Starting MLF in the 2011 Syrah

This year I'm going to try some MLF nutrients to stack the deck a little bit on the malo process. I re-hydrated 6g of Opti-malo in 100ml of wine and then added it back into the carboys. I then re-hydrated 5g or Acti-ML in 100ml of water and then added the 2.5g of Enoferm Beta.

After that was done and I waited 15mins, I went ahead and inoculated the carboys with my enriched concoction.

Let's now start converting malic to lactic!

2011 Pressing

Got up early this morning and pressed the Syrah and small amount of Barbera/Sangiovese for this year. In the end I ended up with a little over 9 gallons of Syrah and 2 gallons of Barbera/Sangiovese.

Everything was tasting good. Now that everything is in carboys I'll be starting the MLF in the next day or two.

Brix check, Tasting, Punch down and Addition

Today I checked the Brix which is already down to close to 0 now. As we're nearing the end of the fermentation I've gone ahead and added 2g of Tanenol Max Nature Tannin to the must and did a punch down. Here's what Enartis says that Max Nature is supposed to do:

Tanenol Max Nature is a mixture of condensed and ellagic tannins formulated to enhance olfactory cleanliness and complexity of white and red wines. In particular, it removes reduction and the herbaceous note, while highlighting fruity and floral notes that are typical of young wines. Its moderate contribution to structure and absence of astringency makes Tanenol Max Nature the ideal tannin for treatment of wines where the natural characteristics of lightness and ease of consumption are desired.

The taste is still quite good and no off smells. I'll be watching the cap now to see if it starts sinking. I'm hoping that I can extend the maceration a bit.

Punch-down and Brix Check

This morning we did our first brix check since starting the fermentation on Monday. To my surprise the fermentation is really going quickly. We're already down to 10 brix. I've been punching down two times a day and will continue that until we start to hit the lag phase. The taste is really nice, no off smells or tastes detected.

Fermentation is going

Checked the grapes today and saw the cap was rising and the familiar snap, crackle, and popping of my friendly little yeasties munching on sugar. Looks like it's going well so far. I went ahead and did my first punch down.

Pitched the Yeast today

Today I added 20g of Opti-Red in 100ml of water. Then a little later in the day prepared the ICV-GRE yeast (16g) in 200ml of water and 20g of GoFerm. After testing it with a pinch or two of table sugar I pitched it about 3pm into the Syrah. I would have liked to do it yesterday but I was waiting for a new shipment of GoFerm which was a little late.

Anyway all seems well and I'll know in a day or two whether I've got a vigorous ferment going.

For the Barbera I used 8g of UVAFERM-43 suspended in 100ml of water and 10g of GoFerm.

My procedure is to first take the clean non-chlorinated water and heat it to 104 degrees F. Then put the GoFerm in and stir it gently and wait about 10 minutes. Then I add the yeast and let them settle into the mixture. After about another 10 minutes I test the mixture with a pinch of plain table sugar. Once I confirm that that creates a few bubbles then I know that the yeasts are alive and ready to go. I then place the container in the must until the temperature of the mixture is no greater than 10 degrees hotter than the grape must. Once that happens I go ahead and pour the mixture evenly over the top of the must.

Harvest - 2011

Harvest is upon us. Today at the break of dawn we drove out to the vineyard expecting to get slim pickings and that's pretty much what we got. Th vines were cut way back in the winter to get them under control from a pruning standpoint. As a result the fruit was sparse and what was there was in rough shape. We managed to get about 19gallons of Syrah must at the end of the day. After the crush I added 5g of sulfite and 2 liters of water. After letting it settle most of the day I did my initial measurements and I was pleasantly surprised to see about 24 brix with a pH of 3.4. I guess you can't get much better than that. The tartaric measurement was also really close to optimal. So although we got very little fruit at least the fruit we got seems to be pretty well suited for wine making.

So tomorrow we'll go ahead and pitch the yeast and let the fun begin.

Thanks to Steve for Joining us.

Olivier trying to avoid the Yellowjackets

These guys were a big problem this year.

We only got 3 tubs this year. :-(