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.