Press 2012

Well, another year is in the "barrel" (ok, the carboy).  We pressed on Tuesday afternoon, October 2nd, in the 90 degree heat.  Looks like we got just under 5 gallons from this year's harvest.  To my reckoning, it doesn't taste quite as nice as last year's right after pressing, but I also didn't think much of 2010 and it is turning out to be quite a nice vintage after its had some time in the bottle.

This is the first year that Julia was really engaged in the press, taking part in all aspects of cleaning, pressing, collecting and the clean up (again) at the end.  She was very into helping daddy.

The wine that simply drains off as you scoop the must* out of the fermenter is called free pour.  This is considered the best part of the finished wine.  As you press the skins/seeds harder and harder, you can actually begin to extract oils (from the seeds) and harsher tannins from everything in the must, along with other not so great flavors, so at a certain point, you stop trying to squeeze every little bit out of the press.

Of course we all took a sip of the free pour to sample the wine, and Julia wanted her annual tiny sip, so we indulged.  However, Miss Pinot decided to go back for seconds, thirds and even fourths.  Each time that Kim and I would turn away for a moment (Kim taking pictures, me doing something press related), our little wino would grab the plastic cup and stick it under the drain spout on the press to grab another sample and take a sip.  Most kids (her cousins Josh and Ashie included) take one sip, make a sour face, and want nothing more to do with the wine.  We finally were able to communicate to her that little girls only were supposed to take one teeny tiny taste, not several sips throughout the pressing process.

Secretly in my heart it makes me happy that she enjoys the taste of her Pinot.  It is kinda cool that she gets into the spirit of the pressing by enjoying some wine along with it, but of course this is all tempered against the fact that she's only three years old!!

My little elf is a wine maker at heart.

In Vino Veritas!

*must = the mass of grapes skins, pulp, seeds and occasional stems as well as juice

Science is hard...

No daddy, look...the brix is actually at -0.5

 They'll never notice if I grab a quick sip from the fermenter

Cheers!

I love my daddy

Hm....this stuff tastes like lemons

(doing the second rinse with a citric acid solution)

Check out my super-awesome tie-dye

Daddy, will all the grapes fit?

Whaddya think of my wine mustache?

I'm supervising

Daddy's best helper

Whoa...check out that tower of blocks

Mommy, I can't pose for a picture, I'm busy pressing my grapes

Ha!  They never saw me grab another sip...yummy

INTENSITY!

The stained fingers of the red wine maker

The "cake"

Pretty dry

Cleaning up after the press

If you're not getting wet, you're not doing it right

Brix @ 5.5

All there is to say at the moment.  This has been the slowest fermentation I've experienced with these grapes, and the only thing different this year was the application of sulfur to the vineyard for the powdery mildew, so that is the only thing I can attribute to the slower ferment.

The morning after...brix @ 23.5

Well, this was a first.  In years past I've had to add sugar to get the brix to 22, and this year, with no significant signs of raisins on the vine, I got a brix of 23.5!  It seems to me to be a combination of better trellis management and the vines getting a little more mature.

Inoculated once again with Assmanshausen yeast (its done very well in years past).  I think I will be adding something to keep ML from getting stuck like it has every other year, but we shall see.

Harvest and Crush 2012

We got 63 lbs this year.  Considerably better than last year, but still less than two years ago.  We had some decent loss to rodents and to powdery mildew, plus two Pinot Noir vines that normally produce didn't give anything this year and may need to be replaced.  But with some trellis changes in the works for next season, and some help from our friends at Hydrex to deal with the mice/rats, hopefully next year will break records!

Julia surveys the vineyard

Per her request, we surveyed the status of veraison in the vineyard.

Veraison after powdery mildew

I've officially graduated to full fledged grape grower.  I finally had to learn to treat my vines for powdery mildew.  One does not tend to remember that sulphur really starts to stink after a week or so...phew!!

The grapes are going through veraison and I seemed to have averted the majority of cracking associated with a bad powdery mildew infection.  I just need to be vigilant until harvest