The Final Touches on our First Batch

The final step is upon us: labeling and sealing the top of our wine bottles, such that they're ready to share. Exciting!

Bruce & I both spent a day in photoshop, messing with some images, adding text, and coming up with labels that convey, well, us! The 07 errs on traditional, while the 06 errs on creative. We'll let our friends and family guess who designed which!

Then we printed on fancy paper, and Bruce adhered to the bottles with - milk! Yes, I was concerned about an odd smell too, but all the hip kids on Winepress.us use milk to adhere the labels, so we're letting them completely dry and will do the sniff test in a week or so.

Final stage is to put the cap thing over the cork. Not at all functional, but it makes the wine look way more professional. They're made of shrinky-dink like plastic; when exposed to heat they shrink. After failed attempts over a fire in the fireplace, we used it as an excuse to play with our cigarette-lighter-torch our roommate Bryce & I picked up in Taiwan last year.

Soon they'll be ready for the holidays!

First Racking of 08s

This weekend we racked our 08s: ended up with 6 gallons of Cab; 5 gallons of Zin, and the rest in a hybrid 5-gallon carboy (not far from 50/50 mix). We re-read about adding sulfites, and decided to add a token 25 ppm.

It's fall in the vineyard

Truly a misty mountain shot!

Pressed both 08s

This weekend it was clear the Cab was completely done fermenting, and the Zin was either completely done or done fermenting but still going through malolactic . . . so we decided to press rather than risk too much oxygen contact.

The Cab pressed out a really clear 10 or so gallons.

The Zin's free run was REALLY sediment-laden, but the pressed stuff was very clear. In any case, we only got about 8 gallons out of it.

We added 50 ppm potassium metabisulfate, and put in carboys with airlocks such that the gunk can settle to the bottom for us to rack out in about a month.

First rain and boron supplement

We got our first rain last night - only about 1/3 an inch, but enough to allow me to start digging for non-wine related planting.

Today I also created a borax solution to get more boron to the vines - I used a conservative 1 T / 2 gallon solution, and spread that across each row. That should work out to just under 0.05 oz/vine.

Cab Cap Fallen

Looks like the cap on the Cabernet has fallen - a mere 2.5 weeks after beginning fermentation. We've got it on CO2, and will let it go through extended maceration at least until the Zin is in the same state.

Exhausted Vines

Not only are we working on our wine, we're also helping our vines to recover and be ready for next year. We've learned, and are doing, the following:
(a) Immediately after picking, we gave the vines a good dose (6 gal) of water.
(b) We read that water is very important, as the roots are most active as the vine shuts down, so watered similarly once a week.
(c) Last spring we learned we were low in a variety of micronutrients, so we stirred in an organic soil additive that will be activated by the drip watering system and the coming rains. This we hope will get more Mg, Mn, Zn, and Fe to the vines - although spring is the better time for those. Come spring, I'm returning to this site - one of few I found that has a search index that will return organic supplements based on the chemical symbol: http://www.groworganic.com/default.html
(d) The one element that is key to apply in the fall is Boron, which we were VERY low on. Looks like we should dissolve about 1/2 oz per gallon and spread that solution over an entire row (10 vines).

Select US Beverage Consumptions

Mostly because I like charts - enjoy!

Zinfandel Crush

My parents moved to the Sierra Foothills, and they have some very generous neighbors that (a) run their own winery, and (b) offered us grapes from their old vine Zinfandel patch.

They called a few days ago, letting us know they're ready to share with us. How cool!

Harvest was early morning Sept 20, the grapes then went through their professional crusher/de-stemer, and then into our Brute, for me to transport home and start fermenting.

- 18 Gallons Old Vine Zinfandel, El Dorado County
- 24.6 brix
- added 25 ppm potassium metabisulfite for the ride home
- added D21 yeast (same one as for our Cab) with appropriate nutrients on 9/21
- temperature got up to low-70s by 9/22
- added additional yeast, nutrients, and ML culture on 9/23

It's bubbling away stronger now (I think we under-yeasted earlier). Now we'll keep an eye on temps to make sure the must stays in that 80-85 degree range (ideal for fermentation & ML at the same time for reasons I won't go into now.)

Punch Down

The yeast has taken off in the 08 estate, eating all that sugar and turning it into alcohol. So now we just need to punch down the cap at least twice a day - to ensure those grape skins don't dry out. The must is hanging around 76 degrees, which is a good temperature (we think!).

Thanks to Andy Sandburg and the folks at SNL for their inspiration during this stage of our winemaking operation!

Pitched Yeast

Started Fermenting Today! Rehydrated our dry yeast and 'pitched' it! Vital stats:

ICV-D21

8 oz 104 degree water

2/3 packet GoFerm

1/2 packet Yeast (15 min)

Atemperated (mixed 50/50 with must (15 min))

Atemperated again (mixed 50/50 with must (15 min))

Then mixed into must

AT same time:

Added MLF culture Viniflora Oenos &

Leucofood

It's in a quasi-insulated area downstairs, heated by a 60 watt lightbulb. We'll keep an eye on it; should start bubbling away soon!

Harvest 2008

Took us about 3 hours and 9 true friends to take down bird netting, pick, and hand-destem clusters. We only kept the goood grapes, and ended up with about 18 gallons of must. Lower than hoped for yield, but they looked WAY better than last year - the quality completely exceeded our expectations. Yeay!

Harvest stats:
Brix: 24.6
pH: 3.36
TA: 7.05

Tests were done by Rick at Fermentation Settlement, our local wine store proprietor, using an electronic measuring device like this.

We'll be pitching yeast and MLF culture soon; we got ourselves Lalvin ICV-D21 as our yeast and good ol' Viniflora Oenis malolactic bacteria.

Thanks Corby for the super awesome pictures!

24 Brix - almost harvest time

We're at 24 brix - with a target of 25 brix, and an army of willing friends this weekend, we're going for it and harvesting this weekend!

Brix climbing, birds munching

We notice that the birds are nibbling on the unprotected grapes - and have even gotten underneath the nets to nibble there.

So, we re-fortified with more clothespins at the base of the nets, and on exposed clusters implemented the 'cute' trick - wrapping a paper bag around maturing clusters.

Also tested our sugar - after a heatwave during the 3-day weekend we were sure we'd be harvesting immediately, but turns out we're only at 22.5 brix as of today. We'll let them keep hanging for now!

18.5 Brix

The grapes are looking really purple, and tasting kinda sweet, so figured we better measure the sugar content.

We're right around 18.5 Brix, and we'll probably harvest around 25 Brix or so.

Being new to this I don't know how long it takes for grapes to develop 6.5 Brix. If nothing else, time will tell us soon enough!

Photo courtesy of our friend Mary - thanks gal!

Bottling up the 06

Today we bottled our first batch of wine! Here's what we did:

(a) Clean, sterilize, and prep bottles. To remove labels, we soaked the bottles in a water-ammonia solution, and in ideal cases the labels just peeled off; other times we had to get out the knife and start scraping. Then we washed the bottles (alt soapy water & ammonia water) and rinsed really really really well. Then just before bottling, we rinsed them with boiling water.

(b) Rent a corker. In order to insert corks, you need, well, a device to get the corks in the bottle. And we were told a hammer wouldn't work. So, we rented something that looked a lot like this: a "Portuguese Floor Corker".

(c) Final racking and sulfiting of wine: We racked once more to get as much of the sediment out of the wine, at the same time blended in a hint of other wine(s) to achieve a balance to the big tannic Cab we made. Also added in 50ppm potassium metabisulfate, to keep the wine preserved through the bottling process (and ideally to the table months down the road).

(d) Bottling: We used a hand-device, spring loaded at the bottom with a very precise on-off flow (you push down to get it to fill, release and it stops instantly). The tricky part was that you had to insert the wand ALL the way into your bottle, then once you pull it out you have an *almost* full bottle of wine (they filled a bit on the low side). So I had to aim to have the bottle be just-to-the-top full, such that when I pulled the wand out there is the ideal head space in the bottle (ideal = 1/2 - 1 inch from base of inserted cork, depending on who you ask).

(e) Cork Prep: there was a LOT of advice on how to prepare the corks - boil them, sulfite them, keep 'em dry, buy only directly from manufacturer, etc. This to me looked like the most concise advice on the issue (from WineMaker Magazine's WineWizard column.)

(f) Corking: Using the rented apparatus was surprisingly easy; folks said I'd need to practice but both Bruce & I got it working on the first try. We were then instructed to store the bottles upright for a few days, to let the corks expand properly before capping & turning on their sides, which is how wine is *supposed* to be stored.

Here's a nice overview of the whole process from EC Kraus, a supply retailer.

Things we considered:
(a) Filtering the wine would have involved buying a filtering apparatus and filters (they look a lot like water filters actually). I've had lots of advice over whether to filter or not, unfiltered finally won because the wine tends to maintain more of its color and flavor, we racked enough to not worry about too much sediment, and quite frankly one less complication during our first bottling seemed like a better idea.

(b) Fining the wine would have involved precipitating a substance through the wine to make it more clear, and possibly reduce / soften some of the acids still in the wine. Egg whites would have been what to use for reds, bentonite for whites, but ours looked OK so again we didn't bother this time around. Especially for the -06, which we probably racked *too* much.

(c) Non-cork closure. Yes, I love my screwtops from a practicality standpoint, but apparently to get the right seal you need a special device. I have to say the corker was surprisingly easy to use, so we'll probably stick with it.

Final stats:
* 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon: 77% Cab (Leach), 15% Cab (Overlook), 9% Malbec (California), 2.2 cases
* NV Cabernet Sauvignon: 16% 2006 Cab (Leach), 2% 2006 Cab (Overlook), 36% 2007 /Cab (Overlook), 36% 2007 Cab (Leach), 10% Cab Franc (Santa Ynez & Sonoma), 2.5 cases
* 2007 Pink: 90% Cab (Leach), 10% storebought to fill jug (our thanks to Big House Pink!), 0.3 cases

Netting the vines

Today we had our second in a series of parties - this one to get plastic netting over the vines, such that we, not birds, get the grapes. Here's what they looked like once we finished.

Our friends are AWESOME, and all claimed to have a good time despite a few bug bites and a skinned shin. We ended the day with homemade (and home-grown) dinner, wine, and a round of the coolest video game I've played in a long time - Donkey Konga!

Photo courtesy of our friend Mary - thanks gal!

Post-veraison pre-net spray and water

Sprayed one last time before bird-proofing the vines, once again in the form of 1.5% Stylet Oil solution. The grapes should be getting sweet enough that they are not susceptible to PM, but we've read that it is good practice to keep the foliage under check. We decided to water *during* the upcoming netting party - 5 hrs late afternoon on Sat 8/9

50% Veraison

Veraison is the fancy word for when the grapes start to soften and in our case turn purple. We started to see this around the 20th, now about 50% of the grapes are there. Apparently that means we're somewhere between 30 - 45 days from harvest, assuming an 'average' year. Average. Hmm.

Pretty leaf, but . . .

I noticed this in the vineyard today - a very beautiful leaf, but according to a few books I have this resembles Magnesium deficiency. It's supposedly VERY rare. Given that harvest isn't too far off, we'll probably wait until post-harvest to look at soil ammendments or other nutrient-balancing activities.

Berry Development thus far

They're getting big! We sprayed with Stylet Oil and remaining iron/zinc on the periphery vines, and will follow up in 1 week with a good dose of water (probably 6 hrs or so).

Water Log

Watered the vines overnight; 4 hrs drip-irrigation. Supposed to be a hot week, we'll keep an eye on 'em.

Hummingbirds come on out!

It's long before harvest, which is when you have to worry about birds eating all your ripening grapes, but I've read in several places (including this Clos LaChance press release) that attracting hummingbirds to a garden will keep other birds away, given their territorial nature. True?

So, knowing that once you start you can't abandon the poor hummers, we decided to go for it and attract some the vineyard by putting out hummingbird feeders - and, in the longer-term, hope some of our hummingbird-attracting California native plants take off.

It took a few weeks, but today it looks like they're downing 8 oz/week from the feeder. I'm guessing when push comes to shove, the tasty scent of mature grapes will overpower the hummingbirds' territory, but it's a fun experiment.

Today I also sprayed the vines - 1.5% Stylet Oil solution pretty thoroughly given that there's a good amount of space opened up in the canopy AND temps have been in the ideal PM range (80s).

Water Log

The vines are growing like crazy, but some of the grape clusters look like they're drying up too much, so I watered for about 4 hrs today. Here's what we're looking like:

Leaf Pulling

We noticed that fruit on the vines is starting to set, so realized it's time to pull leaves from around the clusters. So, we had our first annual leaf-pulling party. Friends not afraid of a bit of farmwork with sturdy boots head out and pulled all the lateral shoots under the fruit zone, AND the leaves around the clusters such that they'll be able to grow trouble-free and with 'dappled sunlight'.

Here's a video from Wine Spectator that provides an example of leaf pulling - this is WAY more aggressive than what we did, given the latest research and our location, but provides a cute overview.

It ended up being very hot out, so we pulled late (7-8p), and enjoyed snacks before and dinner afterwards. All with local wine we selected the weeks before at the Santa Cruz Mountains Vintner's Festival.

A use for grape leaves

Yep, that's my mom! We harvested, washed, and par-boiled those Cabernet leaves; then Mom made some incredibly yummy rice & spice filling, and rolled 'em up.

Homemade Dolma!

Seems like THE perfect appetizer for the leaf-pulling party later today.

Lab Results!

Today I got the lab results back from the vineyard's petiole analysis. Yeay! Most minerals were within a normal range, but zinc, iron, and boron registered a little low (and magnanese, magnesium, and copper to a lesser extent). Zinc is the one that I should have sprayed before fruit set.

So, given that fruit is setting now, today I sprayed them with their normal dose of Stylet Oil along with a Zinc & Iron supplement (which can be applied in their water or foliar spray).

Little Brown Spots

These little burnt/brown spots showed up on the leaves this week; my best guess is that it's where the Kaligreen went on a bit too thick, or undissolved, as it comes and goes throughout the vineyard. I'll continue to monitor of course.

Watered today - 5 hrs. A few of those flowers are starting to shatter and turn into mini grape clusters. Yeay!

It's June

It's June 1, and the vines are still growing and looking pretty healthy! This weekend I sprayed a 1.5% solution of Kaligreen, in case varying our organic sprays makes a difference (both Kaligreen and Stylet Oil are contact fungicides, but work in slightly different ways). I watered only a little bit (2 hrs); because the vines look plenty vigorous.

Lateral Shoot Removal

So now that the vines have bloomed, it's time to open up the canopy in the 'fruit zone' (where the grapes will grow and hang). In order to do this, we need to definitely remove all lateral shoots in the fruit zone, and eventually consider removing additional leaves that would get in the way of the fruit being able to develop, and the spray to effectively get int the canopy.

Back to the lateral shoots: they're the shoots that emerge just above one of the main leaves on an inital shoot. Here's a before/after picture (the after picture shows no lateral shoot).

It's pretty tedious work to remove all of those, but we've been doing a row a day. Meanwhile, I'm collecting petiole samples, which is the leaf stem *opposite* a blooming cluster. We'll dry them out and take it to Soil & Plant Laboratory in Santa Clara for analysis.

Yellowing on Leaf

I noticed this pretty color scheme on a leaf, but suspect it might be some flavor of mineral deficiency.

Our petiole analysis is being run, so I'll wait until I hear back on that to dedicate too many brain cells to this, since it was a pretty isolated incident.

Vines Gone Wild

Wow, there's been a lot of growth out in the vineyard! They did get a good amount of water, then a 3-day heatwave and lots of sun in between, so it checks out. Looking down the center of two rows, I see I have my work cut out for me! Time to remove those extra canes, and be sure vines are growing in the trellis system - but I'm trying to hold out until bloom, such that it'll be a bit easeir to take petiole samples for analysis (more on that soon!). Given the growth, and lack of apparent water stress, I'm cutting rows 3-6 off for now; hand-watered rows 1-2 and am drip irrigating rows 7-9 for about 3 hrs this morning.

Poppies in bloom

Look - the poppies have finally bloomed!
OK, back to tasks: today's was to spray the vines with a 1.5% solution of Stylet Oil. It sure is nicer to spray than sulfur, I hope it does the trick against that pesky powdery mildew!

Water-log

Watered the vines today; this time for 6 hrs on account of what may or may not be excessive redness on the canes. I would LOVE an easy way to measure whether the vines have too much / too little water - don't think one exists, but I'll keep looking!
Oh and those green worm-bug-caterpillars appear to be gone now. I remember the problem being worse last year, I'll take it as a sign that our diligence has paid off.

Caterpillar's Lunch

This week's challenge has been some munching worm-like critters on the vines.

Just next to my thumb joint is a green bending-backwards worm-like creature. He's not fuzzy in real life, despite the terrible focus in the picture. It looks a lot like a moth caterpillar, but I'm not great at identification. Could be a hornworm too. In any case, they hang on to the backs of leaves and munch away this time of year.

Rows 8 & 9 are the worst, where they've eaten more than 25% of the leaves & vines, but I found a handful on row 7, and very isolated incidents below there.

Removal is just that - you find 'em and pick them off the leaves. Sometimes you can shake the vine and they'll fall off - but even with a good shake those with really good suction-ey feet stay on the leaves!

From there, what I've read is that it's no good to just flick them away - if you do, the cycle of life will come back to bite the vines again. You need to transport them far away from the vineyard or go for the smush method :-(. I read a legend once that if you put them in a blender with some water and then spray that on your foliage it'll keep them away. I'm skeptical but we'll see if I get more desparate as the weeks go on.

Oh and today after removing the munching critters I sprayed - 1.5% solution of Stylet Oil.

Water-log

Shoots are growing - some are up to 12". Shoots & leaves showed slight signs of water stress, so I gave 'em about 3 hrs worth of water today, and have been continually monitoring the number of shoots per node (specifically, keeping them to a sane number - LOTS of them are wanting to emerge!)

Water-Log

Drip-irrigated 3 gal/vine today, and tomorrow after it's done raining I'll give the shoots another light spray of Kaligreen (rows 6-9); Stylet Oil (rows 1-5). 2 oz per gallon = 1.56% concentrate, which is about the concentration needed for each of these products.

Very Vetchey

In our cover crop, there's one wildflower, Common Vetch I believe, that does REALLY well. It started out towards the top rows, and has spread down to row 5 or so. It looks great, but is growing like mad - and I was worried it may be too vigorous to be an appropriate cover crop.

Vetch is apparently very good at fueling the soil with nitrogen. Whew! Several vineyards I've read about (including Tablas Creek) let it grow, mowing as needed, and even turning it under the soil after flowering.

So I'll let it bloom, then thin, turn under, compost, or more likely a combination of all of the above.

New Shoots

Here is a handful of shots focusing on the whiteness of new growth.

The white fuzzy scared me at first (ie: ACK - are the vines already infected with PM?), but I've been assured by growers with more experience they're looking pretty normal.

This morning I sprayed shoots longer than about 4" with Kaligreen (Potassium Bicarbonate), and on row 5 I sprayed everything with it, since it's the lightest-duty stuff and I don't *think* it'll be problematic. Fewer than half the shoots met this criteria as of today, so I'll be keeping a close eye on their progress.

A Functioning Funicular

The boy is fast - yesterday Bruce cranked out a fully working funicular!

It still needs some safety devices (including an anchor, paint, strapping devices, etc), but it works.

Budburst Complete

As of today, it looks as if we're at close to 90% of the vineyard having gone through bud burst, almost exactly bottom to top of the hill.

The vines are growing - hard to see in this picture but the bottom 3 rows have actual leaves, top 6 rows are still buds that have barely broken.

Today's tasks:
- Pinched off extra buds on rows 1-4
- Watered 4 hrs

Pathway to Vineyard

Here's a quick shot of the path leading from home to vineyard - working on a hybrid native / mediterranean garden to encourage low water and beneficial critters.

Mobile post sent by Lisa Ann using Utterz. Replies.

Funicular v1

Now that the stairs are done, Bruce has been scratching his head about the best design for a cart - something that rolls, can be stopped midhill, etc.

Then he found inspiration in an old rusty wheelbarow rim, and in a stroke of mindless brilliance he paired it up with old pipe and fencing we have tried unsuccessfully to get rid of, and voila - concept born!

He then realized a hand truck already has an axle, so got two identical ones and a hacksaw and went to town. and guess what? it rolls, and even has that train-like metal on metal sound. Sweet!

Now he'll probably build it out, stay tuned!

Bud Burst in NorCal

I noticed this week that buds started bursting!

Here's one in row 2 - which is one of the scrawnier rows towards the bottom of the vineyard.

None of the other rows are showing anything - buds aren't even swollen on rows 4 & up. I'll keep an eye on it!