Vintage 2020: Next Steps for the Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc

We left the Cabernet Sauvignon and the Cabernet Franc in their half ton bins at the Jonathan Edwards Winery undergoing a "cold" maceration until Sunday, October 25, 2020 when we went back to inoculate the must. Jonathan Edwards was harvesting his Cabernet Franc at this time so we were able to repay his kindness by helping to harvest his grapes. Around 1 p.m. we rehydrated our yeast, F15 for the Cabernet Sauvignon and FX10 for the Cabernet Franc.

We calculated that we might have at most 80 gallons of juice. The yeasts that we had chosen came in convenient 80 gram packets so the two yeasts, F15 for the Cabernet Sauvignon and FX10 for the Cabernet Franc were rehydrated in 800 mL of water at 100 degrees. The F15 seemed a little bit more reluctant to be rehydrated and the FX10 was faster at rehydrating and "blooming". The must for each of the two varieties was at a very hospitable 62 degrees Fahrenheit so after the 20 minute rehydration, the 800 mL of must was added in two aliquots each spaced 10 minutes apart. A little after 2 p.m. both bins were inoculated with their respective yeasts and covered with a special half ton bin covering that my husband (Procurement Officer) purchased.

Beginning on October 26 we went to Jonathan Edwards Winery three times a day to do punch downs. During this time, the yeasts were in their lag phase, beginning to get accustomed to their grapey environment. What we did see was that the weather was going to turn decidedly cold on Friday so on Tuesday evening, my husband purchased a small rotating heater to help the yeasts along. We set up the heater on Wednesday morning, October 28, 2020:

After the heater was put in place the yeast began their activity of converting sugar into alcohol. We monitored this by the change in Brix that we observed:

Variety	10/19	10/25	10/27	10/28	10/29	10/30	10/31	11/1	11/2
Cabernet Sauvignon Brix	22.4	20.5	20.5	19	16.6	15	13.5	12.2	10.6
Cabernet Franc Brix	23.5	23.2	21.0	19.5	18	15.5	14	12	10.4

After the heater was put in place, the yeasts came out of their lag phase and entered their rapid division phase and the decrease in Brix attest to this. It is still a slow fermentation so we hope to capture some nice aromatics in the process.

Vintage 2020: Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc Harvest

Our last harvest for this growing season that was large enough to bring to Jonathan Edwards Winery occurred on Thursday, October 22, 2020. For this harvest, we had a small group of motivated and hard working harvesters that came at 8 a.m. when the skies were misting and the nets were wet with dew. We only have 4 rows of these red grapes so chances were that the harvest could go very quickly. Here is our harvest crew:

There was a little break between harvesting the Cabernet Sauvignon, which the crew did first and then the Cabernet Franc which was next. Our friend helped us to pick up the Cabernet Sauvignon filled lugs and put them in the half ton bin during this break. When our friend and my husband put the initial row of Cabernet Sauvignon into the half ton bin, we knew we had a problem. The grapes from the lugs filled an entire half ton bin and we only had 3 of those.

The crew got busy harvesting the Cabernet Franc. That did not take very long and around 12:30, the crew was finished and it was time for a well deserved lunch break. During the lunch break we served our 2017 Chenin Blanc Pétillant Naturel, something that we do to celebrate bringing in the last of our harvest.

After the harvest crew left, one of our friends stayed to help us collect lugs from one row of the Cabernet Franc, which went into the last of the three bins that we had.
We took the Cabernet Sauvignon to Jonathan Edwards Winery and picked up another half ton bin and went back to our property to load up the last lugs of the Cabernet Franc. We did this and went back to the winery with the Cabernet Franc where it was put into the winery for destemming the next day.
We arrived at Jonathan Edwards Winery on Friday, October 23, 2020. We cleaned the two half ton bins that the destemmed must would go into and Jonathan Edwards had a perfect place for the bins. We helped to set up the destemmer and the must pump. When everything was in place, the destemming occurred.

First came the weighing of the grapes, handled by Jonathan Edwards and then the destemming. Jay raked the grapes into the destemmer, I controlled the must pump and my husband managed the 2-inch hose from which the must was delivered to the bins. This was the weight of the bins in the order in which it went into the destemmer:

Variety	Bin Order #	Row #	Weight	Tare	Final Weight
Cabernet Sauvignon	Bin #1	Row 2	594	93	501
Cabernet Sauvignon	Bin #2	Row 1	480	93	387
Cabernet Franc clone 327	Bin #3	Row 2	445	92	353
Cabernet Franc clone 214	Bin #4	Row 1	611	92	519

The final weight for each of the two Cabernet varieties were:
Cabernet Sauvignon 888 pounds
Cabernet Franc 872 pounds
The must from these grapes each fit into their designated half ton bin.

Vintage 2020: Late Harvest Chardonnay

In between our big harvest of Chenin Blanc and harvesting our red varieties, we had a little time to comb through the vineyard looking for grapes that were not harvested. Full disclosure: when we harvested our Chardonnay, we only harvested the very best of the crop because we were too late to put the nets over 4 of the 8 rows of Chardonnay that we grow. These unnetted rows still have some very nice fruit that we are bagging with organza wedding bags for a late harvest Chardonnay.

At this point, some of the grapes are shriveling up into raisins. I took a sampling of the Brix and those raisinated grapes are at 31 Brix!

Vintage 2020: Chenin Blanc Cold Settling and Inoculation

I've written two blogs regarding the 2020 Chenin Blanc harvest: Vintage 2020: Chenin Blanc Harvest and Vintage 2020: Chenin Blanc Pressing at Jonathan Edwards Winery. Those two events happened on Sunday, October 11 and then on Monday, October 12. We did get a day of rest on Tuesday and then on Wednesday and Thursday it was cold settling then inoculation.
The Chenin Blanc parameters from the juice taken on Monday was:

Variety	Weight	Volume of Juice	Brix	pH	TA
Chenin Blanc	8201 pounds	655 gallons	23.3	3.09	12.1 g/L

On Wednesday, Jonathan Edwards was racking the cold settled juice into the holding tank. I went to see if I could help. I was in charge of the must pump, making sure that the holding tank did not over flow and the pump did not cavitate.

The cold settled juice from tank 2 was transferred first. Tank 2 contained mainly Chenin Blanc clone FPS-1 juice. It was interesting to note that the juice was a bit cloudy in the holding tank. The tank became completely full in the process of racking, so tank 2 contained 350 gallons of juice.

Jonathan showed me the gross lees that were left on the bottom of the tank. We don't add any yeast nutrients when we do our fermentations, so I removed three buckets of this gross lees because this is what we use as nutrients for our yeast. After that, what was left in the bottom of the tank was discharged from the drain valve onto the winery floor. I asked and was given the task of cleaning the tank. I was surprised at the amount of skins that were on the inside of the tank and it took me a while (30 minuntes?) to get the tank clean. Once the tank was cleaned the three buckets of "nutrition" was put in the bottom of the tank and the juice was returned to tank 2.
Before moving the juice from tank 1, we put a bit of this juice into tank 2 anticipating that we had more juice in tank 1 and not wanting to overflow the holding tank. Then we did the same thing for the cold settled juice in tank 1. The juice from tank 1 appeared a bit clearer. When the transfer was done we had 275 gallons that was in the holding tank. The gross lees from tank 1 looked a bit cleaner.

After cleaning tank 1, putting in the nutrients, putting back the racked juice, my day was over. I felt like a real "cellar rat"!
The following day, Thursday, October 15, I went over to the winery to inoculate the juice that was at 60 degrees. We use QA23 for the fermentation so, the first step was to rehydrate the yeast in 100 degree F water. I also removed some juice from each tank to temper the yeast once it was rehydrated. I could see that the juice from tank 1 was clearer than that from tank 2, which is what I expected.

The rehydration and tempering took from 3:20 to 4:10 p.m. When the temperature reached approximately 75 degrees, the tanks were inoculated. Jonathan asked if I wanted to climb to the top of the tank to pitch the yeast, but I demurred. Hopefully the happy yeast that we pitched into the tank will change our Brix to ethanol! Now we have a bit of a respite before our last harvest of Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc grapes occurs.