Harvest 2016

The weather report for this week was not a good one if harvest time is on the horizon. Decisions have to be made and yesterday(actually, Monday morning), we decided that we could not wait to harvest our small crop of Chenin blanc with the upcoming rains on Tuesday morning, followed by more rain in the forecast for Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. While we knew that things could change, we couldn't disregard the 1/2-1 inch of rain expected Monday night into Tuesday, so the decision was made to harvest the crop. We emailed our friends in the morning and they were available to come and help pick the wedding bags, so the crew was assembled and the harvest time was set at 1 p.m. It was a beautiful day with temperatures in the 60's all day long. The only complication was that my husband was blowing out the irrigation lines in preparation for winter.
The harvest itself took only 45 minutes and 7 yellow lugs full of wedding bags were harvested.

We brought the harvest home and the first thing was to supply the crew with sustenance for the difficult task of debagging to follow. All hands were busy untying the bags and taking out the booty.

The full lugs were weighed: 118.5 pounds
The next "task" was to juice the grapes. We returned to the method we used last year in which we used our Igloo cooler and foot protection (plastic bags) to stomp our grapes. Barry took it up a notch when he located the sound track for Zorba the Greek. Great fun was had by all!

Vineyard Sightings

Our 2 nano-harvests, a half gallon of Auxerrois and almost a half gallon of Chardonnay are fermenting away in our fermentation chamber (repurposed chest freezer) in the basement. Although it is now technically "fall", the temperatures have been in the 80's until today. We have a week of cooler weather coming up and hope our second harvest of Chenin blanc can reach at least 22 Brix. We have had an extremely dry, hot summer and looking at our test results, the titratable acids of our Chenin blanc seems very low at 7.4 g/L. While we ponder these results, we have been greeted by the site of an adult and juvenile goshawk on the land. Awesome! These blurry pictures has my husband thinking about getting a camera with a telephoto lens.

2011 Monsanto Chianti Classico Riserva

We had this 2011 Monsanto Chianti Reserva with spaghetti. With five years of age on it, the wine was medium-heavy body, yet it was smooth drinking. The label on the back of the bottle explained that this wine was made from 90% Sangiovese and the remainder comprised of Canaiolo and Colorino. We purchased it for around $20.00 and feel that it could be our go to wine for pizzas as well.
I was interested in learning more about Castello di Monsanto located in Tuscany and found an interview conducted by David Lynch:
A Conversation with Laura Bianchi of Castello Monsanto
It is about 10 minutes long, but worth listening to the the daughter of Fabrizio Bianchi who founded the winery after it was presented to him as a wedding gift from his parents in 1962.

Harvesting Organza Wedding Bags

We harvested about 1/3rd of our organza wedding bags on Saturday morning from 7-9:30. For information on how we got there, please read the blogpost: Bird Damage and Wedding Bags in the Vineyard.
The short story is that we were too late to order the type of netting that we wanted and went to plan B---wedding bags.
We simply cut the peduncle, (that is the attachment point of the grape cluster to the shoot) bags and all. When we got home, we had the task of taking the grape clusters out of the bags. We harvested this lot because we noticed that some of the grapes were turning into raisins and some of the clusters Brix readings were headed north of 24 ^oBrix. We counted approximately 300 clusters that were so afflicted and a few others so that we could have a decent amount of volume for fermenting. The raisining possibly can be attributed to the fact that it has been a really dry year in Connecticut, and the United States Drought Monitor Website shows our region of Connecticut to be in the severe drought zone.

Not all of our grape clusters showed this type of raisining, (ironically, kind of an early, late harvest flavor profile). We have about 2/3rds more to harvest. The clusters that constitute this first harvest were already at 20 ^oBrix on September 6th.
We weighed the clusters and determined that we had about 42 pounds of fruit. We juiced the fruit following the protocol we used in 2015, using the same Igloo cooler.
The information on the juice is:

• Brix = 20
• pH = 3.0

We did attempt to take a reading of the titratable acids (TA) with our Vinmetrica SC-300 Pro, but the reagents had expired. (Who knew that 0.13N sodium hydroxide (NaOH) expires!)
Note: Order new reagents every year.
New reagents are on order and we should receive them by Wednesday.
When all was said and done, we had about 4 gallons of juice which we put into our fermentation chamber to settle out the gross suspended soluble solids.
This first harvest is slightly less volume that the total harvest that we had last year (350 clusters, 65 pounds, 5 gallons yielding twenty-four 750 mL bottles). This was a good prelude and practice for the "real" harvest soon to come.

2015 Karl Pfaffmann Spatburgunder

Our son also brought this 2015 Karl Pfaffmann Spatburgunder when he came on Labor Day Weekend, along with the 2015 Julian Haart Riesling 1000L and the 2015 Lauer Riesling Barrel X that he purchased from Federal Wine and Spirits. When he asked what "Spatburgunder" meant, he was told that it meant "late burgundy", in other words, a wine made from Pinot noir. My husband made his delicious duck breast with berry sauce to go along with this German Pinot noir. We thought it would be interesting to compare/contrast the Old World Pinot, with a New World Pinot, a 2002 Kistler Sonoma Coast Pinot noir. It is not a fair comparison because of the difference in age and the Spatburgunder was made in a cool climate, so again, not a very fair comparison. The Spatburgunder was sparkling purple in color. The label said that it was 13% alcohol. Suffice it to say that both Pinots were consumed and no one complained. Since our son paid around $13.00 for the Spatburgunder, I'd say it was a very palatable Pinot for the price.
Note: For more information on how the Germans classify their wines, please check out this blogpost: 1976 Auslese.

Late Bloomer

All of a sudden, the light switch has gone off on summer and we are now in a period of warm, dry days and cool nights.
It is just a joy to walk in the vineyard in this kind of weather, to see the ripening grapes and take Brix readings. Since we've been having a lot of rain, interesting things other than grapes can also be found in the vineyard. Such as this mushroom which I believe to be a puffball. Although, I'm doing my job, my husband, who has been busy weed wacking and mowing the vineyard alleys might call what I am doing, lollygagging.
Not only did I take a picture of this mushroom, I saw a comma butterfly and tried to take it's picture. But, since I had some grape juice on my hand, the butterfly landed on my right hand, preventing me from taking it's picture. A more cooperative subject was found when I saw this inflorescence at the top of some new growth that is occurring on one of our more mature vines.

How does this happen? I thought that vines needed an overwintering cycle? My hypothesis---it may be on a summer lateral and may be the second crop. If so, it is a very late bloomer and the only cluster in our second crop.

Auxerrois Harvest

During the Labor Day weekend, we were constantly checking the track of hurricane Hermine up the East Coast. We had a small amount of Auxerrois that we had been babying to ripeness and decided on Monday afternoon to harvest the grapes. There were approximately 70 clusters so it took no time at all to get the grapes harvested, but we did the harvest while the winds were gusting to at least 20 mph!

When we brought the grapes home, the approximately 70 clusters weighed 8.5 pounds. I know, it is a very small amount. We put the fruit in our refrigerator to cool the grapes in order to preserve as much of the aromatics as we could. We deliberated on the best way to extract the juice.

On September 6, we brought the grapes out of the refrigerator and put them into the nylon bag and placed the bag in a food grade container. We began to squeeze the grapes by hand to extract the juice. Once we had enough juice, we strained the juice into a glass container that could hold a gallon of juice.

We marked the container at various levels so that we would know how much juice was extracted. We also put in approximately 50 ppm of potassium metabisulfite, (this is a very small amount: 1/4 teaspoon in 6 gallons of juice equals about 50 ppm, so 1/10th of this amount was used) to take care of any yeast or bacteria that could begin fermention and also to deactivate the polyphenol oxidase that could turn the juice brown. When all was said and done, we had a little over half a gallon of juice. About 10 milliliters of juice was removed before we moved the gallon jug into our temperature controlled fermentation chamber for the first cold settling to remove the gross soluble solids.
Several measurements were taken on the juice which gave the following starting information:

• Brix = 20
• pH = 3.25
• TA = 6.8 grams/Liter

Next step, fermentation.

Perseverance in the Vineyard

We thought we were very clever this year in bagging our grape clusters with organza wedding bags. However, we have been seeing a handful of bags with what we can only surmise are bird peckings. They are such tiny holes, but it must have taken a lot of perseverance for a bird to make these holes. Where do they perch? How long does it take to make the hole? What do they encounter when they reach the grape? Is the sugar content so low that they are repulsed? I wondered.

Since there was no damage to the cluster. I just made a mental note of the pecking until I discovered the following on Friday, September 2, when I was doing a walk though of the vineyard.
Yikes! Where is the bag!!! Since I was one row over, I had to peer through the grape branches and I saw the bag. I made my way to the row and found the bag in the following condition.

There was a large tear in the bag, along with small pecking holes. I showed my husband and he thought that it might be a badger until he realized that it might have been that he mowed over the bag and created the hole. Nonetheless, it was a disturbing site. We will have to be more vigilant and ensure that further midsadventures and perseverance of the bird kind will not happen. No, not in our vineyard!

2015 Lauer Riesling Barrel X

Another wine that Brett and Laura brought over the Labor Day weekend was this 2015 Lauer Riesling Barrel X. This is another wine that Brett procured from Federal Wine and Spirits in Boston, MA. This is the third wine that we tried along with the 2015 Julian Haart Riesling 1000L, with our Asian meal. Brett told us that it might be a little fizzy (petillant or sparkling are other words that can be used for intentional fizz). Indeed, there were a few bubbles that emanated from the pour. Like the Julian Haart Riesling, this Saar Riesling was made dry. There were a lot of aromatics in the nose and the finish reminded me somewhat of a Gewürztraminer, so I wonder is there a bit of Gewürztraminer in the wine? This is another wine under $20.00 and a good value.

Refractometry: Checking for the Brix Level

We have been walking our vineyard to check on the Brix, or the sugar content of our Chenin blanc with our handheld refractometer. Although we have a few outlier Chenin blanc clusters whose Brix are already at 20^o, the majority of the Chenin blanc are between 10-14 ^oBrix. The cluster shown at the left is at 14 ^oBrix.
We had our friend Bob come and help us in the vineyard and I showed Bob how we took a reading with the refractometer. Since he is a retired ER physician, he wanted to know how the refractometer worked to measure the sugar. I was kind of at a loss to explain the physics of the refractometer, so I thought I would look into it and blog about it here.

The first thing to understand about how a handheld refractometer works is to define refractive index (RI):
Refractive Index: is the ratio of the speed of light traveling through a vacuum to the speed of light in the material being tested.
The physics of light is such that when it passes from a medium of one refractive index to one with a different refractive index, the light bends (refracts) at the interface, rather than passing straight through. The amount it bends or, in technical jargon, the angle of refraction, depends on the difference in the two media's refractive indices. This is easily demonstrated by putting a chopstick in a glass of water. I found a really nice schematic of a handheld refractometer in Reefkeeping.

How does it work?

• Light enters from the left and passes through the liquid sample
• The light hits the prism at the bottom of the liquid, it is slowed more than in the liquid because the prism has a higher refractive index
• As the light then travels down the refractometer, it passes through several lenses and lands on a scale
• The optical wedge that is mounted on the bi-metallic strip moves the lenses in response to temperature changes, ensuring that the readings are accurate regardless of temperature

• The bending of the light at the liquid/prism interface (this is where refractive index plays a role) sends the light higher or lower on the scale's grid
• The light covers a portion of the scale, and the remainder is dark
• Look through the viewfinder on the other end and read where the light is falling on the scale

In grapes, the refractometer scale (in degrees Brix) will measure the sugar content, in reality, it is measuring the amount of soluble solids but since sugar is the major component in the soluble solids, the scale is a good approximation of the sugar content in the grapes.
References:
1. Reefkeeping.
2. Refractometry; Savitribai phule pune UNIVERSITY SEMINAAR ON Miss. SNEHAL K. DHOBALE M-PHARMACY – SEMESTER-1 YEAR 2014-15 Padm. Dr. D.Y.PATIL COLLEGE OF PHARMACY,AKURDI, PUNE. GUIDED BY, PROF. M.T. MOHITE.
3. Hand Held Refractometer.

2015 Julian Haart Riesling 1000L

Our son, Brett and his wife, Laura are visiting us this Labor Day weekend and they brought with them a few wines from Federal Wine and Spirits in Boston, MA.
A few weeks ago Brett brought us a Gamay that he purchased from Federal Wine and Spirits at a wine tasting that he attended and we liked it. He is introducing us to some wines that we would not have known about, and that's a good thing.
This weekend, he brought 3 wines, this is the first wine that I'll be writing about. It is a 2015 Julian Haart Riesling that we drank with Asian style lettuce cups and Japchae. We thought that it was a very well made Riesling evincing the typicity of a dry style which really suits our palate.
Later, our son brought out the tasting notes that he got when he went to Federal Wine and Spirits. We wondered what 1000L meant, the explanation is that the wine is named after the traditional 1000 liter barrel used in the Mosel. According to the tasting notes, Julian Haart's estate is slightly larger than 4 hectacres. Julian's joy in winemaking is doing everything by himself, or with his wife Nadine and a few friends. We heartily subscribe to his joy in winemaking philosophy. But will add one more---the joy in winemaking is preceded by hard work and care in the vineyard.
This wine is an exceptional value at below $20.00 and will go under my Wines Under $20 Tab.

Rain at Harvest: Finishing the End Game

I located an excellent, if long article written by Mark Chien of Penn State Cooperative Extension titled Rain at Harvest: Finishing the End Game. This seems especially relevant to our situation this year where we are finding our grapes reaching maturity sooner than last year which was in late September. Looking into the weather forecast, we are seeing the remnants of hurricane Hermine headed our way during the Labor Day weekend. This is what Mark Chien has to say about what to do when faced with rain at harvest:

• Rain is only one factor that forces growers to pick fruit before it is fully mature. Others include disease, birds, and frost. All will compromise wine quality if they shut down the vintage early. Keep fruit protected and clean, i.e. use nets and keep spraying even after veraison.
• Too much moisture on the fruit can be as bad as in the soil. Pick the grapes when they are dry. That may be difficult in our humid conditions with morning dew. If it rained at night, wait for the fruit to dry. Leaf blowesr can be used to blow moisture from the clusters and canopy prior to harvest.
• Do not let rain accumulate in grape bins. If it starts raining, bins need to be covered or moved under cover. Should macrobins have drain holes or not? That is a perennial question. Some varieties juice more than others and that juice is lost. But if it rains, it is certainly helpful to allow the water to drain. Some growers have used holes with plugs.
• Manage your yields carefully. This has to do with getting the grapes in the barn as soon as possible. Over-cropping will delay ripening and expose the fruit to more risk on the vine.
• Harvest fast. In some situations a machine harvester is the most expedient tool (and expensive). But if it is an option it should be in the decision loop. If not a machine, then a large enough, skilled crew of pickers (i.e. not friends, family, Kelly girls, etc.).
• Sorting fruit is really, really important, not just for stinkbugs and lady beetles but also rot and unripe fruit. I can think of few vintages in the past dozen that would not have benefited from fruit sorting, even the dry ones. Sort as often as can be tolerated - in the field and on the crush pad (if possible before and after the destemmer). Good wine can only be made from good grapes so get the bad stuff out.
• I used to think gadgets like concentrators and rotary fermenters were a form of cheating in the cellar. Now I believe they are no worse than using irrigation in an arid region. A few years ago Parker gave these wine making gizmos his stamp of approval. They are widely used in Bordeaux as a tool, but the wise vigneron does not depend on them as a crutch. I have been told that if used properly, they may help raise a declassified wine to a second label, but never a second to first. They can just as easily ruin a wine as help it if used improperly. I have tasted some 2009 red wines that were made using a rotary fermenter and they clearly have more depth and concentration than other reds from this difficult vintage. Gino Razzi at Penns Wood Winery told me that he think 75% of all wines would benefit from the proper use of a rotary fermenter. Saignée is the traditional method for dealing with grapes that have been diluted by rain and can work well if done correctly.