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).