Tuesday, December 15, 2009

First Racking

We took a look at the calendar today and realized it's been over a month - almost two - since we pressed! So, we racked each of the 2009s, getting most of the lees off of the wine. While racking, added 25 ppm potassium metabisulfate.

Volume of wine whittled down to 16 gallons Cab, 6.5 gallons Zin, and 2 gallons pink. The pink is really more of an experiment, a very light wine from slightly watered down juice taken off the skins early. Smells a bit like acetone - yuck! But not bad enough to pour out yet. Good news is the Cab & Zin both seem to be doing OK - Zin has fruit and spice, smell isn't great yet and it feels like it could use some oak. Cab just tastes young & raw, hard for us to know how it'll do. Still no vinegar :-)!