New Year's Eve Movie: The Barolo Boys

We had a slow start today because we were watching a movie called The Barolo Boys about how a small group of men and one woman made Nebbiolo in barriques and put the Langhe region on the global wine map.

The movie is a very even handed account of tradition versus innovation in making wine from the Nebbiolo grape. It was a nice way to ease into the work day, which is more irrigation work, (even though it is New Year's Eve) while the sun shines!

Wishing you all a very Happy New Year!

A Look Back on 2015

I recently asked my husband to check on Google maps to see if the view of our vineyard has been upgraded and found that to be the case. This shot must have been taken in the early summer. This view shows that our rows are indeed very long (756 feet) and we have 36 rows of vines.
This year, we began our season by putting in our anchor rods in January and then had a long hiatus when the snow began to fall and never stopped. The first time we were able to get back into the vineyard was in March when we had to download our data loggers.
In June, we finally finished installing our trellis posts. It only took us 2-1/2 years! The trellis post got up just in time so that we could string our fruiting and catch wires because the survivor vines were sending up strong healthy shoots. Not only that, we got our first blossoms! From our first blossoms, we harvested our first grapes. We were so very excited. We managed to make a little bit of wine with the help of our friends. It has been a very exciting year for us. It is still not over since we are still putting the finishing touches on our irrigation system. When we replant our vineyard in April, 2016, we will have water for the young plants!

Happy Holidays!!!!

The holidays are now right around the corner and a thousand projects are littering our home. (So, my husband claims. But, he is enjoying the sweets of my labor, so he's bearing with the clutter...for the moment). This year, we have been enjoying many different kinds of Champagnes and sparkling wines and I've kept the corks. So, what to do with the corks. Some of you who have been reading my blog understand that I am a collector (my husband would say "hoarder") and have seen my blog on Fun with Wine Capsules. So, if I had 800 wine capsules, you can be sure that I have 800 wine corks, possibly more.
But, back to the question of what to do with the corks. Here is one idea that I saw on the Internet and tested for myself.

Wishing All of You Happy Holidays and Hau'oli Makahiki Hou!!!!

2013 Millton Chenin Blanc

We have been envying our friends for a while now, having the adventure of their lives in New Zealand. In photos that they have sent, we have seen them soaring in the air and hiking in the wilds of New Zealand, as well as tending sheep on the vast land owned by their long time friends.
But the envy just got personal when they sent us this photo of 2013 Millton Chenin Blanc that they drank.
We have been on a quest for securing a bottle of Millton Chenin Blanc, still unfulfilled, since my husband did some research on Chenin Blanc.
The Millton Chenin Blanc, having garnered numerous awards is one of the 1001 Wines You Must Taste Before You Die.

Envy! Envy!

2014 Chateau Soucherie Rosé

We recently had this 2014 Chateau Soucherie Rosé which hails from the Loire and is made from Grolleau (70%) and Gamay (30%). I've heard of Gamay but never Grolleau. This Rosé tasted very dry on my palate. Our interest in the Chateau Soucherie stems from the fact that the wine is made by Thibaud Boudignon, the same winemaker that made the 2012 Anjou Blanc that we had and blogged about. On the Metro Wines Website, there is more information: The vines are planted to clay, sandstone and schist soils. The wine is a product of the direct press method of vinification and the elevage is in cuve with bottling occurring usually in April of the spring following harvest.
For a wine that is $16.00 this is a very good value.

2013 Naveran Cava

We are branching out in our bubbly choices. A few nights ago, we had this 2013 Naveran Cava. It was crisp and refreshing with lemony flavors. Cava is a sparkling wine made in Spain. The label on the back of this bottle gave more information. This Cava is made from native Spanish grapes. The three grapes used in the sparkling is Xarel·lo (sounds like ‘Cheryl-ooh’), Macabeo, and Parellada. Each grape used in the making of this Cava lends its signature. Xarel·lo contributes rich floral aromas and pear/melon-like notes, Macabeo had rich floral aromas and pear/melon-like notes, and Parellada is blended for its ripping high acidity and zesty citrus flavors.
Most Cava that can be purchased in the U.S. comes from the Penedès region.

Cava, like Champagne is made in the Método Tradicional (Méthode Champenoise), where the wine is allowed to continue fermentation in the bottle for a period of time. This sparkling wine from Spain can only be labeled "Cava" if it has been made in the Método Tradicional style. A really nice explanation, along with a pictographic representation of the three methods of making a sparkling wine, (1) Méthode Champenoise / Méthode Traditionelle, (2) Transfer Method, and (3) Charmat Process / Metodo Italiano or Martinotti can be found here: HOW TO MAKE SPARKLING WINES LIKE CHAMPAGNE.
The Naveran Cava is an excellent choice for a sparkling wine under $20.00 and might be a good addition to the potent potables for the holiday season just around the corner.
References:
1. Wine Folly, What is Cava?
2. SpanishWine.com, What is Cava?

Birds: Director's Cut

We were in our vineyard early this morning, working on our irrigation project due for inspection tomorrow. It was a beautiful day in the Northeast and we were hearing all kinds of birds in the distance. First, it was loud honking geese and then a sky full of starlings. They landed on the trees in our forest on the east side of the vineyard and we could see them all in the trees. My husband tried to scare them so that we could see them in flight like we did before they settled in the trees, but the noise he made only made them retreat further into the forest.

We didn't have to wait too long for something to scare them towards where we were working and we got this amazing little footage.

Update: It turns out that my husband learned from his forum that a massive flock of starlings is called a murmuration. There is a very interesting article and video on Wired called The Startling Science of a Starling Murmuration. I'm not sure why someone chose "murmuration" to describe a large flock of starlings because the sound they made was nothing like a murmur.

2012 Anjou Blanc

My husband is crediting me for making a searingly acidic Chenin Blanc on our first try. Neither of us realized that searing acidity is one of Chenin Blanc's attributes, but having made the wine, we became aware that Chenin Blanc is to white wine as Barbera is to red wine. My husband then looked on the Internet for searingly acidic Chenin Blanc and found a few gems that we have been able to get our hands on, thanks again to my husband's adeptness at Internet surfing, sourcing, and procurement. (I have to confess, my husband's surfing powers are quite remarkable because when I put in "searingly acidic Chenin Blanc" I don't get nearly as many hits as he does).
Recently, we tasted this 2012 Anjou Blanc made by Thibaud Boudignon. The wine was quite yellow colored in the glass, indicating there might be some oxidation going on, but there were no notes of acetaldehyde that was detectable, instead a wonderfully aromatic nose of tropical fruit wafted from the glass and the taste was of honey and lemons. We drank one glass, appreciating the flavors of this acidic Chenin Blanc and saved the rest for the following evening, when my husband scored striped bass at our local fish monger. So, we paired the 2012 Anjou Blanc with seared striped bass in lemon, butter sauce with a side of wild rice and a fresh green salad. Outstanding!
The following is a quote from Justerini and Brooks Website:
Thibaud’s real passion lies in his three hectares of organically farmed vines, planted at high density in Anjou and Savennières. From his beloved vines, whose health Thibaud sees as paramount to his success, he crafts some of the most refined and intense Chenin we’ve come across. Ageing takes place in a mixture of 225 litre and 600 litre barrels, with less and less new oak being employed for the two top wines. His tireless vineyard work means less manipulation is necessary in the winery. The results are thrilling; concentrated, age-worthy, sophisticated and vital Chenin Blancs that can already be found on the wine lists of many of the best restaurants in London and Paris.
References:
1. Premier Cru The World's Finest Wines, 2012 Anjou Blanc Thibaud Boudignon.
2. Sacred Thirsts Selections, Thibaud Boudignon.

Holiday Greetings from Our Friends at Exultet

I could not resist! Here is a link to a video from our friends at Exultet Estates located in Prince Edward County, Ontario. If you haven't been to Ontario and Prince Edward County, you should go there---they are making some mighty fine wine.

We first met Jerry, Lia, Mario and Joseph in April, 2012. When I saw their video, I was so surprised to see how Mario and Joseph have grown! I guess that just goes to show you that time marches on. This video put a smile on my face---hope it does on yours!

We Have a Ferrari!

It is getting towards the time when the people who have been naughty from the people who have been nice get their just dues. I must have landed in the "nice" group because my husband bought me a Ferrari for Christmas. You'll have to say tuned because it appears that the photo uploading function of Blogger doesn't seem to be working properly at the moment.
Photo upload working again!
Here is our Ferrari! We do already have a corker that came with the wine making kit that my friend gave us but she did mention that it was a temperamental gadget so my husband got this floor corker.

Uncorked

My husband and I have been watching a TV series on Esquire called Uncorked that follows six sommeliers as they prepare and take the exam to be come a Master Sommelier. For us, who are engaged in the growing and making of wine, it is a very interesting and intriguing show. The sommeliers in this series include:

• Josh Nadel, a wine director of six New York restaurants, whose years-long preparations for the exam have cost him friends, hobbies, and quality time with his wife
• Yannick Benjamin, a thirty-seven-year-old French-born somm who, despite being paralyzed from the waist down after a car crash, in 2003, has been undeterred in his quest to become a Master
• Morgan Harris, a somm at Aureole, has a habit of delivering impromptu wine lectures to strangers in bars
• Jane Lopes, a twenty-eight-year-old straight-A student-type and the only woman on the show, keeps color-coded binders containing her notes on wine theory (“I kind of like to create my own textbook,” she says)
• Dana Gaiser, a blind-tasting savant whose laid-back Miami beach vibe sometimes clashes with his buttoned-up profession
• Jack Mason, a churchgoer from rural Texas whose nerves frequently get the best of him

My husband says that one of these people did pass the test to become a Master Sommelier. I asked him not to tell me. Apparently there are 6 episodes in the series and we have seen three.

2011 Domaine Saint-Germain Persan

My husband got this bottle as a gift from the local package store that he frequents. The owner wanted him to taste this wine made from the Persan grape. The wine comes from Domaine Saint-Germain in Savoie. Have you ever heard of this grape? We hadn't. The wine in the glass was ruby red in color and the flavor reminded us of Cabernet Franc with the acidity of a Barbera. We had this with a fatty osso buco based spaghetti so it paired really well.

But, back to the grape. What is the Persan?
I looked at a few books before I heaved out Jancis Robinson's Wine Grapes from our bookshelf and found the entry for Persan where it is written that the Persan is a Rare but high-quality Savoie variety on a voyage of rediscovery. Much of the information that is contained in this entry has been reproduced on the Wikipedia entry on Persan. In the Savoie region, there are just 9 ha (22 acres) planted to Persan. The wines tend to be tannic with good acidity and well suited to aging! Guyot thought that the Persan was a local mutation of Pinot Noir, but genetic testing showed that this is not the case.
References:
1. J. Robinson, J. Harding and J. Vouillamoz, Wine Grapes - A complete guide to 1,368 vine varieties, including their origins and flavours, pg 783-784, Allen Lane 2012 ISBN 978-1-846-14446-2. Illustration of Persan is also from this book.

Time to Test the Chenin Blanc Again

Our wine has been sitting in our refrigerator in as undisturbed an environment as we can create. Though it has been so tempting to break into the keg to taste it, somehow, we have resisted the temptation.
We took out 50 mL of the wine from the keg and put it into the glass that you see to the left. The wine is becoming a bit clearer and there are definite fruit and floral aromas that we can now smell.
It has now been 19 days since we last tested our Chenin Blanc, so we decided to test it again. This is the third test that we are doing with our Vinmetrica SC-300. To recap:
Our first test on October 23 gave us these values:

• pH = 3.15
• TA = 12.25 g/L
• SO₂ = negligible
• Residual Sugar = ~500 mg/L

Our sensory exam at this time was that the wine was searingly acidic and had very little aromas associated with it.
Our second test on November 4 gave us these values:

• pH = 3.07
• TA = 10.1
• SO₂ = 17 ppm

When we tasted our wine this time, there was a definite difference in the acidity. The wine was not so searingly acidic and the aromas were beginning to develop. Hurrah!
In todays test, our values are:

• pH = 3.11
• TA = 10.3
• SO₂ = 38 ppm

The SO₂ value is still very reasonable, since we put in approximately 1 gram of potassium metabisulfite in solution, into the wine on November 9. Today, we were able to identify tropical floral aromas, like passionfruit in the wine. It was still acidic and I hope that it can develop a little more body. The keg is back in the frig under nitrogen while we contemplate our next steps.

Assembling the Irrigation Pipe

My husband has been busy this November with Trench Digging for Our Irrigation System and now, with the continued good weather, assembling the tubing in situ. He cut all of the PVC piping and spent today gluing the flexible hosing to the pipes.

This is how it looked at the end of the day.

A little background information: We have been working with our local National Resources Conservation Services (NRCS) who provided us a grant for installing this irrigation system in 2013. In 2014, we received an extension on our grant and followed up by Drilling a Well and actually finding a well with enough water (40 gallons/minute) capacity to irrigate our vineyard. We worked with Civil Engineer, Dan Pietro, who designed the irrigation system, but the procurement of the parts and the implementation was my husband's brainchild.
During the afternoon, we were able to put the assembled piping into the trench and then cover the piping with stone dust. We took into account the fact that it would rain on Thursday, November 19th. The rain should help even out the stone dust that is on the trench. We also have an appointment with the NRCS on Friday, who will come out to inspect our work.

1965 Chateau Haut-Brion

Our friends were determined to share all of their older Grand Cru wines with us before they left for their 2-1/2 month trip to the southern hemisphere.
On this evening, we were treated to a 1965 Chateau Haut-Brion. This wine was in the same fire as the 1964 Chateau Giscours. Upon opening the wine, it still retained the bottle bouquet of a great Bordeaux and the first taste for me was one of velvety smoothness and a touch of fruit. Unlike the Chateau Giscours, this wine, for me, was the unfortunate victim of the fire since within an hour, all delicacy was lost. Pity, but still privileged to partake of an old (50 year) wine. Big thanks and shoutout to our generous friends!

Cover Crop---Tillage Radish

We recently took a drive around the vineyard just to make sure that things in the north end looked okay, while we worked exclusively on the south end, digging the trench for the irrigation pipes. As we made our way on the west side of the vineyard, my husband spied something green growing in one of the rows. It is not an easy thing to go against the grain of the trellis wires, so he had me doing the reverse-limbo under the fruiting wire to check out what the green thing was in the vineyard. When I got to the green thing, it was a tillage radish that had survived the many passes of the grape hoe! I pulled it out and it was huge!

We planted the seeds for this cover crop in early November of 2013 and we had germination and growth a few weeks later, but since we planted the seeds so late in the year, we didn't really reap the benefits of the tillage radish.
You can see from this photo that the taproot of the tillage radish is huge and extends a good 8-inches. The benefit of the tillage radish in compacted soils, is that it will rot in place during the winter and leave behind soil that has been loosened and aerated. Another benefit is that tillage radish is what we call daikon in Japanese and it is totally edible. We're going to have this beauty for a meal soon. Maybe I'll share photos of what we did with it.

1964 Chateau Giscours

Our friends will be going to their southern hemisphere trip to New Zealand in a few days so our mutual friends decided that we should celebrate an American Thanksgiving before they left. It was an excellent idea. We began our repast with Veuve Cliquot and Gruet Champagnes with acorn squash and beet appetizers. Our next course was a chantrelle soup that my husband made following a few suggestions that he got from his wine forum.

The conversation when we were having our appetizers was about the 1964 Chateau Giscours that we were about to try. Our friend told us that it would be a miracle if the wine tasted any good because the wine had been through 2 fires and had been placed next to a chimney while the home was being rebuilt. Also, just before bringing this bottle, our friend had opened two others and tasted it and they had turned to vinegar. Looking at the ullage level, which was at the shoulders, we had to agree that the wine may be past drinkable. But, miracle of miracles, when the bottle was opened, the wine, was indeed drinkable and as we sat down to have turkey, stuffing, green beans, and baked potato, the wine opened up, revealing it's fruitiness and mellowness. Wow! We enjoyed this outstanding meal and wine, with our friends whom we will not see for the next two and a half months. Bon Voyage!

Trench Digging for Our Irrigation System

Even though our small crop of Chenin Blanc has now been harvested and is on it's way to becoming our first wine, we are still working in the vineyard. We are trenching so that we can put in our irrigation pipes and system. My husband thought that he could use a ditch witch that he rented from Home Depot and be done with the trench in one day. He ran into so many rocks that it took him 3 hours to dig a trench that was only 20 feet long and we need 256 feet of trench. Okay---plan B. He used his backhoe and although the trench is a little wider than we would like it to be, it is deep enough and the rocks are no problem for the backhoe. It still is taking more than 1 day, but the weather has been cooperating with temperatures in the low 70's!

Last year at this time, we were pounding endposts. The work never stops!
With the good weather continuing, we were able to spend 4 hours on Thursday, November 6, 2 hours on Saturday, November 7, and one hour on Sunday, November 9th to finish digging the trench that will hold one configuration of pipes for the irrigation system.

Dropped Acid---Tartaric, That Is

Last night, we opened up the keg that our wine is in and took a 40 mL sample so that we could run the pH, titratable acids (TA) and sulfur dioxide tests as well as a sensory test. We ran the pH test first because it only uses 5 mL of wine. Then filled the "beaker" containing the 5 mL of wine with 15 mL of distilled water and ran the TA test. We then ran our sulfur dioxide test and got those results. This test uses 25 mL of wine, leaving us approximately 10 mL to conduct our sensory exam.

The results of the test using our Vinmetrica SC-300 are:

• pH = 3.07
• TA = 10.1
• SO₂ = 17 ppm

When we compared these results with the readings that we took on October 23, we were delighted to learn that we are accomplishing our goal of dropping out tartaric acid by cold stabilization.
Our sensory exam confirmed that the acids are less searing than our first taste test and there is a definite floral nose developing in the wine. It is difficult to tell in the above photo that focussed on the Kimwipe box, that the wine is also become a bit clearer. We are pondering our next steps.

2013 Chateau d'Auvernier Neuchatel

My husband bought this bottle of Neuchatel for us to try. The wine is made from Chasselas or Fendant, as it is known in Switzerland, the leading grape variety there. When I drank this wine, since it was my first taste of Chasselas, I wasn't fully appreciating it's varietal character.
I found their website Chateau d'Auvernier and learned that Thierry Grosjean, the current owner can trace his lineage back 400 years.
Pierre Galet in his book, Grape Varieties says the following about Chasselas:
The typical Chasselas wine is slightly sparkling and crisp, finishing wth a pleasantly sharp sensation. The aromas are equally distinctive, blending notes of lime blossom with elegant floral touches and even occasional mineral nuances.
To me, it was very austere, so recently, I told my husband that he would need to purchase another Neuchatel so that I can give it another taste.

Fall in Our Vineyard

It seems that all is calm and quiet in the vineyard but, our hunter friend recently sent us some photos that he took when he saw a bobcat in the vineyard.

Racking Off the Gross Lees

At the end of our fermentation we consolidated our newly made wine from the two kegs that we had it in during fermentation into one keg. My husband purchased all of the equipment, nitrogen gas, regulator, racking wand, etc.
Since the pH, titratable acidity and sulfur dioxide values were very similar in the two kegs, we felt that we could combine it without unduly affecting any of the parameters. We let the wine settle in the one keg. What we hoped to accomplish with this step was to settle out the yeast that were floating around in the fermentation.
We left the tank in the refrigerator from Friday, October 23 until Tuesday, October 27 to allow the yeast and other large particles of fermentation to settle out of solution. We used the same setup with nitrogen gas to rack over just the clarified wine. It was a tricky little maneuver because we only had visual cues to guide us in determining when to stop racking. We think we did a pretty good job. When we went to empty what remained in the bottom of the fermentation tank, we decanted over some pretty gross lees, shown at the left in the photo and we took out about 10 mL of wine in order to do more tests, including a sensory (i.e. tasting) test.

Unfortunately, I messed up the titratable acidity test, but our sensory exam leads us to believe that our wine is still searingly acidic.

Our Fermentation is Over

On Friday, October 23, we checked our fermentation by running a few tests using our Vinmetrica SC-300 Pro. We tested the Vinmetrica system using a wine we had on hand so we were reasonably confident that our technique could be used to test our wine. There are online videos provided by Vinmetrica that give step-by-step instructions on the following:

• How to Calibrate the Vinmetrica SC-300 Prior to Making pH and Titratable Acidity (TA) Measurements
• How to Measure the pH
• How to Take a Titratable Acidity Measurement
• How to Take an SO₂ Measurement

On this fateful day, we conducted our tests on the juice in the two kegs that had been fermenting since September 30th. Our last reading that we took on October 13th gave us a Brix reading of 9. We ran the tests on our fermentation including the Accuvin Residual Sugar Test and we found that we had the following values:

• pH = 3.15
• TA = 12.25 g/L
• SO₂ = negligible
• Residual Sugar = ~500 mg/L

We stopped the fermentation by adding potassium metabisulfite into our two kegs. I used the: Sulfite Calculator
to determine that we needed to add 1 gram of potassium metabisulfite to achieve the required 0.825 mg/L molecular sulfite level.
We had hoped to leave a little residual sugar in our wine, but the values indicated that we had far over shot our mark. We also have a lot of acidity, some might call it searingly acidic. We are hoping that our tartrate stabilization might take out some of the titratable acidity and lower the TA a little.
We are consoling ourselves with the good news.

• First, our fermentation was long and slow and we didn't run into any problems with a stuck fermentation, indicating that our fruit came in with enough food for the yeast.
• Second, we didn't have any volatile acidity (acetic acid) issues, or fingernail polish (ethyl acetate) issues, or rotten egg (hydrogen sulfide) issues.
• Third, we have approximately 5 gallons of wine from the 65 pounds of fruit that we harvested.
• And last by not least, we learned a lot and hope to apply this knowledge into configuring a working lab and getting the appropriate equipment for scaling up to a full harvest, hopefully in the near future.

Steps to Consider After Fermentation is Over

Measuring Residual Sugar
So far, we have managed to conduct a constant temperature (60^o Fahrenheit), slow fermentation, resulting in a decrease of 1 ^oBrix a day. We are approaching the end of the fermentation and we are giving careful consideration on how to proceed. When the fermentation was evolving a lot of carbon dioxide, we felt comfortable in opening the fermentation lock to check on the Brix, but now, with most of the sugars converted to alcohol and the carbon dioxide evolution is on the decline, what do we do?
We want to make wine in the style of Domaine Huet and we found a Domaine Huet Fact Sheet published by Europvin. In that fact sheet is the following information:

• Sec: 11.5 - 12% alcohol; 3 - 5 g/L residual sugar
• Demi-Sec: 12 -13% alcohol; 10 - 20 g/L residual sugar
• Moelleux: 13 - 14 % alcohol; at least 30 g/L, but can be anything up to 200 g/L residual sugar

Vinification of the Chenin Blanc grape is about the proper balance of alcohol, acid and residual sugar. Without some residual sugar, the acids take over, so we do want to have a bit of residual sugar in our wine.
To measure the sugar left in our fermentation, we purchased the Accuvin Residual Sugar Test to get an approximate idea of how much residual sugar we have that is below the level of 1 ^oBrix since:
1 ^oBrix = 1% sugar (wt/vol) = 1 gram sugar/100 mL = 10g sugar/1L
The range of the test goes from a low of 100 mg/L to 2000 mg/L and if we want to test for 5-8g/L (5000-8000mg/L), we would have to do some dilutions:

Stay tuned!
References:
1. UC Davis Online Course: Wine Production, VID252, Lesson 3, page 6.
2. Daniel Pambiachi, Measuring Residual Sugar: Techniques, WineMaker, April/May 2002.

Vintage 2015: First Freeze Event

Our first freeze event happened this past weekend. We were warned about it so we knew it was coming, we just didn't expect to see dead leaves.

We came prepared to download our HOBO temperature data, so we learned that the temperatures dipped below freezing on Sunday, October 18 from 2:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. and then again from 7:45 p.m. until 9 a.m. on Monday morning, October 19.

Vinmetrica SC-300 Pro

We recently received a long awaited for shipment. Actually, we ordered this Vinmetrica SC-300 Pro before our harvest on September 26, 2015 intending to use it when harvest time came. Unbeknownst to us, the company was moving their operation and somehow, our order got lost in cyberspace.
The nice thing about this kit is that it will do pH, titratable acidity, as well as free and total SO₂ measurements. All of the reagents are included. The kit also comes with a stand, stir bar and a mini-stir plate as shown in this picture on the left.
Our fermentation has been going now since September 29th and we have taken 3 Brix readings. Our latest reading was taken on October 13th and we had a Brix reading of 9! Since we have to open the keg to take the reading, and since we know that the rate is about 1 ^oBrix a day, we have decided not to open the keg until our nitrogen gas arrives, crossing fingers, on Monday, October 19th.

Fall Wine Lineup

Our friends are leaving soon for an extended vacation in the southern hemisphere. While we will be hibernating in the coming winter, they will be playing outdoors in summer! We got together with them and polished off 5 bottles of wine while gnoshing on fried harico verts and smoked steak. Our friends brought the Pahlmeyer and LeFlaive Puligny-Montrachet---so generous. We will miss them.

One Autumn Grape

Our Chenin Blanc fermentation is bubbling happily and fall has descended on our part of the world. Here is one grape that grew on a tendril. The periderm of the Chenin is developing, getting ready for the winter that is to come. Our thoughts are turning to the irrigation we need to put into the vineyard before winter drives us indoors.

Fermentation Progress

Our fermentation has been bubbling away. We inoculated the must on September 29 around 11 a.m., saw the first signs of very slow evoluation of bubbles in the fermentation lock on the following day, September 30th around 5 p.m. Our initial Brix reading was 22 degrees. We don't have all of the measuring tools that we need to record pH, TA, SO₂ values, but we can take Brix readings with our refractometer. I found a very nice Brix to SG Conversion Utilizing Refractometer chart as well as a management chart on line that we have been filling out to record the progress of our fermentation. Our temperature in our temperature controlled refrigerator is a constant 62 ^oFahrenheit.
In order to take the Brix reading, we have to open the fermentation lock, so we have only taken 2 readings so far. Once on October 3rd, and both of the kegs were at 17 ^oBrix and the next time on October 6th, when the reading was at 15 ^oBrix. The other things that we can do is to smell the fermentation and give it a little taste. So far, we can smell yeast and now, a little bit of alcohol. We have not smelt hydrogen sulfide (rotten eggs) or ethyl acetate (nail polish) and the taste so far is pretty good, but of course I am so biased!

How to Dedicate Your Refrigerator to do Low Temperature Fermentations

The title of this blog is "How to Dedicate Your Refrigerator to do Low Temperature Fermentations". We definitely wanted to keep our must temperature at a constant temperature during fermentation to ensure that the volatile esters and yumminess that we tasted in our Chenin Blanc juice was retained throughout the fermentation. First, you need to have some good friends that have a spare freezer so that you can dump all your frozen goods in their freezer. My husband (ace online researcher) found that people converted their refrigerators into a temperature controlled fermentation space by procuring something like this Johnsons Temperature Controller A19AAT-2C.

The copper wire that you see to the right of the controller is the sensing element. My husband threaded the sensing element through the door of the refrigerator and placed it on the top rack of the frig. The sensing element can be set to a temperature any where within the specified range of 20-80 degrees Fahrenheit. The plug from your refrigerator is plugged into the plug for the Johnson Control and the sensing element will keep the refrigerator at the temperature that you specified on the controller. We have set our temperature for 60 ^oF.
Why is this important you might ask? Well, it is common knowledge that the conversion of sugar to alcohol gives off carbon dioxide, but may be not so known is that the conversion also gives off heat:

Once the fermentation is in the stationary phase and the yeast are rapidly converting sugars into alcohol, the heat generated needs to be controlled. We hope that the favorable surface to volume ratio of our kegs as well as the constant temperature that we are achieving in the refrigerator will help to keep our fermentation cool.

Rehydrating and Tempering Yeast

On Tuesday, a full 3 days after putting our juice in the refrigerator to cold settle, we started to rehydrate our QA 23 yeast. I looked at various sources to figure out how much yeast I needed to add to the juice. I went back to my notes from the U.C. Davis Online course that I took and I also found an excellent online article from MoreWine! Inc called Guide to White Wine Making.
Rehydrating Yeast

• Rehydration procedures are important to yeast viability.
• This procedure took approximately 45 minutes.
• I used Poland Spring water that was warmed to 100 degrees Fahrenheit, as recommended.
  It is recommended not to use tap water or juice that may contain fungicides or preservatives which will significantly decrease yeast viability, for this first step of yeast rehydration.
• The recommended reconstitution and inoculation procedure calls for 25 grams of dried yeast per 100 liters (0.25g/L) of must or juice to achieve approximately 5 x 10⁶ viable yeast cells per milliliter of solution and a peak cell density of 1.2 to 1.5 x 10⁸ cells/mL. This inoculation density helps ensure a rapid onset of fermentation and dominance over indigenous yeast.
  For our purposes, I scaled this to our volume of 5 gallons or 18.9L and calculated the addition to be 4.725 grams of yeast. Our yeast, QA 23 comes in 5 g packets so I used one packet.
• We rehydrated the dried yeast by slowly sprinkling into 10 to 20 times its own weight (100 – 200g yeast/L), in our case, 50 mL of clean Poland Spring water pre-heated to between 38(100°F) to 42°C (108°F). The recommended procedure is that gentle stirring may be used to improve yeast wetting and dispersal to avoid clumping. Vigorous stirring or mixing should be avoided as it may damage or lyse rehydrating yeast cell walls. We gently swirled the Pyrex 2 cup measuring cup that we used to rehydrate our yeast.
  

Tempering Yeast

• We let the yeast bloom for approximately 15 minutes while we waited for our juice to warm up to 60 degrees.
• Our next step was to lower the temperature of our rehydrating yeast from 100 ^oF in incremental steps by adding in our juice. We took 25 mL of juice and added it in 5 mL aliquots every minute and then let the mixture acclimate for 15 minutes. This brought the temperature down from 100 ^oF to approximately 85 ^oF. We waited 15 minutes.
• We repeated the above step, taking another 25 mL of juice and added it in 5 mL aliquots every minute and then let the mixture acclimate for 15 minutes. We were able to bring the yeast mixture down to 70 ^oF.

At the end of the rehydration, our yeast mixture looked like this:

We were ready to pitch the yeast into our cleaned fermentation vessels, which are stainless steel beer kegs that my husband procured for the fermentation. After moving the juice from the Poland Spring jug into the kegs, we moved the kegs into our refrigerator which my husband converted into a temperature controlled (at 62 ^oF) environment, to ensure a slow and long fermentation.

1. VID253, The Regents of the University of California 2007, Lesson 6 – Page 8 of 25.
2. Scott Labs Yeast Rehydration Protocol
3. MoreWine! Inc, Guide to White Wine Making

Got Juice

I am a little behind in posting the activities that occurred on Saturday, September 26th after the grape stomping. The videos were located on my husband's camera and he uploaded it for me today. So, here is a video of the juice that came out of one of the bags that we stomped ala "I Love Lucy".

We collected the juice in the sanitized Poland Spring 5 gallon jug. Following good sanitation practices, my husband cleaned all of the equipment we used with PBW followed by a distilled water wash then, Saniclean followed by a distilled water wash.

As we collected the juice, we put in 1/8th teaspoon of potassium metabisulfite to kill any microorganisms as well as to prevent oxidation. After we got all of the juice, we pitched in the other 1/8th teaspoon of potassium metabisulfite so that we had approximately 50 ppm free sulfur dioxide in the juice.
We took the Brix (22 ^oBrix) and specific gravity readings (1.089) with the hydrometer.

The juice then went into our refrigerator for the cold settling step to remove grape solids. We are dedicating our spare refrigerator to the fermentation. On day 2 of settling, the juice looked like this:

Crush 2015

After harvesting our Chenin Blanc, the key thing was to take the fruit to the crush pad (aka home basement) as soon as possible. Since our home is minutes away from our vineyard, this was not a problem. We weighed the harvest and it came in at 65 pounds. I was a little disappointed because I had done a pre-calculation and was hoping for approximately 90 pounds, since I thought that 90 pounds would give us about 5 gallons of juice.
Prior to harvest, one of the dilemmas was how to crush such a small amount of fruit under sanitary conditions to extract the juice. We didn't have a problem with the lack of a distemmer because we had already decided to press the grapes on the rachis, i.e. whole cluster pressing.
Our solution was to use our cooler, which is food grade and put the grapes into food grade nylon bags used by beer brewers for steeping their hops and grains. Our friends filled up the bags with the grapes. Once the bags were filled with grapes, it went into the cooler. Okay, now what, you ask.

Well, I am really found of the traditional way of doing things so I would often tell my husband that I wanted to stomp on the grapes like they used to do in the old country. This year, my wish came true. In preparation for grape stomping, our friends put on the very effective foot protection, called a Hefty Jumbo Bag with adjustable sliders then they stomped on the grapes in a good rendition of "I Love Lucy---Grape Stomping Episode". Okay, I know that some of you are too young to remember "I Love Lucy", so here is the link to the Grape Stomping Episode. Here is our own version of channeling Lucy:

This turned out to be a very gentle and but effective way of getting out the juice because from 65 pounds of grapes, our yield was 6 gallons of juice!

Harvest 2015

Yesterday, Saturday September 26, was harvest day for us. We couldn't have picked a nicer day with temperatures in the mid 50's at 7 a.m. with no breeze. Our picking crew arrived and we began the harvest of our Chenin Blanc. The early morning is a good time to pick grapes because the bees are not out, although it must be said that the netting we used kept all manner of flying insects away from our developing grapes so that they remained very healthy and intact.

From previous count, we know that we have around 360 bunches of grapes to harvest and 153 plants that are bearing this fruit. The plants are scattered in 17 rows so my husband drove his tractor while we followed and harvested two rows at a time. It took us from 7:15 to 8:45 to harvest the Chenin Blanc. In the photos below, my husband has picked out one of the Chenin Blanc clusters that grew with a wing.

Harvest, done!

2010 Domaine Huet Le Mont

We are in the process of preparing to harvest our 320 bunches of Chenin Blanc. Our gold standard for Chenin Blanc is Domaine Huet. Recently, we had this 2010 Le Mont and it was sublime. So, the question is, how do we try to emulate our gold standard. We only have 320 bunches which we think will yield approximately 5 gallons of juice. My husband has been doing a lot of online research into the appropriate accoutrement for the making of the best wine in small lots. One of the articles he consulted was called Research On Chenin Blanc published in 2006 by Wineland and written by Dr Johann Marais of ARC Infruitec-Nietvoorbij, Stellenbosch. This article lead us to procure the yeast, QA 23 from Lalvin. The summary of the research indicated that:
"Berry size, sunlight exposure, grape ripeness, yeast strain, lees contact, pH, air and nitrogen sparging have a prominent effect on Chenin blanc wine quality and shelf life. Results, obtained under the conditions of this investigation, suggest that yeast strain QA 23 together with enzyme treatment during lees contact, were the best parameters for the production of Chenin blanc wines where lees character and more body are required. The ageing potential of Chenin blanc wine was markedly enhanced by an increase in pH of 0.3 units. Furthermore, it appears that wines produced from grapes with small berries, ripened under shady conditions and harvested at full ripeness showed the best potential to keep longer. Aspects such as oxygen management after fermentation up to bottling are of crucial importance."