Oaking the 2011s

Added oak to our wines; more specifically Hungarian oak.  We added in number of beans - 10 beans per gallon to most carboys, some as little as 5 beans per ballon.  Based on the leftovers from a 1-lb pack of beans I'd estimate we added about half of that recommended by StaVin (0.4 oz oak beans per gallon for new barrel equivalent).  That said we recall an oakey batch, so are playing it safe (since you can always add, but can't easily remove).

The Merlot got an additional 25 Hungarian oak beans (supplementing the previously added 15 American oak beans).   Tried one homemade wine where the winemaker used a blend of oaks and I thought it turned out pretty tasty.

Here's more detail on the why's behind each type of oak, and a handy number of cubes per ounce cheatsheet.

Post-Thanksgiving Harvest

We finally picked the rest of the grapes - as expected we had some rot to pick through, but ended up with about 25 gallons of red wine must, and 5 gallons of juice only from botrytis-infected grapes. SERIOUSLY committed friends helped with these tasks, took twice as long as we thought and sorting through moldy grapes is not nearly as glamorous as our usual harvest, but a lunch and wine break halfway through helped a lot.

We've never had to deal with molds and rots on our grapes, so we started by picking all the grapes, then hand-sorting while destemming into 3 buckets:

1. Sour grapes - any grape that oozed anything but clear liquid appeared to be rotten.  Don't want any of that in any of our wines.  Pretty sure it's officially called Sour Bunch Rot

2. Botrytis-infected grapes - these for us were grapes with a brown sugar looking mold on them.  This is the 'noble rot' used to make famous fancy dessert wines like Sauternes.  I highly doubt we'll be able to make a similar quality wine out of not-too-sweet botrytis-ey grapes, but we'll experiment and share with caution

3. Perfect grapes, which we'll use to make our second batch of estate red wine

In the end, we had OK numbers - the pH really shot up more so than other numbers, but we're well within reasonable red wine grape numbers. 

Brix: 22.0

pH 3.44

TA: 8.4

To that we added sugar to get our Brix closer to 23-24,  a bit (35ppm) of Potassium Metabisulfate to kill any rogue yeasts, and yeast nutrient (1t straight DAP, 1 t Fermaid K per fermenter) before soaking overnight.  Tomorrow we'll re-measure and pitch yeasts.

Falling

A closer look at row 5; very fall like and those grapes are still hanging in there!  All the leaves have fallen in the less sunny parts of the vineyard.

3 ways to rot

It's rare that grapes hang on the vine this long, but sure enough the TA is dropping, making them more likely to turn into good wine.  Unfortunately the types of rot that are growing on the berries are also on the rise: probably 10% have botrytis (looks like tan bread mold), another 5% sour rot (looks like a pink-redish berry and tastes & smells obviously bad).  Then there's this white surface one; not sure what exactly it is but sure is funny looking.

In any case, our numbers:

Ta: 8.3

Ph: 3.4 

Brix: 21.75 

Given the speed at which the rot is spreading, and the fact that more than half the leaves have dropped, we're going to harvest the rest this weekend.

First Racking of 2011 Merlot

While pressing the Cab, we realized that we pressed the Merlot about a month ago, so it's high time we racked it off of its gross lees.  Went from 6 gallons of must to 4.5 gallons (we were pretty stingy due to the odd acid levels), added 25ppm potassium metabisulfate and put it on oak: 15 medium toast American oak beans.

Pressing with a new press

The Cabernet's cap is getting very weak and hydrometer reading is 0% sugar, so we pressed it today.  

We usually rent a basket press for this task, but given the fact that our batches of wine are so distributed this year, I looked for a less gear-intensive way to do a light press of our wines.  I went to a local housewear / restaurant supply shop (the one next to 99 Ranch in Milpitas), envisioning  some kind of funnel, or large pasta strainer, to do the job.  After perusing the stainless steel items, I decided to give this fry basket a try (at least I *think* that's what it is).  It's a single layer of about 0.5 cm mesh. 

My technique: I scooped about one gallon / 2-3" of must into this basket, then gently smashed down with the scooper I was using (a 8 cup tupperware pouring / mixing vessle).  I let the juice and some seeds came out the bottom and tossed the dried grape skins aside to compost.  If I was hard-core, I'd get another basket to let them drip-out some additional juice, but doesn't seem like there would be too much benefit to that.

After pressing, we added 25 ppm potassium metabisulfate (very first addition), hoping that that would not be enough to kill the ML bacteria, which seems to still be eating up the excessive malic acid.  Racked into carboys with enough head space to get our stirrer in so we can stir up the lees a couple times a week (to keep the nutrients in the lees feeding the ML bacteria)

Also compared numbers, pre-ferment vs post-ferment:
Pre-fermentation
pH 3.30
TA 0.85

Post-fermentation
pH 3.45
TA 0.75
This is great news - MUCH better acid levels to have in a finished wine!

Hanging in there

Yes, there are still grapes out there.  Even though the leaves are dropping pretty quickly. Their numbers are getting better (Brix 21.5, TA 0.85, pH 3.35), so we might harvest as soon as next week.  Before the vines lose ALL their leaves.

2011 Cabernet Sauvignon Numbers

Harvested rows 1-3 & 7-9, and to our surprise ended up with 2 primary fermenters - so the grapes in them are a random mix.  Here's how they came out:

Batch Z:
Brix 23.5
pH 3.3
TA 8.5

Batch B:
Brix 22.5
pH 3.3
TA 8.5

To batch B, we decided to add 1 lb of sugar, with the goal of bringing the brix up to 24ish.

We'll re-test before pitching the yeast, tonight after the must warms a bit.

First harvest

Enough waiting already - with big rains on their way, even though the grapes are still testing under-ripe we harvested about half today.  We opted for the top and bottom rows (rows 1-3, 7-9).  Numbers to follow!

Pressed the Zin

Zin seemed to be settling down from its earlier fermenting vigor (this snapshot from last week) - so we pressed, put into carboys, and continue to stir up the lees every few days to keep ML fermentation going.

Still waiting

Grapes STILL not ripe: average Brix = 20.  Looking very fall-like though; and new crop of weeds sprouting up.

Zin!

We once again were generously given the chance to harvest extra Zinfandel grapes from our friends up in El Dorado County.  Being a relatively cool, and wet, season some of the grapes had developed bunch rot (tan-ish and powdery on surface) and sour rot (pink/redish throughout)- so picking around those I came home with enough grapes to make 7-8 gallons of wine and 7-8 quarts of jam.  The numbers:

Ph: 3.3

Ta: 8.7

Brix: 24

We did our standard: 25 ppm potassium metabisulfate to kill existing yeasts upon crush, then 24 hrs later pitched Lalvin BM 4x4 with yeast nutrients, then the next morning stirred in ML bacteria culture into the top 2 inches of the must.

Bottling

Busy day - today we pressed the Merlot, yielded 6 gallons of must.  Now it'll settle out and hopefully continue to go through MLF.

We also realized as long as we were going to clean all our gear might as well use this as a chance to bottle some of the wine in larger carboys we'll need for winemaking very soon.    We tasted the various wines, and opted not to blend any together - we liked the individual tastes each had compared to the blend.

What we got:

6 cases 2009 Estate Cabernet Sauvignon.  One batch came out oakier than the other, so we labeled it 'Reserva' in Argentinian tradition.  Not sure it's better or worse, time and your preference in oak will tell.

2 cases 2010 Amador County Zin.  This was the stuff made from Murrill Vineyards grapes.

2 cases of 3rd Little Red Wagon.  This was one carboy that ended up with surplus from our racking operations,  mostly '09 Zinfandel with some '10 Zinfandel and '09 Cab Sauvignon. 

Different red leaf

I've started to notice that on the opposite side of the vineyard as the red-leaved group, a slightly different manifestation of red/burnt leaves is appearing.  Looks like I noticed it in previous years too.

Our First Merlot

Our friends and neighbors planted Merlot several years ago, and after enduring the first several years of waiting for solid root development they finally had enough grapes to make wine!.

Unfortunately, conditions for them this year were not very kind: cool weather made them ripen very slow, and then just last week the grapes experienced a sudden surge in sugar content.  Acid numbers were like nothing we had ever seen - high TA but a conter-intuitively low pH:

Brix: 27 (which we watered down to 25)

pH: 3.8

TA: 0.86

The best overview of this problem was from Allison in her Wine Wizard column.  

We opted to ferment as normal, but added a relatively high (50ppm) level of potassium metabisulfate since such a low pH leaves the wine susceptible to spoilage.

Yeast: Lalvin BM 4x4 (atempered & added with nutrients per instructions)

Co-Innoculant: Viniflora Oenos (stirred into top 2" of must 12 hrs after pitching yeast)

How we secured the nets

Chenille-covered twist ties, roughly 5" long (a standard long craft store pipecleaner cut in half), twisted twice.  Put them immediately on either side of trunks & trellis poles, then at 6"+- increments along the rest of the length of the rows.  Kept them tied above the irrigation line.  Even with this level of security, birds got in a couple times, and they definitely learned out to pick off the grapes through the nets - but we're down to only 5-10% loss from birds now.

Veraison & netting

Birds already interested in the grapes; so we netted them this weekend.  After experimenting with various net-securing techniques and devices, we opted for chenille-coated pipecleaners.  Easy on AND off.

Mid-Veraison

Solidly mid-veraison; roughly 40% of the berries are purple.

August 17

Growth finally seems to have slown down, makes sense since the berries are turning purple.

August Vigor

VERY vigorous vines this year - late rains, more sunshine, hope we don't have too much.  Sprayed 1.5% stylet oil again today.  Actually have been spraying every 10-14 days, just getting better at remembering (vs having to post online to remember).  There's been little hot weather to break PM cycle this year.

Grapes pre veraison

Still no signs of veraison, but the grapes continue to fill out.

Grapes post leaf pulling

Leaf pulling in progress now; here's a shot of a row where the little grapes are free of leaves in their way.

Sad little leaves

Ground zero of red-leaf syndrome, row 7.

Dense spray

Today, continued with PM preventative spray of 1.5% Stylet Oil, plus iron & zinc, plus magnesium for rows 6+ (in case it's what those red vines need).

Bloom

Bloom has commenced - roughly 15% of the vines are blooming, mostly on the vines that were pruned on the early side and/or the vines that have red leaves.  Good news is that now that we're approaching bloom, I can take some petioles into the lab and see if a mineral deficiency is contributing to red-leaf syndrome.  Stay tuned!

Early symptoms

More detail on the earliest signs of nasty leaf symptom .  More soon!

Poppies!

If you look closely you can see a bumble bee in the California Poppy.

Stop it, it's not fall yet!

Already, we're seeing the red-leaf look in row 7.  Seriously?  After providing Epsom salt supplements to the soil, and spraying an iron & zinc with the Stylet oil, it's hard to believe this is still a nutrient deficiency.  Will do another round of Epsom salt to the soil, continue with iron & zinc foliar and see if it gets better - or at least compare to last year to see if we're better or worse.

Late May on the Hill

Still growing!

12" shoots

The shoots are now 12" long (for some reason, the upper rows grew faster than the lower rows are), so this week the grapes got their first PM preventative Stylet Oil spray, along with foliar zinc & iron.  Bring on the growth!

Better-late-than-never dormant spray?

We finished pruning (just in time ... usually like to finish by mid-March), and now the grapes are ready to grow for the season.

However, due to the late pruning I didn't quite get around to a Lime Sulfur dormant spray, and wondered if now (roughtly 50% bud swell) is too late.  So, I asked the folks on winepress.us and got these responses.

I decided to spray 2.5 oz per gallon (the light end of dormant season strength) on odd rows; lighter concentration on even rows.  Avoided spraying dormant buds.

Oatmeal Stout

I hate having perfectly good winemaking gear to go waste, so this time of year I like to do some other type of fermenting: beer!

I've made 3 beers over the past 2 years - all from kits put together by our local wine/beer supply store, and all turned out surprisingly good. I'm a fan of Oatmeal Stouts, however, so had to concoct my own recipe.  The pressure!  

With a little help from the folks at the beer supply store, I took a hybrid approach and modified one of their kit recipes.  Here goes:

Steep for 30 minutes @ 160F:

1lb. Crystal Malt

1 lb. Pale Chocolate Malt

1 lb. Flaked Oats

1/4 lb. Roasted Barley

Strain and transfer to kettle, stir in

3 lbs Munich Malt Extract Syrup

At boil set time for 30 minutes and add:

2 oz Perle Hops (awesome floral smell)

Add 1/2 oz Cascade Hops (some floral, more earthy/mossy to my nose) and set timer for 20 more minutes

Add 1/2 oz Cascade Hops and a Whirfloc tablet and set timer for 10 more minutes

Turn off burner and stir in 

6 lbs. Pale Malt Extract

1/4 lb. Lactose

Cooled, added enough water to get just over 5 gallons.  SG = 1.067.

Pitched ale yeast (62-72 degree range), and will let ferment away until SG down to 1.02-ish.

UPDATE: turned out good not great; next time I'll eliminate the lactose and reduce the smoky grains.  This article from Beersmith provided some good specific insights.

Also happened upon this well organized pro-con list on various homebrew topics.

Farmer Lisa's back

Here we are, mid-January, vines dormant, and we're enjoying weather in the high 60s. With no end in sight (well, next 10 days.)

So I've gotten a good jump on soil amendments & mulching.   I'm continuing the plan of 1/2 c E.B.Stone organic fruit & citrus food per vine.  Not a good time to add fertilizer, but this blend seems to be more of a soil additive and very slow / long-term acting, so seems OK to add now.

In addition, I'm topping that off with:
- 1/3 c iron sulfate, to address mineral deficiency in soil
- as much steer manure as I can carry - about 2 cubic feet per row
- an extra layer of live oak mulch

I've completed rows 7 & 8, row 6 has everything but iron.  Will continue down the vineyard throughout the week, hope to be mostly done by our next rains.