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.