend).

We racked the WA Syrah off the gross lees and into wood. The flavor continues to be a bit tart. Talking with Angie about it, she think's it is the higher amount of malic acid that wine has (3.41 g/l). It will soften after MLF.  It will be interesting to see the wine change over time.

We also racked the Viognier off the gross lees. It's been sitting in the 60G barrel after finishing fermenting, for about a month. It is tasting pretty good, you can taste the oak and it has some nice varietal flavors.  It's a bit tart. Might be worth going through MLF? We have 27G of VIognier in SS and carboys.  The 60G barrel has been rinsed well and had a meta/citric rinse. After a week of drying upside-down we need to burn a sulfur wick in it.

We innoculated Larry's grapes (tempranillo, merlot and malbec) after a 4-5 day cold soak.  Punch-down last night showed them starting activity but no cap yet.  All of them have a high PH so we will have to do some acid adjustments. Troy and Ray will start that today (Friday).

Roger's cab is still fermenting well. It was down to 14.5 brix on Tuesday.

A note on the carboys. When Lee and I were punching down on Wednesday we ran into a of 5G carboy that had some extra racked WA Syrah but NO bung!. I looked around and didn't see one that had popped out.  One of the 1G stoppers was loose and 1 of the stainless keg bungs had popped open. I marked those containers with a piece of blue tape. Let's keep an eye on them, and the rest of the bungs as well.

 

There is some new wood in the garage to check out. Lee had his Demtos barrel re-cooped and Ray bought a new 30G American barrel for the WA Merlot.

Fwd: Larry's grape info

Forwarding this email from Mike to the Riverwoods Blog

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Margaret Dimmick

Date: Sat, Nov 13, 2010 at 1:29 PM
Subject: Larry's grape info

On 11/12 Bob, Ray, Mike went to Larry's and picked grapes for both ourselves and Bill Thompson's group. Grapes were .75/lb and Larry charged us $75 for crushing. Mike paid Larry for both the grapes and crushing. 1,930 X .75 = $1,447.50 + $75 = ($1,522.50)

BILLS: 150# Granache/40# Sangio/20# Barbera= 210#must sanitized 25.5 brix (small dark blue barrel)

Bill owes Mike $157.50 for grapes and $8.50 for crushing = $165.75.

OURS:

420# Malbec 56 gallons must 25.5 brix ? ph sanitized added ice bottles on noon 11/13 (microbin)

300# Merlot est. 27 gallons must 27 brix ?ph sanitized added ice bottles on noon 11/13 (White barrel)

1000# Temp 104 gallons must 26 brix ?ph sanitized added ice bottles noon on 11/13. (macrobin)

ID Cab Inoculated

We inoculated the ID Cab with Pasteur Red yeast after a 5 day cold soak.  We're doing more cold soaking this year and liking the color/flavors we're getting. Our first good cold soak was last year with the Petite Sirah Port, which we cold soaked to extract color/flavor early because knew we would have to stop fermentation early.

 

Because the Brix on the ID Cab were high (29.1) we needed to bring them down. The pH was 3.73, so we used the minimum water to avoid raising the pH too much. Pasteur Red will ferment up to 16% alcohol, so we needed to bring it down from 29.1 to around 27.5.  We add about 1.7G of water total to 25-26G must (from 285# of grapes).

 

The ID Syrah is still fermenting well, but is slowing down.

 

We will get grapes from Larry this week (tempranillo, merlot, malbec). He is going to crush for us (THANKS, LARRY!)

 

Crush, Press, Press

A BIG night in the winery.

 

We were able to get ahold of a little of Roger's cab that was picked today. With the good late weather he was able to get it ripe.  The seeds were good and brown. Fruit was saggy and slightly dehydrated with some raisins.  We got 25-26G Must out of 285# of grapes, which should give us about 17G of pressed wine.  It's been sanitized with a rounded TBSP of meta and is on cold soak for 4-5 days.  The Brix came in very high, 31.5 on our Hydrometer with a PH of 3.45. Troy or Mike will run a juice sample down to WineWise on Thursday to verify the pH and Brix numbers before we do any adjustments to lower the Brix.

 

We pressed the WA Cab and got about 44G. It had been on the skins for 10 days (4 days cold soak, 6 days fermenting).  It had great color. Dark and rich. Flavors were good, but still sweet as it's around 14 brix. We pressed it earlier than normal because we wanted to avoid contact with the green seeds as the alcohol levels rose. We pressed lightly to avoid any seed tannins and to keep the pH lower.

 

We pressed the WA Syrah, which was at 0 brix but still fermenting slowly, and got 76G. It has been on the skins for 14 days, including a 4 day cold soak. The taste had recently turned acidic. We're not sure why. We did do a small acid correction before starting fermentation...maybe it's from that. We'll keep an eye on it.

 

 

Time To Press The WA Syrah

Ray, Troy and Lee punched down tonight and checked the grapes while we enjoyed a Bread Pudding and Rum Sauce that Lee made. Yum!

 

The WA Syrah is at 0 Brix and the taste is suddenly tart. We want to press right away to prevent it from extracting any more of those flavors.  Ray will coordinate sometime on Wed, either during the afternoon or evening.

 

The WA Cab is down to 16 brix and is tasting very good.  We could press it tomorrow, which would give us 10 days on the skins (4 pre-soak and 6 fermenting), or we can wait a few more days. Normally we leave the cab on the skins as long as possible. We don't want to leave the WA Cab on the skins until the cap drops this year because of the green seeds (think of the bitter taste in the Merlot this year!).  We want to press when it hits about 10 brix--so pressing Wednesday is close enough.  When we do press the WA Cab we want to press lightly to keep from extracting green flavors and raising the pH.

 

The ID Syrah is just starting to ferment. It's cold, 60 degrees. We sent a sample to WineWise for Analysis and should have numbers back tomorrow. We checked the pH of a sample taken at the same time and it took 5-6 readings before it was consistent. (3.67, 3.71, 3.72, 3.73, 3.73, 3.73).  We'll compare the results with what we get back from WineWise.  NOTE: The PH is higher than we initially measured--likely because we added 7.5G of water, which lowered the Brix, but raised the pH.

 

Lee has been wanting to figure out how to do a little of Roger's cab this year, to blend with the Merlot or the Syrah. Roger has worked hard to get it ripe and he thinks it will be good.  Ray and I did some calculations. We have room for 9-10 barrels in the coolers over the summer, plus 4-6' space for carboys and stainless kegs.  We have 10 barrels now, and two of them have reserve cab. That leaves 8 in the cooler over the summer. So we think we can make 15-20G of Roger's cab work.  We could put it in stainless until the reserve cabs are bottled then rotate it into a barrel, or get a new barrel.  Ray has been thinking about getting a new barrel for the Merlot and rotating out his oldest barrel, the 22G Recoop French that is in its 6th season.  That would give some extra capacity.  Lee is going to call Roger to see if he has #350 of his Cabernet available.

 

I've sent Larry and email about pick dates for his grapes--but no response yet. I'll pass it along when I get it. We're still thinking it will be around 11/10.  I think we can get Larry to crush for us.

 

We talked about a time when we could all get together and have the Williamsons over to the winery. They asked for it to be a Friday. Schedules are hectic the end of November so we're looking at the first Friday in December, 12/3/2010. Check your calendars.

 

We need to step-up our Barrel Cleaning efforts to make sure we are ready for pressing. For the WA Syrah we may press into Stainless to give us more time. We'll transfer it to barrels when we rack off the gross lees in a couple weeks.

 

Here's the breakdown of wine and barrels that is shaping up. 

 

Ray's 30G French: 2009 ID Cab (Reserve)

Bob's 20G French: 2009 WA Cab (Reserve)

Mike's 30G Hungarian #1: WA Merlot

Mike's 30G Hungarian #2: WA Syrah

Lee's 30G French: WA Syrah

Ray's New 30G American: WA Merlot

Troy's 26G American: WA Cab

Ray's 22G French: ID Syrah

Lee's 22G French: ID Malbec

Troy's 15G Hungarian: ID Merlot

Bob's 15G American: Roger's Cab

Stainless/Carboys:  Tempranillo until 20G reserve barrel opens up

 

Other Barrels

Michele and Tom's 15G Hungarian: Tempranillo

Michele and Tom's 15G French: WA Merlot

Jim's 15G Barrel: Tempranillo

Jim 10G Carboys:  Syrah

Kirk's 15G Container: Tempranillo

Ray's Friend Carboys  7G Syrah, Tempranillo?

 

Yeast added to ID Syrah

Lee and I pitched yeast in the ID Syrah. We used Pasteur Red and GoFerm. The syrah has good color and I took a sample for analysis at WineWise.

 

The ID Cab is fermenting, but the cap wasn't solid.  Temp was 68-70 degrees.

 

The WA Syrah had a good cap, but was easy to punch down. 

 

We stirred the VIognier, but looking inside it is quiet. We can rack it off the gross lees in the next week or so.

 

 

Winery Update

We measured brix this afternoon.  The WA Syrah is at 4 brix and 70 degrees. It has been fermenting for a week, plus a 4 day cold soak. It would be nice to see it go another week or 10 days.

 

The ID Cab is fermenting well now, has a good cap and is at 24 brix and 62 degrees. I added 80 grams of Fermaid to the ID Cab for it's first nutrient dose. That's about a 125% dose, since the nitrogen levels showed up a little low.

 

The ID Syrah is in a cold soak.  The brix were high (28-30) so I added about 7.5G of filtered tap water to get it down to 26 brix. I'll take a sample down to WineWise Monday to get a juice panel run.  I expect to innoculate Monday night which would be a 4 day cold soak.

 

The Viognier appears to be done fermenting--we should pull a sample and check the Brix. It can safely sit under it's blanket of CO2 for another few days--or more--and soak up some more oak.

 

Looking forward to the next 2 weeks:

 

- Bob has been working on cleaning up the barrels (Thanks Bob!). They are better, but some may need a second treatment of ProxyCarb to get out the nail polish smell.

 

- We need to rack the Merlot and the Viognier off the gross lees sometime next week. We could do it Wednesday this week or the following Tuesday.

  

- The WA Syrah should ferment until the cap drops.  That could be another week. We'll have to watch it. I'd like to press it on Tue, Nov 9th if we can.

 

- We want to press the WA Cab before the cap drops to limit extraction of those green seeds. Maybe with 10 brix left. Probably a week or so. Could work out to be the same timing as pressing the WA Syrah.

 

- We expect Larry's grapes around Nov 10th.  We need to have pressed a couple of bins before then. I will ask him to crush for us.  We'll have to coordinate getting some containers out to him for picking and crushing. Note: I've put my trailer away. It can be pulled out at any time.

 

ID Syrah Picked, WA Cab Innoculated

We picked up 700# of Syrah from Williamson's today and crushed it for 72G of Must.  We added about 8-10# of Viognier to co-ferment. We had more, but the fruit had started to spoil from sitting so long.  The Syrah fruit was in great shape. Grapes were slightly dehydrated with saggy skins.  Seeds were good and nutty brown. Some berries had more juice than others. Brix came in at 30 on the Hydrometer, so probably 28.5.  PH came in surprisingly low around 3.5-3.6.  We'll get a juice panel run on it to check sugars, ph and nitrogen levels.  We sanitized the must and it is in cold soak for a few days.

 

The WA Cab has been in cold soak for 4 days, and color has been getting better every day.  pH had dropped from 3.89 to 3.77 after our addition of 1 g/l of Tartaric acid, which is what we expected. We decided to make a second addition of 1 g/l (11.32 TBSP) to get the PH into a safer zone.  This cab will be used for blending into the Bordeaux blend, so we're not overly concerned about it being a bit tart. But if we feel the taste is to tart then we'll stick the barrel outside this winter for awhile to do some cold stabilization and precipitate out some of the acid.  We also inoculated the Cab with Pasteur Red yeast and GoFerm.

 

The WA Syrah is fermenting strongly and is down to 15 Brix and is tasting FABULOUS!  We did a second Fermaid-K nutrient addition (75% dose since the brix were a bit lower).  The temp was a bit warm at 77 degrees so we threw in a frozen jug of water to try and cool it down a bit.

 

The Viognier bubbler is slowing down considerably and is close to being done fermenting. We will rack it into Stainless in the next few days.

 

Larry's grapes (Tempranillo, Malbec, Merlot) are still a good week out, enjoying some late hang time.  Weather looks favorable.

Syrah and Cab Acid Adjusted

PH on the Cab was 3.89 and the Syrah was more like 3.75. We added 1.0 g/l of Tartaric Acid to the Cab (11.32 TBSP) and 0.5 g/l to the Syrah (9.2 TBSP).  We will measure the pH and see if the cab needs more adjustment.

 

The WA Syrah is fermenting with a heavy cap and we will add some fermaid-k tonight. 

 

The cab is in a cold-soak for a couple more days to get good color before we start it fermenting. We plan to shorten the time on the skins for the cab and press once Brix drops below 10. The goal is to focus on skins exposure while there is less alcohol then get it off the skins to keep from extracting the green flavors from the seeds.  Color is getting better on the cab. Here is a picture of the color 12 hours after pressing and then 24 hours later.

 

http://picasaweb.google.com/riverwoodswinery/Wine2010#5532518301727108962 

Merlot Pressed, Cab Crushed, Syrah Innoculated

A busy day at the winery, but we had LOTs of help.

 

Cheryl drove over to Walla Walla on Saturday and picked up Cabernet from RiverRock Vineyard.  We got about 600#.  Fruit was tasty but seeds and stems are a little bit greener than normal.  Chemistry came in great: 26+ Brix and Ph 3.6-3.7.  We crushed it and with a small nick and cleaned up as many stems from the must as we could. We'll limit the skins time this year to keep from extracting the green flavors.

 

The Merlot has been fermenting for 18 days and was down to about 1 Brix with a soggy cap. We pressed it and got 85G of wine.  That's about a 75% yield, remembering that we added about 10G of water to reduce the brix.  It is in a 30G Hungarian and 28G American oak plus carboys. We'll rack it off the gross lees in about a week.

 

The WA Syrah had been in a cold soak for 4 days. It is also running high on Brix (28.5) so we added about 10.5G to reduce the Brix to 26 Brix (14.5% alcohol).  We inoculated it with Pasteur Red yeast and GoFerm. This is the first time we've used the bulk yeast so it took some time to figure out the measurements. We estimate a 5 gram package of yeast has about 1 1/8 tsp which is good for 5G of must. So for the 105G of Must we added about 8 TBSP of yeast. 

 

Several empty barrels have a strong VA (nail polish remover/acetone) smell. We've ordered more ProxyCarb to clean them up.

 

Pictures are uploaded to our Picasa album:

http://picasaweb.google.com/riverwoodswinery/Wine2010

 

 

 

 

 

 

2009 Final Bottling

We did our final blending and bottling tonight for the 2009 grapes (excluding the cabernets, which will stay in a barrel for 6 more months). 

 

The tasting trials were the longest and most difficult we've done to date.  We tried to find a reasonable Boisique blend, but could not. The merlot just wasn't good enough this year.  We ended up with an Encore blend of Petite Sirah, Syrah and Malbec that we liked and a "Tailgate Red" blend with the rest of the wine.  The final blends were:

 

2009 Encore

50% Syrah

32% Petite Sirah

18% Malbec

 

2009 Tailgate Red

76% Merlot

15% Malbec

5% Cab Franc

4% Syrah

 

Photos from the night are uploaded to the Riverwoods 2010 album on Picasa at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/riverwoodswinery/Wine2010

 

 

 

Merlot Punch down report

Punched down Merlot at 9 pm. Cap was dense. Color and flavor continue to improve. Must was  at 21.5 percent and 75 degrees.

Fermentation has been slow. It was time for the second nutrient addition. I Added 150 grams of Fermaid-k, Which is 150 percent dose, to offset the low nitrogen levels.

Ready for final bottling

We will bottle the Bosique and Encore on Thursday, after the blending trials.  Blending trials are set to start at 5-5:30pm. Bring a snack to share.

 

We will wash bottles Wednesday at noon.  We have about 84 gallons of wine, which is 420 bottles total.  I anticipate around 49-50 gallons of Boisique (250 bottles, ~21 cases of shouldered bottles). The remaining 170 bottles will be Encore (or Encore and Cousins), which can be non-shouldered or shouldered.  Cleaning 21 cases of Shouldered and 14 cases of Non-Shouldered should do us.

 

Here is a breakdown of wine we have left.

 

37G       Merlot

21.5G    Malbec

15G       Cousins (50/50)

8G         Syrah

2G         Cab Franc

 

For Boisique we'll try 3 blends to start:

80% Merlot, 20% Malbec

75% Merlot, 25% Malbec

71% Merlot, 25% Malbec, 4% Cab Franc

 

For the left-over wine we will try:

 

1. Syrah, Petite Syrah, Malbec  (2 cousins and an in-law?)

2. Syrah, Petite Syrah (2 cousins)

3. Syrah, Malbec (standard encore)

 

 

 

Merlot Is Fermenting Strongly

The merlot has started fermenting and there is a thick cap on top.

 

We pitched yeast yesterday. 23 packages of Pasteur Red yeast plus Go Ferm nutrient.  We added about 100 grams of Fermaid-K mid-day Sunday to help the fermentation along and will make another Fermaid-K addition when the brix drops to around 20.

 

We did a cold soak for 2 days at about 60 degrees. The must temperature today was 65 degrees, which is a good temp at the lower end of the optimum range (64-86). We would like to keep it on the cooler side to get a slower fermentation.

WA Syrah/Merlot Update

I talked with Angie today. The Washington (Double Canyon) Syrah is expected to be here Saturday the 16th, possibly Friday.  She said ripeness is good and they are waiting for acids to balance out before they pick. 

 

Angie ran some lab tests on the WA Merlot and said the nutrients came back very low and she recommends a good dose of nutrients to ensure the fermentation is healthy and doesn't stick.  I'll review our planned GoFerm & Fearmaid-K dose with her recommendation.  She also recommended some Brix reduction with 9G of filtered or bottled water.

 

We have a Trial Blending set for Thursday Oct 14th for the Bosique, followed by bottling.  We might also bottle the Encore at that time, if we have enough bottles ready.  How about if we do the same time : Trials at 5:30pm followed by bottling?

 

I've been rotating frozen water jugs into the must to keep it cool. It is holding at 60 degrees with no signs of fermentation.  I will ameliorate tonight and innoculate Saturday morning (details below, for reference) and then we will need to start doing punchdowns 3x day.

 

Troy

 

Since we have high brix and low nutrient we'll use a slightly higher amount of yeast and GoFerm.  They recommend 1.2 grams of yeast, 1.5 grams of GoFerm in 30ml (1oz) of water of per gallon of must.

-Yeast is added to warm water (104º F) containing Go-Ferm and allowed to soak for 20 minutes.

- Stir it gently to break-up any clumps. Wait 15-30 minutes, stir a second time.

*Do not go beyond 30 minutes in the hydration solution or the yeast will begin to starve.

- Then a small amount of the must is added to the yeast starter and the mixture is allowed to sit for another 20 minutes. The yeast is then ready to be introduced to the must.

- The next day add an initial dose of Fermaid-K nutrient once fermentation starts. 1 gram per gallon of must.  Once the Brix drops to by 33% add a second dose of the Fermaid-K.

 

 

Merlot Crush

We picked up 1,000# of Red Mountain (WA) Merlot today that we were lucky enough to get through Dennis (Thanks Dennis!). The fruit was FANTASTIC! Nice ripeness of the berries, stems and seeds. Flavor was great and there was a good amount of concentrated juice. We are VERY excited to have it in the winery and see what we can do with it.

Dennis had his fruit crushed and checked and it read 28.2 Brix and 3.53 pH--amazing. When we checked ours it came out a solid 30 Brix on the Hydrometer. Dennis stopped by and had a refractometer and it read just under 29. So we'll say it's somewhere between 29 and 30. Our pH meter wouldn't calibrate, so we couldn't check the pH. We'll get a new crystal and check it later but we assume it will be 3.6 or so, based on Dennis' numbers.

The potential alcohol for a 29/30 Brix reading is 16.75-17.5%, which is too high for Pasteur Red yeast. We need to get it down to the 15-16% range to ensure a complete fermentation, plus we've found that when the alcohol gets up that high it makes the wine too hot and unbalanced. So we will discuss ameliorating the wine.

To drop us into the 26-27 brix range we need about 8-12G of water (using the online calculator at: http://vinoenology.com/calculators/chaptalization-and-water-dilution/ that we've used before). We should look at adding the water early in the fermentation cycle so we get more skins exposure (ideally during the cold soak). After crush we estimate we have about 99G of Must. We added 4 TBSP of meta to sanatize the must and will do a cold soak for 2 days and innoculate Friday night or Saturday morning using the Pasteur Red and some GoFerm nutrient.

Photos have been uploaded to the Riverwoods 2010 Wine Photos, at the end of the album.

http://picasaweb.google.com/riverwoodswinery/Wine2010

Troy

2009 Magnafique

We bottled  our 2009 Magnafique Bordeaux Blend tonight.  It took a record 6 blending trials before the group decided on the blend, which ended up being:

 

75% Idaho Cabernet

10% Cabernet Franc

10% Malbec

5% Merlot

 

We tried lots of combinations without any clear favorites until the very end.  We tried blends without any merlot and blends without any malbec, but we liked the complexity of having them both in the blend.  Actually we would have liked to have more merlot in the blend but this year's merlot didn't blend as well.

 

We did taste the fined merlot vs the unfined merlot and the difference was amazing. The merlot that had been fined with egg whites was much smoother with less bitter tannins more fruit.  We racked the remaining merlot off the egg whites, combined the unfined and fined wine and added 2 more egg whites. We will let that sit for 2 weeks and then do a Boisique Blending Trial on Oct 13 or 14, followed by bottling.

 

We've heard that WA is picking merlot in the next few days.  We expect Idaho is a week or 2 behind that.  We are thinking the ID Viognier will be ready in the next week, followed by the WA Syrah then the ID Tempranillo, ID Merlot and Malbec and then the ID Syrah.  The WA Cabernet will be the last grape sometime around Oct 20-24.  It is going to be a very busy October!

 

We will have to get a plan together about winery coverage because several members will be out in late October: Troy, Ray and Mike will all be out the week of Oct 18th.

 

Photos from the last few activities are uploaded to Picasa (at the end of the Wine2010 album).

 

http://picasaweb.google.com/riverwoodswinery/Wine2010 

 

 

Trial Blending #2 on Thursday

Trial blending for our Bordeaux Blend is Thursday. We're planning on starting at 5:30pm and having some snackies while we taste and then bottling after we decide on the blend.    Bring something to share...see you there!

 

Troy

 

Here are some thoughts on the Mangafique blend this year.  We're trying a Cabernet "Left Bank" style Bordeaux blend.  They are cab & cab-franc heavy with smaller amounts of merlot and malbec.

 

We want about a 10oz sample (300 ml).  Here are the starting blends and volumes. The syringes will make it much faster to do the blending this year.

  

Blend #1 (pre-blending favorite)

70% Cabernet    210ml

20% Cab Franc    60ml

10% Merlot          30ml

0% Malbec

 

We'll compare that blend to 2 others and see which we like, and then refine.

 

Blend #2 (add Malbec back in)

70% Cabernet     210ml

15% CFranc         45ml

10% Merlot           30ml

5% Malbec           15ml

 

Blend #3 (Amp up the Merlot)

70% Cabernet      210ml

15% CFranc          45ml

15% Merlot            45ml

Cousin Blending Trials

The group met tonight to decide on a blend for our Cousins blend of Petite Sirah and Syrah.

 

The Petite Sirah alone is very fruity, but doesn't have much body, finish or nose.  The Syrah alone is thin, doesn't have much fruit, but has a nice nose and finish.  Combined they are the best of both: A nice nose, good fruit, a nice mouth feel and finish.  It's not an overly complicated wine, just a nice pleasant red wine that you want to drink.  It should drink very well young (our favorite kind!).

 

Earlier pre-blending trials had pointed us to 50/50 blend or better, heavier on the Petite Sirah side.  We tried various blends ranging from equal parts to 70% Petite Sirah.  With the 70/30 we lost the Syrah and  50/50 had the most Syrah flavor.  We ended up with 55% Petite Sirah and 45% Syrah.  We will bottle the Cousins on Monday at 6pm, washing bottles at noon.

 

We tried the Merlot, which we fined with egg whites a week ago.  Much of the astringency is gone and the wine is much improved.  It needs another week to settle out and then we'll do blending trials for the Bordeaux Blend (Magnafique) and Boisique.  We plan to do those trials on Thursday the 30th at 5pm and then bottle afterwards (again, washing bottles prior on Wednesday or Thursday at noon-TBD).

 

We have 25G of Petite Sirah.  That means we'll get 45.45G of Cousins, or 227 bottles (about 19 cases total-- 3.8 cases each).

 

2009 Cousins

20.45 G of Syrah

25.0 G of Petite Sirah

 

After bottling Cousins, we will have about 10G of Syrah left.  We'll blend it into some "Encore" with some Malbec, after we bottle the Magnafique and Boisique.

 

 

Merlot Fining

We decided to fine the Merlot with some egg whites to try and reduce the bitter tannins.  We stirred 2 egg-whites into the 30G barrel and will let it sit for 7-14 days and see how it changes. We left a 5G carboy alone, which we can use to compare the taste, which will be very interesting!    We will want to bottle or rack the merlot in 2 weeks so it doesn't sit on the sediment.

 

For reference, we used 2 farm-fresh eggs (2oz egg whites) and 4oz of a salt water solution  (1/2 tsp salt in 1C water).

 

 

 

2010 Season

The group met tonight to discuss the 2010 grapes and bottling of the 2009 wines.

 

The wine season is coming together, although we haven't been able to close the deal with Wood River for Merlot and Malbec--so we're starting to be concerned that those grapes might fall through.  As an alternative we will see if we can get some (#500?) Malbec or Merlot from Larry Kornze. It will be fewer pounds than we had planned, so we'll try and get some Tempranillo from Larry too--Ray thought he would have about 600# available.

 

Lee talked with Roger about some Syrah or Cabernet, and thought some would be available. With the late growing year we're going to go with earlier riping grapes and ask for 1,000-1,500# of Williamson Syrah and no Williamson Cabernet . That will give us some extra gallons for others who are trying winemaking with us (Tomlinson and OLeary).

 

Lee is going to take a bottle of our Petite Sirah Port out to Steve and Leslee at Robertson's and see if we might be able to glean some late Syrah for a port this year.  Our fingers are crossed for 300-400#.  If we can get it, we'll have to start looking for more fortifying spirits.

 

We're unsure about a white wine this year. Roger said he has some young Vioginer, which we think would be worth trying.  We're going to try for 500-1,000#.  Michele is interested in some Viognier. Kirk indicated he is interested in trying his hand, and some Viognier would be a good place to start.  It would be fun to go out and pick it ourselves, if we can.

 

We tasted the Merlot, which has been coming along but is still very bitter. A trial blend of 75% Merlot and 25% Malbec was promising--if we can just take the edge off of the Merlot.  We discussed fining the Merlot to reduce the astringency bitter tannins.  We think we'll try some egg whites, which is a proven gentle method, to help smooth out the Merlot.  We are meeting Monday morning at 11am to confirm how much to add and do the fining. We'll let the merlot sit for a couple weeks after adding the egg whites while we bottle the Cousins.  We tasted the 50/50 Cousins, which is good.  Adding a bit more Petite Sirah punches up the fruit. We need to settle on a final blend.  Blending trials is always something to look forward to!

 

Here is the count of gallons from the last racking. We'll be bottling everything but the WA Cab and a barrel of the ID Cab--which we'll hold over for a Reserve Cabernet.  That's about 250G - 60G = 190G of wine.  That's about 16 cases of bottles each.  (Note: we've already bottled the port).  Time to start cleaning bottles!  We should try and get some bottling done in September, while we have the manpower around.

 

From early trial blending I'm guessing we'll have

 

1. A "Left Bank" Cabernet style Bordeaux.  Blend TBD, starting with 70% Cab, 20% Franc, 10% Merlot

 

2. Boisique. 75/25% blend?

 

3. Cousins (around 70% PS 30%S)

 

4. Encore Syrah/Malbec ( Something like 75% Syrah, 25% Malbec--depending on other blends)

 

5. 60G Cab Reserves...to be bottled in the Spring.

 

 

Rough 2010 Wine Gallons

Willy's Cab      55 gal      

WA Cab          35 gal      
Cab Franc         5gal     
Merlot               35gal                      
Malbec             25 gal      
Syrah                30gal        
P.Syrah             25gal       

Cousins            15gal      
Port                   17gal       

 

Porto Bottled

Troy, Mike and Bob worked this afternoon for a couple of hours and got the Petite Sirah Porto bottled. It was just a 15G barrel, so it went quickly.  Mike had picked up some splits and our regular corks fit them.  Mike got both some green splits and some clear splits. The wine sure looks purdy in that clear glass with the sunshine on it.  :)  We talked about getting a new picture for the port label. Maybe a sunset shot over the river or pond. Something to make the bottle stand out.  Check out the photos online: http://picasaweb.google.com/riverwoodswinery/Wine2010 

 

Interestingly after racking the wine and stirring it up, the alcohol/fire was more present than before.  Something about how the fortified wine stratifies in the barrel, I guess. We ended up with 34 splits each, plus a half dozen set aside for the growers and maybe a contest.  We're all pleased with how the Porto turned out--especially for our first Fortified wine.  We'll look for another opportunity to make some Port. We need to find a late harvest grape. Maybe we can glean some late Syrah this year???

 

We added about 15ppm meta to the wine before bottling--most of which will get blown off during the bottling process.  We couldn't quite remember how the hose set-up went to go from the barrel into the bottler. We ended up doing a step-down hose that worked, although it kept wanting to pop off of the barrel spigot.  We'll have to come up with a better mechanism.  Ray might remember what we did last time. 

 

The Porto barrel (Troy's 15G Hungarian) has been meta/citric rinsed and is drying in the garage.  We started hydrating the large 60G barrel for white wine fermentation. It's leaking pretty badly.  I smelled my empty 26G American barrel--everything smelled fine--and burned a bit more of a sulfur wick to hold it until the next crush is over.

Magnafique Pre Blending

Did a little pre-blending to get an idea of the Magnafique blend. We're shooting for a cab-focused blend with the Cab Franc vs. the Merlot style from last year.  In previous tastes we've liked 10-20% cab franc with the cab, so that's where I started.   My first try was to determine if the Malbec adds anything to the blend this year.  I did the following 2 blends

 

Blend 1
80% Cab
15% Cab Franc
5% Merlot
 
Blend 2
75% Cab
15% Cab Franc
5% Merlot
5% Malbec

 

Both blends were good but Blend #1 was nicer. The blend with the 5% Malbec had a peppery finish.  Mike and Margaret tasted and also liked Blend #1.

 

I tried dialing up the Merlot component in Blend 1 to more like 10% and that was too much, the merlot this year has a bitterness that threw off the balance.  I think Blend #1 is a good starting point. We can try adding more or less Cab Franc and see what the group likes.

 

Troy

Clarifying Racking Before Bottling

Since the day was cool, we started out around noon and finished around 5pm.  Greg from around the corner came by and was a great hand.  Here are the stats:

 

Willy's Cab   22G/30G/3G       55 gal       racked/meta'd @15ppm     found no problems

WA Cab        32G/3G                 35 gal       racked/meta'd @15ppm     found no problems

Cab Franc    5G                             5gal        racked/meta'd@15ppm      found no problems

Merlot            30G/5G                 35gal        racked/meta'd@15ppm      +5 gal carb suspect.  rack/meta &set aside                   

Malbec          18G/5G/1G/1G  25 gal        "                                    "              found no problems

Syrah             30G                        30gal         "                                   "               found no problems(topped w/P.Syrah)

P.Syrah          25G                        25gal        "                                   "               no problems

WE DID DISCARD SUSPECT 1 GAL. PETITE SYRAH DUE TO VERY HEAVY VINEGAR TASTE 

Cousins         15G                         15gal        "                                   "               no problems          

Port                 15G                          17gal        Tasted                                       No problems MAY BOTTLE ON WED.

 

NOTE:  WE NEED TO BE CAREFUL WHEN USING THE NEW STAINLESS PADDLE TO STIR WITH VIGOR.  WE CAN SHAVE PLASTIC OFF THE SIDE OF THE NEW BARREL WITH THE SPIGOT.   LOOKS LIKE LITTLE WHITE SHAVINGS IN THE WINE.   WE WILL LOOK AT SMOOTHING THE EDGES OF THE PADDLE TO SOLVE THIS.  MEANWHILE WE WILL STIR WITH CARE.

 

Let me know if I missed anything.  All the wine has been racked/meta'd and barrels rinsed and refilled.  All the wine looked good with very little dregs.  We did not save any dregs to cycle back in.  We decided to leave the wine as clean as we could with bottling coming up soon.  BETTER GET BUSY ON CLEANING THOSE BOTTLES.  CIAO!   Mike

 

 

Margaret Dimmick

dimmicks@earthlink.net

EarthLink Revolves Around You.

 

Aug 23rd TopnTaste Report

We met to check wines and talk about the Fall schedule. We celebrated a "Best Blend" award for Riverwoods and a Third Place for Best Cabernet with Michele and Tom!  Salute!  It was a busy busy night. Here's what I remember of it.

 

Troy

 

It's always so fun to taste the wines at the end of the summer. They've gone through their mid-life crisis and are entering a point where they're stable and ready to bottle.  This year's no different. All the wines are starting to shine!  Here are some notes from tonight's Top N Taste. 

• The Merlot continues to surprise us on how far it has come. It's still tannic but it tates like Merlot! Next step is to try the Boisique blend.
   
• The Petite Sirah has nice fruit and some barrel tannins on the finish. Simple, fruity and nice.
  
• The Syrah continues to be a bit thin but with a nice finish.
  
• The Cousins blend of Syrah and Petite Sirah is the best of both. Fruit, body and finish.  The barrel has a 50/50 blend and tonight we tried a step towards more p. sirah and liked it.  We need to do more blending but a 70% Petite Sirah 30% Sirah is tasting very promising.
   
• The Malbec continues to be smooth with loads of white pepper. We broke down a carboy for topping and it had a funky layer on top but was OK underneath. We took off the top bit and added some meta to it and to the barrel, which also had a slight surface film but smelled and tasted fine.
   
• The WA Cab was smooth and had a great nose. It had us thinking that maybe we should bottle cab early this year!?
   
• The ID Cab had good flavor and body, but less nose, although Ray's barrel had more vanilla nose from the French barrel.
   
• A few weeks ago the port had some oxidation and a VA smell. The smell has subsided and the port tastes great. We think we want to bottle it first to make sure we get it safely into a bottle. We want to add 10-15ppm meta when we bottle to help protect it.

We talked about a new barrel. Ray thinks we could use to get some newer wood. The oldest barrel is his 22G recoop French. The most neutral is Troy's 15 Hungarian or Lee's 15G French.  For size we could use something smaller like a 10 G.  We don't need the new wood this year (less cab) but will be looking to rotate in some new wood this year or next.

 

We need 1 more racking before we bottle for clarity.  We are going to rack this Monday Aug 30th for sure, and possibly Sunday Aug 29th as well. NOTE: We need to add 15ppm meta before we rack to get ready for bottling.  Add the meta after racking OUT of the barrels and before racking back IN.

  - 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

Proposed bottling for the Port is the week of September 13th. We'll firm up a date as it gets closer.  Mike will check on splits for bottling. Troy will check on corks.

We need to do tasting trials for the magnafique, boisique and cousins blends in September.  People should also give some thought to if we want to bottle the cabernet NOW or hold it a few more months in the barrel.  This is a very good cab and can take some extra wood and it will make a great Reserve. But if we bottle it now we could take an extra 1,000lbs (60G) of wine this year.  We need to decide right away if we want to get more grapes to fill those barrels.

We reviewed grapes for 2010 and decided with the shorter growing year we wanted to go long on merlot and syrah and do less later ripening varietals like Cab and Petite Sirah.  We never know what we're going to get until it's in the barrels, but here's what we're going to try for:

Wood River-- Mike and Troy will follow up.

- 1,000 lbs of Merlot. Could take up to 1,500lbs.  (500 lbs confirmed so far).

- 1,000 lbs of Malbec.

 

Williamson -- Lee will follow up

- 250 lbs of Cab or Syrah

- 600 - 800 lbs.of Viognier

 

RiverRock

- 500 lbs of Clone 6 Cab

 

Hells Canyon -- Lee to follow up.

- Glean Syrah and Cab Franc

 

Periple -- Troy will confirm.

- 1,000 lbs of WA Syrah through Angie.

 

 

July 30th Topping Report

We topped up and tasted wines tonight.  Wines were down quite a bit. It's been 3 weeks since we topped last.  Wines are coming along well. Here are some notes from the tasting.

 

Troy

 

The merlot is starting to mellow. It's still a bit astringent and tannic but it has some fruit now. We all thought it was much improved.

 

The syrah is a bit thin and bland.

 

The petite sirah has a candied fruit flavor. Nice body. Clean finish.

 

The syrah/p.sirah blend was a nice combination. It had the fruit from the P. Sirah and the finish from the Syrah. Very promising.

 

A 1G carboy of Petite Sirah smelled and tasted off. We marked its suspect and hit it with a little meta.

 

The malbec continues to be very peppery with some green pepper.

 

Wa Clone 6 cab was OK, but somewhat shut down. Nothing bad, but the flavors aren't showing through right now.

 

The ID Williamson cab in Ray's 30G French barrel had a much bigger nose and flavor than the same cab in the 20G American barrel.

 

The Petite Sirah port had an off flavor and smell. We think it might be getting oxidized. The PH is higher on that wine so it requires more ppm of Meta so we added 15ppm. 

 

Temp in the big cooler was 72 degrees, which is warmer than we would like. We turned the temp down to the max level. We should check the temp in a few days. It's possible that the higher temps are causing the issue with the Petite Sirah and the port.  We didn't have a thermometer in the smaller cooler--we should put one in there to get a reading on temperatures.

 

We need to check Troy's empty barrel and resulfur it. We'll want to check and see if it needs to be hydrated (and then meta/citric rinsed) first.

 

Wines In The Cooler

I'm delinquent on updating the blog, so here it goes.

 

We finished racking wine off the fine lees over Memorial Day weekend and all the wines are in the cooler.  We ended up blending some syrah/petite-sirah into a barrel (50/50) as a base for the cousin's blend. We added 15-20ppm of meta to the wine after racking and stirred it in. The platypus topping wine got an extra pinch of meta.  We topped 2 weeks later, and all wines are cool and sound.   We need to top again by the end of June.

 

We had a guest at the winery while we racked: Mike from Syringa. It was nice to chat with him. He tasted several wines and was particularly impressed with the 09 Cabernets and the Petite Sirah Port (aren't we all!).

 

On Memorial Day we had Riverwoods BBQ with a vertical tasting of Boisique 2004-2008 (minus the extra popular, award winning 2006).  The wines are holding up very well. 2004 has aged well and was the favorite. The bottle had loads of sediment, but tasted great--it could have gone several more years.  The 2007 was noticeably more tannic. The 05 had more oak and the 08 had the most body (15% alcohol, baby!).  Now if we could just figure out how to hold onto more bottles of wine until they were 5 years old! ;)

 

We sulfured Troy's empty 26G American barrel. We'll have to check on it mid-summer to make sure it doesn't dry out.

Racking #1

We racked the Merlot, Malbec and WA Cab tonight.  We started to rack the Porto but it didn't have much fine lees because we've racked and stirred it extra times so we decided to leave it alone.

 

All the wines were sound with no sign of rotten egg smell. The Merlot is a different source this year and is much more tannic with less fruit.  The Malbec is dark, smooth and had lots of pepper, and the WA Clone 6 Cab is a nice, elegant cab flavor.

 

We added 15ppm of Meta as we racked plus an extra pinch in the platypus topping containers. 

 

We have 1 more racking to do (Planned for Memorial Day) for the ID Cab, Syrah and Petite Syrah, combining ID cab from carboys and a 15G barrel into Ray's 30G barrel and combining some syrah and petite sirah into a 15G barrel. Then everything can go into the cooler. 

 

We enjoyed a 2005 Boisique while we racked. The flavors were very good--it was holding up well after 5 years. The wine was a bit cloudy--we have certainly improved that aspect of the wine.

Racking Of Fine Lees

We met yesterday to discuss our plans to rack off the Fine Lees and get all the wine into the cooler. 

 

We need 2 or 3 racking sessions to get all the wine racked.  We went through schedules and tried to choose a couple days that might work. How does May 20th (Thursday/tomorrow) and Monday May 31 (Memorial day) work for people?  I would guess the racking Thursday would be in the afternoon.

 

We have 2 empty barrels that had the Cab Reserve that we want to fill with wine, if possible. Below is a list of how much wine we have in our barrels and carboys. Here is an option for combining wines to more into wood. I like getting the cabernet into Ray's 30G barrel because it's newer.

 

1. Free up Lee's 15G barrel by taking the 15G of ID Cab plus 15G of ID Cab in carboys and putting that into Ray's 30G barrel.

 

2. Combine 15G of Syrah and Petite Sirah and put it into Lee's 15G barrel (as a pre-blend for our Cousin's blend). I recommend 7.5G of each Syrah and Petite Sirah so we have a 50/50 blend. This leaves enough syrah and petite sirah for topping and makes blending math easier later.

 

This gets rid of five 5G carboys and leaves my 26G barrel empty.  We don't have enough of any other wine to combine to fill it, so we'll sulfur it and keep the rest in carboys.  I think we'll have enough space in the back part of the wall-side cooler to put away all the carboys.

 

If you have other suggestions, please reply-all.

 

Troy

 

We want a non-airitive racking now (ie: minimim splashing). When racking we need to add 15ppm of Meta--best to add after racking out and before racking back in so it gets mixed well. The barrels just need a fresh water rinse/drain unless there is an off smell or taste. We'll have to check the empty barrels before filling them. I think they got a meta rinse after bottling but I'm not sure.
    - 1/4 tsp meta = 15ppm in 15 gal
    - 1/3 tsp meta = 15ppm in 20 gal
    - 1/2 tsp meta = 15ppm in 30 gal

 

Order of Racking (initial, can change. Could reverse what is racked on which day)

May 20th:

1. Merlot

2. Malbec

3. WA Cab

4. Porto

 

Memorial Day

1. ID Cab barrels and carboys (including filling Ray's 30G barrel)

2. Syrah

3. Petite Sirah

4. Combining leftover Syrah and Petite Sirah into a 50/50 blend in Lee's 15G barrel

 

 

Carboy Size	Wine	TTL		Barrel	Size	Wine	TTL		Combined Wine	TTL Gal
5	CabFranc	5		Troy A	26	Empty	0		CabFranc	5
1	ID Cab			Ray F	30	Empty	0		ID Cab	58
5	ID Cab			Ray F	22	ID Cab			Malbec	23
5	ID Cab			Lee F	15	ID Cab	37		Merlot	41
5	ID Cab			Bob A	15	Malbec	15		P Sirah	33
5	ID Cab	21		Mike H	30	Merlot	30		Porto	18
5	Malbec			Bob F	20	P Sirah	20		Syrah	40
3	Malbec	8		Troy H	15	Porto	15		WA Cab	35
5	Merlot			Mike H	30	Syrah	30
5	Merlot			Lee F	30	WA Cab	30
1	Merlot	11
1	P Sirah
1	P Sirah
5	P Sirah
5	P Sirah
1	P Sirah	13
3	Porto	3
5	Syrah
5	Syrah	10
5	WA Cab	5