14 Gallons of Syrah and a new toy

I've been meaning to write about my new winemaking toy for a few weeks, but have been struggling to find the time. It's the day before Christmas, my suitcase is packed, and I finally have some free time before I head over to a friend's house for Christmas Eve so here goes (hold your horses)...

I've mentioned the 2008 Chilian Syrah in the past (see post1, post2, & post3). It's been sitting in a Hungarian oak barrel for the past 9 months or so and is now ready for bottling. Now, I'll admit to dreading bottling this wine because it's a 14 gallon barrel. Bottling would mean pumping the wine out of the barrel into carboys so that I could bottle using the gravity siphon that I've been using for the past 3 years. That's a lot of stuff that needs cleaning when I'm done--groan......

What to do, what to do... Fortunately, modern technology has provided an answer in the Enolmatic! This a vacuum powered bottling device that gently sucks the wine into the bottle and then automatically stops when the bottle is full. Up to this point, I haven't been working on the scale that justified purchasing one of these units. But now that I'm facing a 14 gallon barrel, I took the plunge and bought one as an early birthday present to me.

After it arrived a couple of weeks ago, I sanitized 8 cases of bottles and got to work. In a little more than 30 minutes, I had 7.5 cases bottled, corked, and boxed. And all I had to clean up was the Enolmatic (I'm leaving out the 3 carboys of 2009 Syrah that I put into the now empty barrel, but that would have happened anyway). The Enolmatic truly rocks!

A picture is worth a thousand words, so hopefully these will fill the bill. It's a single bottle unit, but that allows me to turn around and cork a filled bottle while the next bottle is being filled. The close-up of the Enolmatic doesn't do it justice, but there is a vacuum trap chamber on back of the machine that captures excess wine once the bottle is filled. This chamber needs emptying back into the barrel now and then, which provides a little break time every so often. The one complaint I have is that setting the proper fill level is tricky. I had some challenge setting the level too low and having too much ullage or taking the bottle off the machine too slowly and over-filling. Spent a good deal of time pouring a little out of the bottle into a too-low ullage bottle. Still, even with that issue (which I should be able to fix with practice), I finished bottling, corking, and boxing 7.5 cases of wine in just 1-2 hours. And had very little clean up afterwards.

Get yourself an Enolmatic and you'll not regret it!

Salute,
a MA winemaker

Protein--be stabilized!

Last year, I had a stability issue with my 2008 Northern CA sauvignon blanc. It was crystal clear when I bottled (I swear--even filtered with a 0.5 micron filter), but as the summer progressed and temps in the basement cellar rose, some slight sediment fell out. Didn't affect the amazing taste or aroma, but the slight haze resulted in poor marks in the Winepress.US competition. The judges uniformly stated that without the haze, it would have been the Best of White by a long shot. Oh well, that's my bad. BUT--how to prevent this from happening again in the future???

The most likely conclusion that I've come to is a protein haze. My research tells me that Sauvignon blanc is notorious for protein hazes that form upon warming. These proteins are soluble at lower temperatures, but start to denature and precipitate as the temperature increases. A common preventative is to fine the wine with bentonite. The bentonite clay absorbs the soluble proteins and fall to the bottom of the carboy.

The main reason I've been looking into this is because I've got 15 gallons of 2009 Chilian chardonnay that I'd like to bottle soon. I had split the chard into 3 different 5 gallon batches to experiment with different yeasts, MLF, and oakings. Two carboys are crystal clear while the third is still a little hazy. I decided to do a light dose bentonite fining on the clear carboys for protein stabilization and a heavy dose on the hazy carboy for clearing & protein stabilization. Gets a little more complicated when one of the clear carboys has some lees at the bottom, so I have only had time to bentonite fine the other clear carboy. The other two will have to wait until after Christmas when I can rack them off the lees deposits.

That all said and done, I hydrated a 1.5 g/gallon dose of bentonite in 3/4 c of warm water--swirling like crazy and then letting the mixture sit for 24 hr. Only then did I pull some wine out and dump in the bentonite suspension and top off the carboy. After giving a good swirl to mix, the suspension has been slowly falling out over the past couple of days. I may have to bring the carboy upstairs to warm to room temperature before racking and bottling, but will see after Christmas.

By the way--the left over wine that I had to taste was AMAZING! Clean & crisp, with bright green apple & citrus flavors. Ooh, boy! Can't wait for this one!

Salute,
a MA Winemaker

Wine, wine, everywhere...

I played "holy hookey" from church today. That's becoming a theme while God and I work some things out between us, but the main reason I stayed home was so that I could get some exercise in this weekend and bottle the 2008 syrah. I gave myself an early birthday present and bought myself an Enolmatic bottler so that I could bottle straight out of the barrel instead of pumping into carboys and then gravity bottling. The syrah has been needing to be bottled so today was the day (especially since it's raining and cold and just plain yucky outside.

I peeled myself off the exercise bike around 12:30, cleaned up, and got some lunch. Then it was down to the cellar to sanitize some bottles. Three hours later, I had 6.5 cases of syrah bottled, corked, and boxed. With the barrel empty, I racked in the 2009 syrah, and then had to clean up.

Needless to say, I'm a little tired at the moment and need to get some dinner. I'll upload a picture of my one-man bottling set up in a little bit.

Cheers,
a MA Winemaker

Got My Medals!

Faithful readers will remember that my 2008 Apple wine received some very high honors at the 2009 Winepress.US wine competition this fall. Gold medal & Best of Show White! Well, I recently received the actual medals & wanted to share. Don't they look very pretty in the early morning winter sunlight?

:)

The judges awarded it 17-19 points (out of 20). Some of their comments:

Good fruit in nose
Good acid balance
Fruit up front in mouth
Lingers well in mouth
Intense apple flavor
Fruit carries through all the way. Good job on a difficult wine! (OK, that's my favorite!)
Crab apple nose (gonna have to find some crab apples at some point)

I'm still grinning about the results!

Cheers,
MA Winemaker

It was good the first time, let's do it again!

I wasn't planning on doing any fermentations this fall due to an overseas vacation right smack dab in the middle of the harvest season. Trust me, you have no idea how hard it was to willingly bow out of the fall grape harvest! But, faithful readers will recall the previous post about winning an award for my 2008 apple wine, and the cider I used isn't produced until the first week of November... You see where this is going, don't you?

You're right--I caved and bought some cider. Last year I made 4 gallons using Cotes de Blanc yeast, so of course I decided to make things a little complicated this year. Why try one different yeast strain when you can try two?

The plan:
I bought 8 gallons of premium cider from Carlson Orchards. Due to all the cool, rainy summer & fall, the sugar level was a little low (only about 9-10 Brix, or 4-5% potential alcohol) and acid levels were a little higher than normal. I added cane sugar to get to 20 Brix (12% PA), but did not adjust the acid. The pH levels were just about perfect for a white wine, so I decided to leave that alone. I'm trying to prevent malo-lactic fermentation altogether, so I added lysozymes pre-fermentation. Four gallons are currently being fermented cool using D47 yeast (my basement is a perfect 55-58 °F right now). The other 4 gallons are fermenting upstairs at room temperature using 71B-1122 yeast. I'm going for a clean, crisp white with the D47 yeast. The 71B-1122 yeast will convert about 30% of the malic acid to lactic acid, so I'm wanting to see if that results in a slightly more complex wine.

Things are in mid-ferment right now. I fermented in buckets for a few days to get things going, and then poured into carboys with air-locks. Both carboys are still bubbling away, and smelling heavenly!

Cheers,
MA Winemaker

2008 Apple, An Award-winning wine!

Well folks, I received some fantastic news earlier this week. I learned that I had received several awards at the 2009 Winepress.US Winefest Competition! Three of my wines received honorable mention awards (2008 Sauvignon Blanc, 2008 Zinfandel Rose, and 2008 Blueberry), and, more exciting, the 2008 Apple was awarded a Gold Medal and chosen as Best of Show White!

Wow! I was walking on air!

I haven't gotten the judges' notes yet, so I don't know what their comments were yet. But if I needed a shot in the arm that perhaps I do know what I'm doing, this was it! I still have 7 bottles of the 2008 Apple, so I'm going to save 3-4 and enter them in a couple of other competitions next spring. Stay tuned for those results!

I thought I had written a post about the 2008 Apple, but going back through my archive tells me that I apparently have not. Well, let's just rectify that briefly. The wine was made from a premium blend of cider from Carlson Orchards in Harvard, MA that I purchased from Beer & Wine Hobby in Woburn, MA. I don't know the exact apple varieties that went into the cider, but the cider is supposed to be specifically designed for making premium hard cider. I do recall that it was tasty cider!

I won't bore you with all the fermentation details, but my goal for this wine was to produce a clean, crisp, dry wine akin to a sauvignon blanc or pinot gris. I added lysozymes to prevent malo-lactic fermentation and maintain the crisp taste & finish. Fermentation was done with Red Star Cote des Blanc yeast over a 2 month period at low temperature in the basement. This was during November & December in Massachusetts, so my basement air temperature was about 58-59 °F. After fermentation to complete dryness, the wine was allowed to clear naturally over 3 months with 2 rackings, and three gallons were bottled in May. I will have to admit that I haven't tasted this wine in a couple of months, but my tasting notes shortly after bottling are below.

Appearance: Crystal clear, light straw yellow
Aroma: Crisp green apple, like sniffing a Granny Smith fresh from the tree.
Taste: Crisp, mild apple flavor with a slight tingle on the tongue. Light body.

I will have to taste it again soon and update my tasting notes. I also made another gallon that was lightly oaked with medium toast French oak cubes for about 2 months. When I bottled that, I actually liked it even more than the unoaked version. I haven't cracked a bottle of that open yet, but will do so soon! Too bad I only have 4 bottles of that left.

I was waffling about making this wine again, but winning that award changed my mind. I just placed an order for 8 gallons a couple of days ago. I'm thinking of making 2 separate 4 gal batches using different yeasts and then blend them together to add some complexity. When I receive the medal and award, I'll take a picture with the bottle and post it to the blog for posterity.

Cheers,
MA Winemaker

A Little Barrel Tasting

I'm in the middle of a frenzy of packing to get ready for a big trip, but I took a few moments tonight to do a little barrel tasting. Had to make sure the barrels were topped off since I don't think I'll be able to attend to them for about a month. So, I'm sitting in front of the computer with a couple of tasting glasses of 2008 Chilean Syrah and 2008 Northern CA Zinfandel. And, I'm impressed...

The Chilean Syrah is really beginning to bring the fruit forward. The caramel and vanilla tones of the Hungarian oak are providing broad strokes in the background, while the cherries & stone fruit are starting to muscle their way to the front of the palette. A little more black pepper and spice would be nice, but let's wait and see.

The Zinfandel continues to be a massive dried fruit bomb. Strong aromas of cassis and dried cherries. The American oak is still very subtle with some interesting vanilla counterpoints and accents around the main aromas and tastes, so I'm thinking of keeping this in the barrel for another 3-6 months.

Since I'm waxing poetic about the wine, I think that means I've had a little bit too much to drink. Must get to bed so I can go make a living in the morning.

Salute,
a MA Winemaker