Vintage 2020:MLF for our Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc

On Thursday, November 26, 2020, I blogged about Vintage 2020: Racking Our Reds After Fermentation. The next step after racking is to inoculate the wine with malolactic acid bacteria to enable converting of the malic acid to lactic acid. We did this step on November 24, 2020 using VP41 as our choice of MLF bacteria.
We chose VP41 because it is an Oenococcus oeni known for its tolerance to high alcohol and low pH conditions. But it has many other qualities that make it a very good choice for malolactic fermentation such as:¹

• pH tolerance > 3.1
• Alcohol tolerance: up to 16% volume
• SO₂ tolerance: up to 60 mg/L total SO₂
• T° tolerance > 16°C
• Low nutrition demand
• Good implantation
• MLF Kinetic: Fast
• Low volatile acidity production
• Bacteria cinnamyl esterase negative: cannot produce precursors for ethylphenol production by Brettanomyces
• No production of biogenic amines
• Co-inoculation recommended

When we went to Jonathan Edwards Winery to inoculate our 2020 Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc, we retrieved samples of those wines as well as our 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc to do a comparison. We also tested the 2019 and 2020 samples for the pH and titratable acids:

Sample	pH	TA
2019 Cabernet Franc	3.57	8.5 g/L
2019 Cabernet Sauvignon	3.57	7.0 g/L
2020 Cabernet Franc	3.22	8.5 g/L
2020 Cabernt Sauvignon	3.27	7.5 g/L

Here are the results of the paper chromatography that my husband ran on those samples:

After running the paper chromatography, we had to wait approximately 24 hours for the spots to develop but when it did, we were pleasantly surprised. The paper chromatography revealed that for the 2019 wines, all of the malic acid had been converted to lactic acid. In comparison, the 2020 wines had not yet been inoculated so having malic acid preent is not a surprise.

Our next step is to do the paper chromatography on the MLF completed 2020 Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc.
References:
1. Lalvin VP41.

1995 Romanée Saint-Vivant and Duck for Dinner

My husband brought up this 1995 Romanée Saint-Vivant from our cellar for Thanksgiving. With the first sip that I took, I knew that I loved this wine! I don't have a good memory when it comes to wines that I've already tasted and blogged about like the February 24, 2018 blog on this same 1995 Sylvain Cathiard Romanee-Saint-Vivant Grand Cru and I liked the wine then. My tastebuds immediately approved the choice, there must be some kind of gustatory memory at work here. The wine was clear in the glass and for all it's 25 years was very fresh on the palate with a generous dose of black raspberries and a smooth, silky finish. Outstanding!
My husband said that we have 2 more bottles of this wine in our cellar, but he thinks that it is drinking at it's peak right now.
We paired the wine with duck breast with berry sauce, mushroom medley and blistered green beans.
The one thing missing from our dinner was our family and friends. Hopefully next year will be a return to tradition!

Vintage 2020: Racking Our Reds After Fermentation

Our Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc were harvested on Thursday, October 22, 2020. On the following day, we went to Jonathan Edwards Winery where the grapes were destemmed and put into half ton bins to undergo a cold maceration. During this process, the anthocyanins that are located in the grape skins leach into the extracted juice and begin the process of giving color to the juice. This process took three days and on Sunday, October 25, 2020 we went back to Jonathan Edwards Winery to inoculate the must using the yeast F15 for the Cabernet Sauvignon and FX10 for the Cabernet Franc.
We went to the winery to do daily punch downs and by November 4, hydrometer readings indicated that the fermentation was completed. The next task was to rack the wine from the half ton bin and put it into the press. We went to Jonathan Edwards Winery on Friday, November 20, 2020 for the racking. It turned out to be a beautiful day and we were very glad because this week the temperatures dipped into the 20s. Here we are getting ready for the pressing.

First, most of the juice was pumped into the press and then the berries that were left in the half ton bin were put into the press. Here are Jay and Jonathan accomplishing this step:

The wine that was extracted from this process was a beautiful sight to our eyes.

The wine was then put into a 75-gallon stainless steel tank. Fortunately, each of the two varieties fit into their own 75-gallon tanks.
Today is Thanksgiving so we want to wish everyone a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

Vintage 2020: Our Barbera is Wine

This is our first attempt at making Barbera from the limited harvest that we had. How did our Barbera turn into wine? Here is a short recap: We harvested our Barbera on October 28, 2020 and meticulously destemmed the grapes by hand over three days. The cold maceration of the Barbera lasted from Friday, October 30 to Wednesday, November 4, 2020 after that we inoculated the must with the yeast F83. We routinely did punch downs of the Barbera.

On November 14, we took a sample to do a hydrometer reading to test if the fermentation was over. The -0.4 specific gravity reading indicated that our juice had turned into wine. We took a sample of the juice to taste.

We put the glass of wine that we retrieved into our refrigerator. The wine separated out into a layer of dark, purple wine with a bottom layer of lees.
We had a "real" Barbera opened so we did a side by side tasting. The real Barbera is on the left hand side, a 2018 Damilano Barbera d'Asti and our Barbera is pictured on the right. The color of our Barbera measured up to the Damilano and our Barbera did indeed taste like Barbera!

Our next step is to rack the Barbera and squeeze the wine from the grapes and put it into a stainless steel keg for a bit of aging.

Vintage 2020: Chenin Blanc Racking

Todays blog is about where our 2020 Chenin Blanc is at on it's trajectory to becoming wine. Here is a short recap. We harvested the Chenin Blanc on Sunday, October 11, 2020 with the help of our dedicated friends. It was important that our entire harvest be brought in on Sunday because the forecast was for rain on Monday. Our friends stayed till darkness to ensure that our 12 half-ton bins were safely loaded onto the flatbed truck driven by Bill. We brought the harvest to Jonathan Edwards Winery where it went safely indoors until pressing.
The Chenin Blanc was pressed the following day, Monday, October 12, 2020 and the weather gods were kind to us, holding off the heavy rains until later that evening. The final total weight of the harvest was 8201 pounds! The pressed juice went into two 591 gallon tanks for settling.
On October 14, the cold settled juice was racked off the gross lees and put into a holding tote while the tanks were cleaned. The juice was put back into the tanks and was warmed overnight to 62 degrees F in preparation for yeast inoculation. On October 15, the juice was inoculated with QA23. Fermentation commenced and the finished wines were in the tanks until a few days ago.
On November 8, 2020 Jonathan Edwards took a hydrometer reading and indeed the fermentation had finished. A plan was made to move the finished wine into a holding tote and then to clean the tanks and combine the finished wines and put them into one tank.

Our plan was executed on November 10, 2020. The wines were transferred into the totes and we got down to clean the tanks. This time, there was tartrate that needed to come off of the tanks so the cleaning took a bit longer. I was able to get into the tank and see for myself what the scuz was all about.
When the tanks were cleaned, the finished wines were put back into the tank. The wine took up the entire volume of the 591 gallon which is the middle tank shown in the bottom photo. There was enough wine that the overflow went into two 15 gallon kegs and a few glass carboys.

This was an exciting day for us and we thank Jonathan Edwards for helping to shepard our Chenin Blanc grapes into wine. My husband and I reflected that the wine that was in the glass carboys was the entirety of our 2016 harvest. Things have certainly changed!

2018 Masseria Li Veli Susumaniello

A few weeks ago, my husband brought home this wine from our local purveyor, Cask and Keg. We drank it with one of our meals and I was intrigued by the dark ruby-purple color of the wine and the taste that reminded me of Barbera, but I wasn't really paying attention. It tasted very good. So my curiosity was peaked and I decided to spend some time today to do a little research into what the Susumiello grape is all about. I turned to Wine Grapes by Jancis Robinson, J. Harding and J. Vouillamoz for my first introduction to this grape variety.
Susumeniello is an ancient variety, a native Puglia grape that grows in the areas northwest and southeast of the port of Brindisi and more generally throughout the Salento. DNA analysis conducted in 2007 revealed that Susumeniello is the result of a presumably natural cross between the Italian leading variety Garganega x Uva Sacra (table grape). I mentioned this fact outloud to my husband who knows that I passionately dislike Garganega. He also expressed surprise that a red grape could be a cross between a white grape and a table grape, until I mentioned that Cabernet Sauvignon is a cross between Sauvignon Blanc and Cabernet Franc. Jancis Robinson also wrote that Garganega is one of the Founder Varieties, Susumaniello is one of the offspring.
Here is what the grape looks like:²

During the first ten years after planting, Susumaniello can be very prolific. Originally it was used as a blending grape, but after the vine ages, the crop size is dramatically reduced so in recent years, the Susumaniello with it's high sugar content and good acidity has been vinified as a single varietal wine.
The price is pocketbook friendly at $21.89. I need to taste this wine again!
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 1019-1020, Allen Lane 2012 ISBN 978-1-846-14446-2.
2. Illustration from: Wein Plus, Susumaniello.
3. Italy Abroad, Italian wine and grape guide: Susumaniello.
4. Vini di Puglia, Minor Red Grapes.

2014 Liquid Farm Santa Rita Hills Golden Slope Chardonnay

Recently, we had a break from all of the winery work that we were doing to have a very nice glass of Chardonnay with oysters. My husband dug out this 2014 Liquid Farm Santa Rita Hills Golden Slope Chardonnay to pair.

The wine was a very golden color. My initial reaction to that was that it might be a little oxidized, but it was not. The Chardonnay was a very full bodied, very well integrated oaked rendition of Chardonnay. I have to fess, I'm not a fan of oaked Chardonnay but this was a very good one.
My husband has honed his skill in shucking oysters and I am the beneficiary.

There were two kinds of oysters on the platter. There were the Patriots from Massachusetts and River Hawks from Connecticut. They were both very delicious and very briny. But here was the catch, a full bodied, oaked Chardonnay does not really pair well with a briny, succulent osyter! It was a good meal, nonetheless.

Vintage 2020: Next Steps for Our Barbera

It turned out that harvesting our Barbera on October 28, 2020 was the right thing to do. Later that evening, the temperatures dropped and although there didn't appear to be rain in the forecast, that was what we had. Then on Friday, it snowed! Here is a picture taken at Jonathan Edwards Winery on Friday when we went to do the punchdowns of our Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon.

We finished picking off all of the grape berries from the rachis of the Barbera on Friday and then put it into the food grade plastic trash bin to macerate. This is the process of getting out the color molecules, the anthocyanins from the skins of the Barbera. We let it cold macerate from Friday, October 30 to Wednesday, November 4, 2020. On Wednesday afternoon, we decided to begin our fermentation of the Barbera. We used the yeast F83. We assumed that we might have about 9 gallons of Barbera so we used the entire package of F83 which contained 8 grams. We rehydrated it in 100 mL of water at 100 degrees F for 20 minutes.

After the rehydration, we tempered the yeast with the Barbera juice and added the 100 mL juice in two aliquots at 10 minutes for each of the additions. The temperature of the must was 66 degrees so at the end of the second addition of the must, the temperature of the yeast/must mixture was at 73 degrees F.

We inoculated the must with the rehydrated and tempered yeast at 3:15 p.m. Now, it is a matter of punching down the Barbera and patiently waiting for the juice to turn into wine.

Vintage 2020: Harvesting our First Crop of Barbera

We harvested our first crop of Barbera last Wednesday when there was a break in the rain. The harvest took place in between the punchdowns of our Cabs that we were doing at the Jonathan Edwards Winery, three times a day. My husband and I did the harvest by ourselves because it was "just" one row of Barbera.

We managed to harvest 8 lugs worth of Barbera and then headed to the Jonathan Edwards Winery to do the last punchdown of the day. We shared a cluster of the Barbera with Jonathan Edwards. The Barbera had a lot of sugar but the acids were also making their presence known.
Since we don't have a destemmer and the amount of grapes was too little to ask Jonathan Edwards if we could use his destemmer, I had the bright idea that we could destem the grapes by ourselves. What does that mean? That means to pick off each grape from it's rachis by hand. Usually my husband pooh-poohs my ideas but this time he agreed! We spent a little of Wednesday and much of Thursday and Friday hand destemming our Barbera. After we destemmed 2-1/2 lugs of Barbera which filled a 5 gallon plastic container, we realized that our initial fermentation container was too small so we went to Home Depot to get a food grade 32 gallon plastic trash bin.

The trash bin was the perfect container for the 8 lugs worth of grapes that we believe amounted to around 110 pounds. At the moment, it is in the process of cold maceration, extracting the anthocyanins, the red color from the skins. We did take some numbers for this juice and it was:

Variety	Weight	Volume of Juice	Brix	pH	TA
Barbera	110 pounds	9 gallons	23.4	3.05	12.0 g/L