Bottled Cab SO2 Levels

I took a bottle of the 08 Idaho Cabernet that we just bottled to check sulfites and they were 2ppm. So we've achieved about the minimum levels of SO2 possible while still having some protection for the wine.

 

The last lab report for that wine was 1ppm in March and we added 30ppm. We generally expect about 60% increase in Free SO2  for a result of around 20 ppm.   Since then the wine has been in a barrel for 2 months and I would guess our bottling process is about the same as an airitive racking.  Estimating 3ppm loss per month in the barrel (6ppm total) and 12ppm for an bottling means that we burned 18ppm in the last 2 months.  That's pretty much in line with the numbers that were reported.

08 Cabernet Bottled

We bottled our 2008 Cabernet today after 18 months in oak.  We tried blending all the ID & WA cab together but the heavy ID cab covered up too much of the Cabernet fruit. We increased the ratio of WA cab and liked it much better, especially after adding the Malbec.  The reserve blend ended up being:

 

60% WA Clone 6 Cabernet

33% ID Clone 2 Cabernet

07% Malbec

 

We also bottled a 100% ID Cabernet.  The ID cab got quite a bit of oak from Ray's newer barrel and will take a little bit of time in the bottle to settle down. In the future we may want to rotate the reserve wines into less strong barrels to keep the extra 6 months.  Everyone also got a bottle marked with a D on top, which is the dregs of the 2 barrels. They're extra chewy!

 

Mike had gotten a new mixing barrel that had a spigot on it, which made bottling easier because we didn't have to mess with a siphon. Bob had picked up some magnum bottles and we bottled some of the reserve Cabernet in them.  We'll have to get all the winemakers to sign a few of them.  They should peak in 6-8 years and be a delightful memory when opened. 

 

The 2 empty barrels have been cleaned and rinsed with meta. We will have to assess what wines go into which barrels for the cooler when we rack off the fine lees at the end of the month.

 

Photos have been uploaded to our 2010 Picasa Online Album.

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

Bottling with Periple

Monday we helped Angie Riff and crew bottle Periple's Syrah and Pinot Noir. We bottled more wine in 1 day than we bottle all year!  It was great to get to work with Angie and learn from her.  We didn't get to taste the Pinot, but the Syrah was terrific! It will be hard to wait the 6 months before opening a bottle. 
 
The bottling initially was planned on a large automated bottler but it turned out the bottles weren't compatible so we ended up using a 6-spout stationary bottle filler and an electric corker (labels and foils to be added at a later date).   The automated bottler runs at 2,400 bottles per hour, or 40 per minute.   We did pretty good on the 6-spout filler and managed about 18-20 bottles per minute. We started the bottler using a siphon but ended up using an air pump to transfer the wine.  The bottling process was very similar to what we have been used to, except we got to start with brand new (clean!) bottles and there was A LOT MORE WINE!  We learned that a pallet can hold 56 cases (134.4 gallons) of wine...if you stack it right.
 
Angie pays a lot of attention to sanitation. She used TSP, Water, Citric, Iodine and Water to clean, nutralize, sanatize and rinse the hoses. For the bottler we used proxycarb, citric and water.  And as a final cleaning step every part that came in contact with the wine or bottles was sprayed with alcohol (Vodka).  She also works hard to make sure the wine doesn't come in contact with oxygen by covering the wine with a blanket of nitrogen and adding nitrogen to the bottles before filling them.  Angie used Rich Xiberta Natural Cork with the Periple's name printed on them. Corks were added directly to the automated corker without touching them. Cheryl was the perfect height for adding corks to the machine. ;)
 
Angie added a modest amount of Meta to the wine before bottling to help protect it during the process and in the bottle. She started with 18ppm and targeted 35ppm (see blog photo for her calcs.)  She explained that much of the SO2 is lost in the first 6 month and the majority is gone after 2 years in the bottle.
 

ML Kicker Added

The group met and added ML cultures to the 2009 red wines, except the Petite Sirah and Petite Sirah Port.  We think the wines were starting ML from the residual cultures in the wood barrels, but we wanted to give it a kick to make sure it completes before the barrels move into the cooler.  We added about 2+ bags to the large barrels, 1+ bag to the smaller barrels and a little to all the carboys. Everything has a breathable bung or a bubbler.

 

We also tasted the 2 barrels of 2008 reserve cabs and decided that it is time to bottle because they have as much oak as we want.  The WA Clone6 cab from RiverRock vineyard has been in a 4 year old American Oak barrel. It is a smooth, lighter bodied cab with finer wood tannis--quite elegant. The ID Clone2 cab from Williamson vineyard has been in Ray's 1 year old French barrel. It has heavy french barrel flavor/aroma with vanilla toast and fruit and a very high alcohol level--a real BIG cab.  We liked them blended together the best and the current thought is we will blend them both into a single reserve along with 5% malbec and maybe a half a % petit verdot (both are held back from previous years for reserve cab blending).

 

We'll do a final trial blending tasting in the next few weeks with the entire group to make a decision on the 2008 Reserve Cabernet blend, followed by bottling. We'll need 27 cases of clean bottles, so start scrubbin! The great news is that means we all get over 5 cases of reserve cabernet (yum :).  I'll do a cork count to see if we need to order more.

 

 

Re: [Riverwoods Wineries] Wine SO2 Analysis

I forgot to include the PH measurement for the Port. It came in at 3.9, which is surprisingly high. Our initial PH measurement was 3.2, which may have been an error for such a high brix late season grape. I calibrated the PH meter twice and I verified that the PH meter is self correcting for temperature.

The PH has also come up from the fortification plus the port has likely started MLF, which raises the PH. With this high of a PH we will have to keep a close eye on it for spoilage and we will have to maintain a higher SO2 level. 30ppm is the minimum level that Angie recommended in her recent email.

Troy

Wine SO2 Analysis

We recently got some wine tested by WineWiseIdaho for SO2 and the ported tested for residual sugar.

 

• This year's 2009 Idaho Cab came in at 21ppm SO2. This is a safe level. We did not add any meta.
   
• Last year's 2008 Idaho Cab came in at 1 ppm SO2. This is a dangerously low level. We added 30ppm SO2, which will result in about 15ppm being absorbed for 16ppm total.
   
• This year's port 2009 came in at 4ppm SO2. This is a dangerous level for a wine with residual sugar. We added 50ppm SO2 which will result in a total SO2 of 29ppm.
  
• The port had a 6% residual sugar, which is slightly lower than we tried for. We estimate the alcohol level to be 20%.

 

Here is a brief history on the wines, SO2 additions and deletions (racking, etc).  We generally expect 3-5ppm SO2 loss a month from barrel storage. 7-10ppm SO2 loss from racking. In general our sulfite schedule is good. If we do an airative/splashy racking or stirring then we should add more SO2 and the reserves need a winter dose of SO2 to hold them until bottling.  I will update our "Riverwoods Guide To Sulfites" on the web site.

 

The 08 ID Cab was crushed on Oct 30, 2008 and sulfited with 1/8tsp meta per G of must, which is approx 100ppm.  It was pressed on Nov 25th. Racked off the Gross Lees on Dec 7th.  Racked off the Fine Lees in May and (I think) 15 to 20 ppm Meta added.  It has not gone through the final clarification racking. It has been in a barrel for 15 months so far.  This sulfite addition is enough to take it into May. We will want to add a little SO2 before we rack and bottle.

 

The 09 ID cab was crushed on Oct 18th with 100ppm meta and pressed on Nov 8th and racked off the gross lees a few weeks later. There have been no additions of SO2.  It has a low enough SO2 level to comfortably go through MLF. After ML we will rack it off the fine lees and add 15-20ppm meta.

 

The 09 Petite Sirah Port was crushed on Nov 17th, cold soaked for 4 days. We did fortification in 2 steps and vigorously stirred to mix the alcohol in. We pressed on Dec 2nd and again stirred vigorously.  We racked off the gross lees on Dec 10th (stirring) and again on Jan 18th because there was noticeable separation. On the last racking we added 20ppm SO2. Our PH has risen since pressing, both from the fortification and likely because ML has started. We have to maintain a higher SO2 level because of the residual sugar and higher PH. 25-30ppm

 

We follow the same sulfiting schedule for all our reds so we expect them to be about the same level as the 09 ID Cab--21ppm, which is a good level for ML.  The Malbec is going to be more like 10-12ppm because it was racked an extra time because of a scum on the surface. This is a little low, but safe enough. We'll add SO2 when we rack.

 

 

Chardonnay Bottled

We filtered and bottled the 2009 Chardonnay today. It was a beautiful day to be outside working on wine.

Cleaning the bottles went very fast because Mike had cleaned most of them already and they were spotless.

The filter system continues to cause problems by leaking. We captured the leaked wine and ran it back through so little was lost. It's frustrating. There has to be a better filtering system.

The Chardonnay this year has more color and body, although it isn't as fruity and crisp as last years. We'll see how it develops in the bottle.

We saw more bottles of the Reisling that had sediment in them. Not all the bottles from the last batch have the problem, so we're guessing bottle contamination combined with residual sugar.

Photos are uploaded to the Riverwoods Picassa Wine2010 album.

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

New Winemaker Tasting

Thursday we had a group of people over for a tasting who have been making wine or are interested in making wine and asked them to bring a sample of their wine to share.  The tasting was a great success and the new wines were very impressive.

 

Michele and Tom brought their cabernet, which was fermented along with ours but has been in different barrels (hungarian and french).  Their barrels had already given the wine a different taste than ours. It is interesting how quickly that happened and reinforces the impact that barrel selection makes in the final outcome of a wine.

 

James and Ariana brought their Syrah, which also fermented along with ours but has been in a glass carboy after fermentation instead of a barrel.  The wine from the Carboy tasted good, but it hadn't matured as much as what was in the barrel.

 

Terry and Penny Garrison brought their Cabernet. Terry got his grapes through BrewCon. He knows they were from Star and I'm guessing they came from Larry Kornze's vineyard as the harvest time was very late.  Terry did a great job of crushing/destemming and fermenting and the result is a very smooth wine.  He has a smaller barrel (5G unknown cooperage) which is adding oak at a pretty quick rate. 

 

All of the Riverwoods wines were very good. No hints of any problems in what we tasted. We did see 1 carboy of Petite Sirah that has some surface scum that we need to investigate. I am guessing racking it out and adding 20ppm meta should clean it up.  We also need to finish topping-up the wines. The merlot topping fluid was empty and we need to break down a carboy (and should verify all other barrels got topped-up).

 

A few notes on the Riverwoods wines:

 

- Chardonnay is drinking well and is ready to bottle.  Flavor is more balanced this year without the tartness and there is more body and color.  We expect to filter and bottle the Chardonnay this month (Feb).

 

- Petite Sirah has some good up-front fruit and is very pleasant. 

 

- The syrah this year is lighter body and easy to drink.  More barrel time will help shape it.

 

- The malbec has a strong green pepper flavor this year. Not the green stem flavor, but more peppery.

 

- The merlot is highly tannic this year.  We got it from a different source that had very small berries, so the skins really dominate the flavor. We will have to experiment with the Boisique blend this year to get the typical fruit. We may need to add some of the cab franc and/or Petite Sirah.

 

- The WA Clone-6 cab had good flavor and nose and was smooth.

 

- The ID cab had lots of fruit and was full bodied.

 

- The 08 WA Clone-6 (reserve) cab was very elegant and had a nice balance of oak, although Ray commented that he thought the oak was approaching a level we needed to watch it (the barrel is 4 year old, so it isn't likely to change too fast).

 

- The 08 ID (reserve) cab was intense in color, aroma, flavor, body and tannins. The wine has been held in Ray's new 30G French barrel and you could really taste and smell the French Oak. Michele described the nose as a fruitcake because of the gushing fruit, vanilla and alcohol.

 

- For dessert we (stirred up) and had the Petite Sirah port, which is drinking fabulous.  The sweetness is there but not overpowering and there is considerable depth in the Petite Sirah flavors with a very nice long finish.

 

- We didn't taste the Cab Franc, which is only in a carboy.

Racked Malbec and Port

Tonight the whole gang got together and signed bottles to go out to our growers, along with a winery calendar, to say thanks for the great fruit.  2009 looks to be the best year yet and we're excited about what is in the barrels.

 

We racked the Malbec as the carboys have shown some scum at the surface. We also racked the Petite Sirah Port to continue integrating the fortified alcohol and for clarity as there was considerable sediment again.  We added 20+ppm sulfites after racking out of the barrel to try and keep the meta level higher in the port, because of the residual sugar.  We didn't add any sulfites to the Malbec--we'll keep an eye on it.

 

The Malbec was sound but had a strong green taste--more green pepper this year than green branches.  The port tasted amazing--surprisingly drinkable already.  Enough sweetness for dessert without being overly sweet, with nice complexity and finish.  Some more time in the barrel will make it even better.

 

That should be all the racking needed until after MLF on the Red Wines.  We'll be filtering and bottling the Chard in February.

 

Troy

First 2010 Top N Taste

We topped and tasted all the barrels last night. All wines are sound with no trace of rotten egg smell. Wines were down quite a bit--a full bottle or more in some cases. We need to stay on top of keeping them filled up.

 

Lee said he had seen some film on top of the malbec carboys which he blasted with some meta spray. We tasted those carboys and didn't find any problems, but we need to keep an eye on them.  We may need to rack the Malbec one more time.  We replaced the remaining carboy bubblers with solid stoppers and taped them down, leaving breathable bungs on the port in case it's still fermenting a little.

 

The cabernets were by far the favorites with the other wines being in a bit of a winter sleep. No problems, just muted flavors and aromas--partly from the colder temps we think. The 09 Williamson cabernet was amazing for being this young--it's going to be great this year. :-D

 

Both 08 reserve cabs are tasting excellent with the Clone 6 being more elegant and the Williamson cabernet being a real power-house that had a lot of new oak in it that gave the wine real complexity.  The blend of the two together will be a great Reserve Cabernet!

 

We paid special attention to the petite sirah port which appears to be stratifying with more alcohol in the top layer. We need to rack it back out and mix it well to try and get the fortification to integrate better.  We also need to decide on meta levels in the port--expecting to keep them a little higher than usual because of the residual sugar.  Troy is going to take some wine samples to the testing center in Garden City to get a reading on meta ppm.

 

We expect we will filter and bottle the Chard in February and the Reserve Cabernet in May.  There will be about 20-25G of Chardonnay and 60+G of Reserve Cabernet (GOODIE!).

Port Racked

We racked the port off the gross lees tonight. It had significant sediment from the grapes that were dissolved by the higher alcohol levels. The port is clearing up nicely and tastes very good. A nice amount sweetness--but not too much--with solid flavor underneath.  We mixed it up well and moved it into the 15G Hungarian barrel plus some glass carboys.

We also racked the Chard again as it had quite a bit of sediment. This year's Chard has more color and flavor from the time on the skins.

Presto Porto!

We pressed the port tonight. It was still fermenting some and the sugars were as low as we wanted them to go. Brix read about 6.5+, which adjusting for the alcohol added is probably more like 8-9 brix.  After pressing we mixed in another 1.75 liters of 75.5% Everclear to whack the yeast a final time.  We pressed hard and got 24+ gallons that are settling in a SS keg and glass carboys.  We'll let it sit for a couple of weeks and then rack it off the gross lees into a neutral barrel.

 

We're pleased with the port. I tastes sweet and rich....heck, it tastes like a damn good port! :-D   We compared it to the Bogle Ruby-Style Petite Sirah port and it tasted very similar. It will be interesting to see how it evolves over the next year.

Ready To Press

We tasted the port tonight and it's ready to press. The sugars dropped another point, although it is still plenty sweet. We compared it to the Bogle Petite Sirah Port and it has very similar flavors. We're very pleased with the results.  We will press Wednesday at 7:30pm.  We also tasted a couple of ports Lee shared, including a vintage 1994 port that was excellent.

Port Fermenting Slowly To Goal

We met to check the Port tonight. There is visible fermentation and a cap but it is much less dense.  Flavor continues to be rich with plenty of sweetness. The alcohol was more evident tonight after our second dose of spirits yesterday.  We all liked the direction the port is going.

 

Temp is at 63 degrees and brix was down 0.5 to 7.0 (our final adjusted target is 6.0).  We decided to continue the fermentation until the brix drops to our target (6.0) or fermentation stops.  We will continue to warm the must and monitor flavor and sugar and be ready to press once we hit our goal or if the cap falls--with the initial plan of pressing on Thursday and tasting some ports.  

 

If at press time fermentation is still active we will likely hit it with another bottle of Everclear (after pressing) to arrest the fermentation so we don't loose any more sugar.

Fortification #2 -- We're getting close!

The group met this morning to check the port progress.  We were impressed by the increase in flavor over the couple of days. More full flavors balancing out the sweet and alcohol.  The higher levels of alcohol are pulling great flavor out of the berries.  We LOVE the fruit, Larry!

 

There was a full cap this morning, although less dense, and temps were 63-64 degrees. We've only lost 0.5 brix in the last 24 hours (down to 8) so fermentation is definitely slowing down. We theorize we're approaching the 16% alcohol tolerance of the yeast.  The sugar levels are still about 1-2 points higher than our target so we decided to let the must continue to ferment. 

 

We decided to add some more Everclear to whack the yeast one more time and stirred it in well, pouring 1/2 the volume into a separate container to help fully mix it.  We added 1.75 liters, which should be enough to raise the alcohol by 1-1.5 %. We figured having it in contact with the skins would help the flavor more than adding it after we press.  This may be enough alcohol to finish the port, or we may have to add another bottle. Our target alcohol level is 18-20% and after pressing I am guessing it be around 17-18%.

 

Note: After adding the bottle of Everclear this morning I re-measured the Brix and they dropped 1/2 point from 8 to 7.5.  So our adjusted target Brix is 6 - 7.

We filled the warm water jugs to help keep the must warm enough to ferment and we will meet again Monday evening at 7:30pm to taste and decide when to press. It is likely that we will do it Monday evening, although this group does love it's time on the skins so we may let them sit for a few more days too.

 

For reference, we are following the Small Producer Port process in the arthcile " Making Port Wine by Lum Eisenman".

http://www.sdaws.org/News/Articles/documents/Making%20Port.pdf 

 

Yesterday we also racked ID Cab and Cab Franc off the gross lees.  Tried a trial blend of 10% cab franc and 90% cab. Everyone liked it and thought the combination of the 2 was better than the individual parts.

Fortification!

The Petit Sirah Brix were down to 12.5 this morning and we fortified it with 1.78G of 95% Everclear and 1.75 liters of 75% Everclear.  That's enough to safely take it up to 18% and be able to press as hard as we want.  We poured the must over the Ever Clear and mixed it well and then poured it back into the barrel and stirred well.  The spirits definitely thinned it down and you can taste the higher alcohol.  We will let it sit a day and press it on Saturday.  That will give it 13 days on the skins.

 

The must temp dropped to 58 degrees because the Everclear was very cold from sitting in the garage. We've added some hot jugs of water to try and raise the temp as we still want to get another 2-3 brix reduction (our goal is 9 brix residual).  We will monitor it and decide if we need to change the pressing date.

 

P. Sirah at 18 Brix

Punch down continues on the petite sirah. It is fermenting well and
getting less dense. Temp is 63, which is at the minimum for this
yeast. We're getting good extraction.

Brix dropped 2.5 to 18 in the last 24 hours, which is less than the
day before. We have 6-8 more brix to go, which puts fortification
likely on Thursday and pressing on Sat.

We will continue to monitor brix and watch for the 10-12 brix window.
When we fortify we need to mix extra well to stop fermentation.

P. Sirah Update

As of 3:20pm on Sunday the Petite Sirah is fermenting well. We mixed it up well. Temp is 67-68 degrees and Brix are at 25 (down from 28).  Color and flavor are FABULOUS!

 

The target brix for adding the spirits is 10-12 brix with a target residual of 9 brix. When we add the spirits we will need to pour back and forth between 2 containers to ensure that fermentation is stopped. 

 

Now that the temps are up we expect fermentation to accelerate. We will continue to punch down frequently the next couple of days and monitor brix. We estimate adding the spirits on Wednesday and pressing Friday morning.  We might have to shift the dates 1 day either way based on fermentation--we can't miss the window of 10-12 brix.  Lee leaves town for the holidays on Wednesday so Troy will continue to punch down and monitor brix if needed.

 

We estimate 32G of must.  The yield of wine on Roger's petite sirah was 66%. If we get the same yield on Larry's grapes we will get 21G of wine (we should press lightly so we may get less volume).  Using the fortification calculator on www.vinoencology.com we would get a port with a residual sugar of 8-9 brix and an alcohol level of 17%.  For Port we would like at least 18% alcohol so we may add some extra lower proof spirits. It would take 1.5L of the 75% spirits to boost us the extra 1% percent.  That happens to be exactly how much we have!  So it sounds like we should name our port "Destiny". :o)

 

The group plans to bottle some more of the Reisling on Wednesday morning at 10am.  Bob has some bottles de-labeled.  There are about 300 corks in the garage.

P. Sirah Port Innoculated

We inoculated the Petite Sirah tonight. We used a reduced amount of yeast and nutrient (4 packages of RC212).  We had cooled the grape must down to 48 degrees so we heated up some juice and stirred it into the top layer so the yeast could start. After it gets going it should generate it's own heat.

We will start a rigorous punch-down on Friday and monitor the brix to know when to add the Everclear--once the brix drop between 11-12 brix.  Mike will bring the everclear over to the garage so we can add it at a moments notice.

 

Lee brought out a 20 year old home made zin of his. It was terrific! We were all impressed.

Syrah & P. Sirah Racked

We racked the Hells Canyon Syrah and Williamson Petite Sirah off the gross lees tonight.  The syrah had a bit of a funky smell so we're glad we got it racked. The Petite Syrah continues to taste good.  We still need to rack the cabernet and cab franc off the gross lees. The sooner the better.  We topped the 08 reserve cabs. They are coming along very well.

 

We discussed the port option with the extra Petite Sirah we got from Larry. Mike brought a Bogle Petite Sirah ruby style port for us to taste and help make a decision. Everyone liked the port and we decided to give it a try. Lee was in Twin Falls but we know he is wanting to make the port and will be happy with the decision.

 

We are going to use the method of fortification partway through fermentation. Since this reduces the time on the skins we decided to continue a cold-soak for a couple more days. The juice was at 58 degrees and showing no signs of activity.  We added 2 frozen 1G water jugs to help cool the juice more and we expect to inoculate on Thursday.  To help improve extraction we talked about doing a submerged cap and punching down 1x a day--or punching down 6x a day.

 

We'll use a reduced amount of GoFerm and the RC212 yeast (with a tolerance of 16% alcohol) to try and slow fermentation. Starting Brix is 26.5. Once we hit about 10-12 brix (4-5 days?) we will add 2G - 2.5G of Everclear to boost the alcohol and stop fermentation. It will take a day or so to stop and then we will press (the cap should fall).  Then it will be winemaking as normal with the exception of keeping the sulfites a little higher to keep any bacterial growth down because of the residual sugars.  We will store the wine in stainless and glass until we bottle the reserve in the spring and then we'll move it into a barrel.

 

We expect to get about 22G total port (20G wine and 2G Everclear) with around 18% alcohol and 8 brix of residual sugar.