Thursday, December 31, 2020
Monday, December 28, 2020
Vintage 2020: December Weather Highs and Lows
When is a single dandelion worth taking a picture of? When it blooms on December 3rd.
We have been working in the vineyard during the month of December. On December 3, we were still rolling and tying up the netting in preparation for winter. The weather was a balmy 48 degrees and it was good to be outdoors and working.
We finished rolling and tying up the netting on December 11 and took in the clothespins and secured the ends of the netting.
This is probably the earliest that we have managed to roll up the netting in the entire vineyard. Truth be told, there are still a few clothespins out there that need to come in.
In between working in the vineyard, when inclement weather was on the radar, we were in our basement preparing to bottle our Chardonnay, which we did on December 12.
On December 17, we had our first major snowstorm of this winter, although we did have a snowfall on October 30, which didn't really stick on the ground. This time we had a decent amount of snow, perhaps 6 inches, which was on the low side of what the forecast was calling for (6-12 inches).
We weren't able to go to the vineyard, but our hunter sent us these photos:
Looking at these photos from our hunter brought to my mind the Robert Frost poem, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
The snow on December 17 was washed away by the rains and winds that came on Christmas day. Only three more days left in December, 2020. The forecast looks uneventful.
We finished rolling and tying up the netting on December 11 and took in the clothespins and secured the ends of the netting.
In between working in the vineyard, when inclement weather was on the radar, we were in our basement preparing to bottle our Chardonnay, which we did on December 12.
On December 17, we had our first major snowstorm of this winter, although we did have a snowfall on October 30, which didn't really stick on the ground. This time we had a decent amount of snow, perhaps 6 inches, which was on the low side of what the forecast was calling for (6-12 inches).
We weren't able to go to the vineyard, but our hunter sent us these photos:
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
The snow on December 17 was washed away by the rains and winds that came on Christmas day. Only three more days left in December, 2020. The forecast looks uneventful.
Monday, December 21, 2020
The Most Expensive Wine
Recently, I felt the need to search the Internet for what the most expensive wine in the world might be. I was not disappointed. The 2008 Aszú grape, sells for $40,000 a bottle.
This article in Fortune details why the wine is so expensive. The Tokaji Essencia is made from grapes grown in the Carpathian foothills of northeastern Hungary. The wine is made entirely from the Aszú grape,
each grape must be harvested by hand, it can take more than 400 pounds of grapes and 8 years for the fermentation to produce one bottle of this precious liquor. In addition, it's not just any Aszú grape, but grapes that have attained their high concentration of sugar due to the attack by the botrytis cinerea mold leading to "noble rot" that goes into the Essencia.
(Aside: In 2018 we let our grapes hang too long hoping for an increase in Brix and then the rains came. When harvest time arrived, we lost 2/3rds of our crop and the bunches that were left had a serious amount of rot which lead our friend to call this "ignoble rot". Funny guy!)
Given all the conditions necessary, in addition to cooperation from Mother Nature, the 2008 vintage yielded only 18 bottles of Tokaji Essencia. If you are ever served a 2008 Tokaji Essencia, don't expect to drink it from a glass, it will be served to you in a crystal spoon!
Why was I so interested in the most expensive wine in the world? Well, recently, we harvested our wedding bags that we put around part of our Chardonnay which we couldn't harvest. Our intention was to harvest these wedding bags so that we could make a late harvest wine like we did in 2019 Last Harvest of the Year, which took place on November 19, 2019.
Well, one thing lead to another and we weren't able to get out to the vineyard until December 11, 2020 and we lamented that we were probably one month too late to harvest these wedding bags. In October, the grapes looked beautiful in the wedding bags, but what we harvested was anything but. They were shrivelled, some were totally raisined, not at all promising.
But, waste not, want not, so we put all of the grapes from the wedding bags into a mash bag. We might have had about 5 pounds of grapes from 6 lugs of wedding bags, or approximately 300 bags of shrivelled grapes.
I was in charge of squeezing the mash bag. It was like getting liquid out of rocks, but in the end there was some juice that I could recover. What juice that was squeezed was put into a dessert bottle which we had nearby since we had been bottling.
The juice was almost black in color. I apologize since I didn't take a photo---what was I thinking? I put the juice in the refrigerator and when I looked at it the next day the larger particles had settled and the juice had clarified. That's when I took the Brix reading of the juice and it was off the scale of the refractometer. What I did was to carefully dilute a drop of juice with a drop of water and now, I had a reading of 19 oBrix. Since the dilution was one-to-one (this is by no means scientific!) I doubled the Brix to get a reading of 38 oBrix for the juice.
Next, I "racked" the juice from the dessert bottle leaving behind the heavy lees and put the clarified juice into a sparkling style bottle. Before putting the juice into the bottle, I sprinkled in a bit of QA23 yeast that we had lying around. Here is what I am now seeing:
The juice is definitely being fermented and the aroma from the "fermentation lock" is definitely honey sweet. It's an interesting experiment. If this isn't quite Tokaji Essencia, it's at least got to be Felix Felicis.
References;
1.Clay Dillow, Fortune, 2008 Tokaji Essencia, March 9, 2019.
Given all the conditions necessary, in addition to cooperation from Mother Nature, the 2008 vintage yielded only 18 bottles of Tokaji Essencia. If you are ever served a 2008 Tokaji Essencia, don't expect to drink it from a glass, it will be served to you in a crystal spoon!
Why was I so interested in the most expensive wine in the world? Well, recently, we harvested our wedding bags that we put around part of our Chardonnay which we couldn't harvest. Our intention was to harvest these wedding bags so that we could make a late harvest wine like we did in 2019 Last Harvest of the Year, which took place on November 19, 2019.
Well, one thing lead to another and we weren't able to get out to the vineyard until December 11, 2020 and we lamented that we were probably one month too late to harvest these wedding bags. In October, the grapes looked beautiful in the wedding bags, but what we harvested was anything but. They were shrivelled, some were totally raisined, not at all promising.
The juice was almost black in color. I apologize since I didn't take a photo---what was I thinking? I put the juice in the refrigerator and when I looked at it the next day the larger particles had settled and the juice had clarified. That's when I took the Brix reading of the juice and it was off the scale of the refractometer. What I did was to carefully dilute a drop of juice with a drop of water and now, I had a reading of 19 oBrix. Since the dilution was one-to-one (this is by no means scientific!) I doubled the Brix to get a reading of 38 oBrix for the juice.
Next, I "racked" the juice from the dessert bottle leaving behind the heavy lees and put the clarified juice into a sparkling style bottle. Before putting the juice into the bottle, I sprinkled in a bit of QA23 yeast that we had lying around. Here is what I am now seeing:
References;
1.Clay Dillow, Fortune, 2008 Tokaji Essencia, March 9, 2019.
Wednesday, December 16, 2020
Update on the Fate of Our Chardonnay Experiment
On September 28, 2019, with the help of our friends, we harvested a small amount of Chardonnay. We thought we had about 290 pounds of grapes. Our friends helped us to stomp on the grapes which we put into mash bags as whole clusters and collected the juice as gravity flow into the kegs waiting in our basement. When this process was done, we had juice in three kegs. The largest amount went into a 15 gallon keg and we thought we had around 12 gallons of juice. The remaining juice went into two smaller kegs each containing around 6 gallons of juice.
The experiment we conducted with this small amount of juice was to see how three yeasts, X16, D47 and CH9 affected the aroma and flavor profiles of the resultant wine. We inoculated the kegs on October 3, 2019 and the fermentation took over three weeks to come to completion. While the X16 and D47 inoculated wines were in a temperature controlled fermentation chamber, the CH9 was fermented outside of the chamber since we didn't have enough space for it.
I blogged about the properties of these three yeasts on January 11, 2020 in a blogpost called Chardonnay Fermentation Experiments. In May, we checked the sulfur dioxide levels of the three kegs and added some potassium metabisulfite where necessary. The wines sat on the lees until November 18, when we took the numbers for the finished wine:
On December 8, 2020, we racked the wines off the lees into clean kegs and let it warm to "room temperature" in preparation for bottling. My husband then cleaned all of the components of the bottling line. Sanitation is key to good bottling! My husband also calibrated the filler to accommodate the different bottle types that we were using.
We bottled our Chardonnay on December 12, 2020. Here is the setup of our bottling line.
In the above photo, we used argon gas to push the wine that was in the keg. The keg coupler when open allowed the argon into the keg to push the wine into the tubing which went to the 1 micron filter. The pressure gauge was there to ensure that the appropriate amount of pressure was going to the filter. If the filter got clogged, the rising pressure on the gauge will indicate that problem. Next, my husband opened up the top of the filter to allow the first of the wine to flow out and ensured that there were no bubbles trapped in the filter. Prior to bottling, we blew compressed air into the bottles to get rid of any particles if they were there. Once everything checked out we were ready to bottle.
We could fill 6 bottles at a time. I filled the bottles and my husband corked the bottles. It was a smooth 2 person operation. When all the Chardonnay was bottled, we had the following:
So, what did our experiment show? The Chardonnay fermented with X16 and D47 had great aromatics. The X16 smelled like apricots and orange blossoms while the D47 had an aroma like pineapple. My husband and I both didn't detect any aroma from the CH9 and we think it may be related to the fact that the fermentation occurred outside of the temperature controlled fermentation chamber. The next step is to see what bottle aging does to both the aroma and the flavors. Can't wait!
The experiment we conducted with this small amount of juice was to see how three yeasts, X16, D47 and CH9 affected the aroma and flavor profiles of the resultant wine. We inoculated the kegs on October 3, 2019 and the fermentation took over three weeks to come to completion. While the X16 and D47 inoculated wines were in a temperature controlled fermentation chamber, the CH9 was fermented outside of the chamber since we didn't have enough space for it.
I blogged about the properties of these three yeasts on January 11, 2020 in a blogpost called Chardonnay Fermentation Experiments. In May, we checked the sulfur dioxide levels of the three kegs and added some potassium metabisulfite where necessary. The wines sat on the lees until November 18, when we took the numbers for the finished wine:
| Chardonnay/Yeast | pH | TA | SO2 |
| Chardonnay/CH9 | 3.11 | 6.0 g/L | 27 ppm |
| Chardonnay/D47 | 3.00 | 7.9 g/L | 11 ppm |
| Chardonnay/X16 | 3.07 | 7.3 g/L | 41 ppm |
We bottled our Chardonnay on December 12, 2020. Here is the setup of our bottling line.
| Chardonnay/Yeast | Number of 750 mL bottles | Number of 375 ml bottles |
| Chardonnay/CH9 | 21 bottles | 0 |
| Chardonnay/D47 | 20 bottles | 0 |
| Chardonnay/X16 | 3 cases | 2 cases |
Thursday, December 10, 2020
Our 2020 Harvest at a Glance
Last year, I wrote a blogpost called
Our 2019 Harvest at a Glance, so I thought that this year I would continue the tradition.
The table shows that the Brix for all of the varieties, with the exception of the Auxerrois was very respectable. Our experience with Auxerrois is that if we want to harvest a grape that is in balance with respect to Brix and acidity, we need to harvest the Auxerrois when it is around 19 oBrix. This variety is always the first that we harvest. *The Auxerrois went into two stainless steel barrels and a sample from each barrel was taken so the numbers differ slightly.
When the grapes were brought into Jonathan Edwards Winery, both the Auxerrois and the Chardonnay were pressed as whole clusters. Since there was a bit more Chenin Blanc, that variety was destemmed and pressed. Our preference as we begin to think about configuring our winery is to do whole cluster pressing for all of our white varieties.
The rest of the varieties have Brix and acid levels that are unusual for our area, reflecting the exceedingly hot summer that we had along with a drought. The titratable acids for the red varieties are also very acceptable and may reflect the use of malic acid as an energy source (respiration) during the hot summer.
We were thrilled this year to have at least one barrel's worth of both the Cabernet Sauvignon and the Cabernet Franc. Currently, it both are undergoing malolactic fermentation.
Our Barbera came online this year with a very small harvest of fruit that we turned into wine. It too is currently undergoing malolactic fermentation.
| Variety | Harvest Date | Weight - Pounds | Volume of Juice |
Brix | pH | TA |
| Auxerrois* | 9/17/2020 | 1670 | 120 gallons | 19 19 |
3.06 3.07 |
7.01 g/L 8.01 g/L |
| Chardonnay | 9/24/2020 | 1136 | 75 gallons | 23.4 | 3.0 | 10 g/L |
| Chenin Blanc | 10/11/2020 | 8201 | 655 gallons | 23.3 | 3.09 | 12.1 g/L |
| Cabernet Franc | 10/22/2020 | 872 | 70 gallons | 23.5 | 3.05 | 10.2 g/L |
| Cabernet Sauvignon |
10/22/2020 | 888 | 70 gallons | 22.4 | 3.08 | 10.7 g/L |
| Barbera | 10/28/2020 | 110 | 9 gallons | 23.4 | 3.05 | 12.0 g/L |
When the grapes were brought into Jonathan Edwards Winery, both the Auxerrois and the Chardonnay were pressed as whole clusters. Since there was a bit more Chenin Blanc, that variety was destemmed and pressed. Our preference as we begin to think about configuring our winery is to do whole cluster pressing for all of our white varieties.
The rest of the varieties have Brix and acid levels that are unusual for our area, reflecting the exceedingly hot summer that we had along with a drought. The titratable acids for the red varieties are also very acceptable and may reflect the use of malic acid as an energy source (respiration) during the hot summer.
We were thrilled this year to have at least one barrel's worth of both the Cabernet Sauvignon and the Cabernet Franc. Currently, it both are undergoing malolactic fermentation.
Our Barbera came online this year with a very small harvest of fruit that we turned into wine. It too is currently undergoing malolactic fermentation.
Tuesday, December 8, 2020
Vintage 2020: Barbera Racking
On November 21, 2020, I blogged about Vintage 2020: Our Barbera is Wine. The last line of that blog was: 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.
The problem we had was one of logistics. How do we get our Barbera which we fermented in a food grade Rubbermaid trash container into a stainless steel keg.
On December 1, 2020 with the logistical challenge partially worked out we decided that it was time to rack the Barbera into a stainless steel keg. The impetus that shifted our inertia was when we discovered that the mash bags that we purchased to separate the wine from the grapes fit perfectly onto the stainless steel transfer tank. (A little side note about mash bags: We have used mash bags as a substitute for a press. Our first time we used it was in 2015 when we pressed our first harvest of Chenin Blanc.)
We envisioned that once the grapes were put into the mash bags, the wine would flow effortlessly into the stainless steel transfer tank. Not so. Some of the wine did accommodate us and flowed into the tank but the mash bag full of grapes had to be shifted to allow the juice to flow into the 15-gallon keg. Fortunately, we had food grade plastic bins nearby so that we could take the grape filled mash bags out of the stainless steel tank so that the wine could flow into the keg.
This process took approximately 90 minutes. Part of the time was dedicated to squeezing the mash bags to get all of the juice out of the Barbera. Fortunately, I had gloves on but my husband used his bare hands which resulted in him having purple hands for at least 2 days. After 90 minutes we were done! We did manage to glean all of the wine that were in the bottoms of the various bins that we used and it filled a 300 mL dessert bottle that we had nearby. My husband will dispute this but I think that we left at least one gallon of juice in the Barbera grapes.
On December 4, we inoculated the Barbera with VP41 to begin the malolactic fermentation.
On December 6, it rained all day so my husband spent the better part of the day making a lamb ragu. He also made the pasta for the ragu as well. (I know, I am a lucky girl!)
To pair with the lamb ragu, my husband brought out a 2018 Mati Barbera d'Asti and our Barbera that we had put into the dessert bottle. A side-by-side comparison of the wines in glass showed that we had good color on our wine (our Barbera is in the glass to your right.) Our wine had some nice blackberry flavors but also packed an acidic punch at the end. We hope that some of the acidity will mellow out with the malolactic fermentation.
The problem we had was one of logistics. How do we get our Barbera which we fermented in a food grade Rubbermaid trash container into a stainless steel keg.
On December 1, 2020 with the logistical challenge partially worked out we decided that it was time to rack the Barbera into a stainless steel keg. The impetus that shifted our inertia was when we discovered that the mash bags that we purchased to separate the wine from the grapes fit perfectly onto the stainless steel transfer tank. (A little side note about mash bags: We have used mash bags as a substitute for a press. Our first time we used it was in 2015 when we pressed our first harvest of Chenin Blanc.)
On December 6, it rained all day so my husband spent the better part of the day making a lamb ragu. He also made the pasta for the ragu as well. (I know, I am a lucky girl!)
Wednesday, December 2, 2020
Biochemistry Glossary by Dr. Linda Bisson
Quick Blogpost: I recently came across a link to an online biochemistry glossary released by Dr. Linda Bisson, from the University of California at Davis Department of Viticulture and Enology.
Here is the link: Biochemistry Glossary.
It's a handy document to have and once you download it, it is searchable.
Here is the link: Biochemistry Glossary.
It's a handy document to have and once you download it, it is searchable.
Monday, November 30, 2020
Vintage 2020:MLF for our Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc
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
| 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 |
References:
1. Lalvin VP41.
Saturday, November 28, 2020
1995 Romanée Saint-Vivant and Duck for Dinner
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!
Thursday, November 26, 2020
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!
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.
Today is Thanksgiving so we want to wish everyone a safe and happy Thanksgiving!
Saturday, November 21, 2020
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.
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!
Tuesday, November 17, 2020
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!
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.
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.
Friday, November 13, 2020
2018 Masseria Li Veli Susumaniello
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
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.
Wednesday, November 11, 2020
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.
My husband has honed his skill in shucking oysters and I am the beneficiary.
Friday, November 6, 2020
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.
Monday, November 2, 2020
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:
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.
| Variety | Weight | Volume of Juice |
Brix | pH | TA |
| Barbera | 110 pounds | 9 gallons | 23.4 | 3.05 | 12.0 g/L |