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.