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.