NC Wineboy at Savage Beagle Vineyards

Chilean Carmenere - 2013

2013-10-21T13:23:00.001-04:00

This past spring, I acquired 144 pounds of Chilean Carmenere grapes from Carolina Wine Supply. Previously they only offered juice. But more recently they've been providing grapes. I was surprised to find that the grapes were in good condition, particularly given that they were transported from Chile. After crushing and destemming, I started them off with some Opti-Red and pectic enzyme to break down the solids and extract as much color as possible. After 24 hours, I introduced D-254 yeast for fermentation.

This batch has yield 11 gallons of wine thus far. Some of the wine will likely be used to top off the California Cabernet Sauvignon and Grenache Noir, though a majority will probably be bottled as a stand-alone wine. Particularly given that Carmenere is a definite favorite in our household.

Bottling the 2010 Howling Good Red

2013-05-03T12:41:00.000-04:00

The Howling Good Red was the largest single batch of a wine we've bottled. It was intimidating to think about the overall quantity: 34 gallons of wine put into 168 bottles. Yikes! Kelly and I were very happy to have my sister Rosalie, who had just moved here, available to help with the processing.

Kelly and I had performed blending trials and had ultimately decided an even split between the 2010 Lodi Zinfandel (CA) and the 2010 Yadkin Valley Syrah (NC). The acidity of the NC Syrah helped balance out the intensity of the Zinfandel, and it lowered the alcohol content. It is not often that winemakers, amateur or professional, get the opportunity to make a wine from two grapes that were grown on opposite ends of the country. This truly American blend is about 14.5% alcohol by volume.

It took our small assembly line of three about four hours to bottle all of the wine. One person prepped the bottles, one filled each bottle using the Enolmatic, and the last person corked. We rotated among the positions. Definitely a very hands-on, exhausting experience. But fun none-the-less.

The fun continues as we still need to label the 14 cases of wine. Luckily that's something that can be done small bits at a time. At least we’ve learned the valuable lesson of at least labeling the boxes right away!

2010 Howling Good Red

2013-03-17T20:08:00.000-04:00

A while back, I mentioned that I kept half of each barrel of the 2010 Lodi Zinfandel and the 2010 Yadkin Valley Syrah for a blend. The blend (dubbed the 2010 Howling Good Red) ended was initially placed in 6 carboys, ranging between 5 and 6.5 gallon in size. Today I combined a majority of it into two demijohns in order to make the blend more consistant. The overall quantity is 34 gallons. I tasted it today and am quite pleased with it. It will be about 14.5% alcohol by volume and should be well balanced. I plan on bottling it in a couple of weeks. It will make up about 14 cases of wine.

Napa 2012 Trip

2012-12-30T20:54:00.000-05:00

Before the year ended and while I have some downtime, I want to share a bit about the trip we took to Napa earlier this year.

It was at the beginning of May, so it was extremely early during the growing season as far as grapes go. The temperature in the area was fantastic, and the humidity was low. There were also some really nice cool mists that came up from the San Francisco bay area in the evening. In other words, the perfect weather conditions for growing vinefera.

One of my favorite parts about the trip, was that I was able to talk to some of the winemakers and learn some of their methods for farming and winemaking.

Emil Tedeschi of the Tedeschi Family Winery showed me how to graft a bud onto a new grape vine. Using the method he showed me, you could have several varieties of grapes growing on one vine. This next spring I plan on trying it out by maybe grafting a fruiting bud from our Regent grapes onto an older Cabernet Franc vine. That way I may actually get some Regent grapes this summer.
At the Hendry Ranch Winery we got a tour from George Hendry, and he readily shared his experience and methods. I got some great tips for cultivating the grape vines. Secondly he demonstrated how tell if a barrel has "turned". This particularly piece of information made me realize that the eight gallon barrel of Barbera I had in our basement had turned. There's nothing you can do about it to bring either the wine or the barrel back. Looks like we're going to use it for decoration now.

It was very obvious that in Napa, they really do have some of the best growing conditions for grapes. Particularly when compared to growing vinefera here in North Carolina. They don't have to spray anywhere near as often - in fact, some seasons not at all. And they don't have the disease pressure we have in NC. Spending time in Napa definitely taught me that I made the right call when I turned my attention to growing hybrids rather than traditional vinefera.

I saw a variety of different wineries and vineyards in Napa, and a huge range in scales of operation. The ones I think I relate to best are the small family run operations. Simplicity is the key I think in that regard. One of my favorite stops while there was The Summit Lake Vineyards & Winery on Howell mountain. We met with Heather Griffin, who handled our private tasting. The winery is small and family run. They've owned the property there since before California wines became popular. They have some fantastic Cabernet Sauvignon and Zinfandel wines and were the one winery in which we joined their wine club. Not just because the wines are great, but also because of their story and the experience we had while visiting.

I visited Lodi while in the area, mainly to get a chance to see where the grapes I purchased in 2010 were from and to taste some of the local wines. While I didn't visit the precise vineyard our grapes were from, I did get a good feel for the area. Lodi in comparison to Napa is quite warm. It doesn't benefit from the cooling mist from the SF Bay. Therefore their grapes ripen much earlier and reach much higher sugar levels. The grapes that thrive in Lodi are Zinfandel, Barbera, and oddly enough Carignane. Jessie's Grove had an excellent Carignane (a grape not normally on its own in a wine) from vines that were extremely old.

I also visited some Sonoma wineries. In a lot of ways the wines were similar to Napa wines with a few diferences to note. Pinot Noir I think is better in Sonoma. The Cabernet Sauvignons have a little different flavor. On the last day of our trip we drove to Alexander Valley. We even visited the Alexander Valley Vineyards. My favorite wine at Alexander Valley was suprisingly a Cabernet Franc.

I wish I could have written this sooner, I probably would have remembered more details. We will have to visit again though, and maybe next time I'll blog during the trip.

Bottlefest 2012

2012-11-26T09:09:00.004-05:00

I just realized that I never wrote the story about my trip to Napa. Sorry about that, hopefully I’ll write something on that subject soon.

This past week I took a staycation in order bottle the 2010 wines including a Lodi Zinfandel and a NC Syrah. Both wines have been aging for a year in 32 gallon Vadai Hungarian oak barrels. The Lodi Zinfandel was the first wine I made from California grapes. The Zinfandel grapes were extremely difficult to move through the crusher/destemmer (we have a manual one). However after tasting the wine this week, I would now say it was worth the effort! However, the Zinfandel did have one issue. It was very high in alcohol – about 16.5%. Fortunately, it does not taste like it. We kept half of both the Zin and Syrah in their original state, and used the rest for blending. The NC Syrah was about 12% alcohol by volume.

The first thing I did was move about half of each barrel into carboys for the blend between the Zin and Syrah. That blend will be about 14.5% alcohol by volume. We now have 6 cases of the Zinfandel, and 6 cases of the Syrah. I plan on bottling the blend sometime over the next few weeks.

Once the barrels were empty, I cleaned them out and filled them with the 2011 wines. That included a Paso Robles Grenache and an Amador Cabernet Sauvignon. I’m a little worried about the Cab because it tastes a little green to me. I’ve read that this taste is the result of the grapes being harvested too early and before the seeds have fully matured. Luckily the green flavor is not dominant and the wine has also has a strong cherry flavor. Hopefully, after some time in the barrel the cherry flavor will concentrate and the green flavor will diminish. Time will tell. There were two gallons of the Grenache that were left over after putting it in the barrel. I decided to go ahead and bottle the remainder as a “young” version of the wine. It is light in color, but strong in flavor, oddly enough.

Now I have some wine to give as gifts this holiday season! We didn’t get grapes this past fall, in order to put funds towards a shed to move our yard equipment out of our basement. This makes the basement a little cleaner for my winemaking activities. I think next year we’ll be doing some fruit wines to fill a little of the void. Cheers!

Summary of events since my last posting

2012-05-23T11:30:00.000-04:00

The Paso Robles Grenache and Amador Cabernet Sauvignon are in various carboys. Their fermentation went well, I still need to send off some samples to get analyzed.

We got a couple of buckets of Sauvignon Blanc juice last fall as well. I'm getting ready to rack those over to new containers.

The Regent vines planted last year didn't fair too well. I am not sure if the problem was the quality of vine I purchased (I purchased it from vendor I don't normally buy through), or if it was the growing conditions on the slope they were on. So, this spring, I replaced all the dead vines with some from Double A Vineyards (which seem to be doing better than the previous ones, even at this time of year), and moved the entire row further down the slope. They are doing great so far, much more rapid growth than what I saw last year.

I've submitted four wines to the Winemaker magazine contest this year, and I hoping they do well, but I won't know until early June. The wines I submitted are the best four I think I've made to date. They are the 2009 Winsor Zinfandel (purchased through Brehm Vineyards as a frozen must), the 2008 NC Cabernet Franc, the 2010 Viognier, and the 2009 Columbia Gorge Pinot Grigio (also purchased from Brehm Vineyards).

In the next month or so there is a lot of wine to bottle. There is about 5 gallons of Rancho Sarco Cabernet Sauvignon, 8 gallons of 2010 Lodi Barbera, 32 gallons of 2010 NC Syrah, and 32 gallons of 2010 Lodi Zinfandel. May have to see if I can invite some people over for a bottling party, or just bottle the wine in stages. I've already got all the corks I need (ordered 500 of them), and a new filter (coarse filtration on reds), I'll have to inventory the bottles I have available though, and maybe see if there is somewhere I can purchase bulk bottles cheaply. I estimate that there will be at least 150 bottles each of the NC Syrah and Lodi Zin.

My wife and I also made a trip out to the Napa Valley in California this spring. Though the details of that trip are going to be a post of its own coming up shortly.

2012-05-23T09:32:00.003-04:00

Just a quick update, man it is has been a long time since I last posted anything. For a while there, I got caught up in life, and the longer it went without me posting anything, the harder it was to even think about doing it.

I've had to change how the comments are handled, as some spammers started putting links to their sites in them. Kind of rude if you ask me, but luckily Blogger as some tools to prevent this. So from now on comments will be moderated. As long as your comment isn't a spam message, it will get through.

Winemaking 2011 begins...

2011-11-01T09:50:00.000-04:00

This week is going to be a very busy one as far as winemaking goes! Grapes and juice are arriving!

It has been an odd year as far as acquiring juice & grapes for winemaking this year. The harvest has been delayed, and a lot of fruit is unavailable due to rots and other issues making the fruit of poor quality. At first, I ordered Petit Sirah and Cabernet Sauvignon, both from Amador. However, the Petit Sirah available to us didn't survive this odd weather year in California. So, now I am getting Grenache from Paso Robles, and Cabernet Sauvignon from Amador. After weeks of delays, it is finally on the truck driving to North Carolina. Last year, we actually picked up our grapes the first weekend of October. This year it is going to be November 5th. That's one of the many quirks of winemaking, is the harvest ups and downs.

As far as whites this year, I've got some California Sauvignon Blanc juice coming in on a separate shipment, and it should be here tomorrow evening.

Now I need to get everything ready to do go in my basement winery!

Long time, no post

2011-10-24T17:47:00.000-04:00

It has been a very long time since my last post. I've been very busy the last few months, but I'm getting ready to start my fall winemaking, so some new posts will be coming soon.

This year I'm getting three grape varietals, first I've ordered about 10 gallons of Sauvignon Blanc juice from a provider in California. Secondly, I'm close to closing an order for some Grenache Noir from Paso Robles, and some Cabernet Sauvignon from Amador.

This year has been a very odd year for grapes in California, a very late harvest, due to all kinds of weather related issues. Hopefully everything will still be great quality.

More to come later...

Spring in the vineyard

2011-05-25T20:35:00.000-04:00

So far this spring the grape vines I planted this year are growing like crazy. The Traminette has the most vigorous growth so far, already jumping out of the grow tubes. So far this variety is doing better than I expected, it will be a few years before I get some fruit from it, but I think these vines will be able to handle conditions here rather well. The vigorous growth could be the result of the root stock I chose, 101-14.  Traminette is a variety that is not susceptible to black rot, and only moderately susceptible to downy or powdery mildew. Those three diseases are the most common I have deal with in my little backyard vineyard. The less I have to spray, the better.

The Regent grape vines I planted are also doing quite well. They are on a less vigorous 3309 rootstock, but even still, considering they were planted a few weeks after the Traminette, are growing quite fast. The Regent is also more disease resistant than most Vitis Vinifera, showing only a mild suseptibility to powdery mildew.  I am looking foward to seeing how this vine progresses in the coming years, as while it is a hybrid grape, it has more Vitis Vinifera in its heritage than most other hybrids, and from what I have read, makes a great wine with cherry and black currant flavors.

On the east coast, we have to spray grape vines quite a bit in order to have a decent crop of grapes to use for wine. This can be expensive, so it will be interesting to see with hybrid vines like these two, which will win out. Hybrid wines or heavy chemical spray usage.

Finally, my good ol' reliable Cabernet Franc vine is still going strong.   This was the only row of Vitis Vinifera I kept in our vineyard. It grows so well here, but is very suseptibile to fungal diseases like Black Rot and Downy Mildew. Here is an image of a grape cluster in pre-bloom stage on my vine. Maybe I will get enough grapes to make a little wine out of this year, if not, it does make an excellent jelly!

Bottling 2009 Windsor Zinfandel

2011-05-03T20:29:00.000-04:00

This batch of zinfandel is one of the first wines I have made from frozen grape must. I purchased it from Brehm Vineyards. The fruit is sourced from Dommen Vineyards, located in the Windsor, Russian River region in Sonoma County, California. The grapes came from very old vines that were planted in 1937 and are considered "ultra-premium" fruit. The numbers on the grapes harvested were 24.5^o brix, 3.31 pH, and a TA of 0.85 g/100ml.

I fermented this wine using D254 yeast, which is supposed to enhance the jammy characteristics. I wouldn't say the wine is particularly jammy at this point. Instead it is showing spicier characteristics. There are very distinct pepper characteristics and it has a dark fruit flavor on the palate.

This wine is the first red wine I bottled using the new filtration system. I used a 1 micron filter in order to remove any particulates. The wine has maintained a dark, rich color even after filtering. The wine is about 14% alcohol by volume. Usually I am very critical of wines I make, and while I may have some from time to time, I rarely prefer my wine to wine purchased from the store. That is not the case with this wine. I will pick this wine over any purchased wine any day of the week.

This batch produced 32 bottles of wine.

Planting Regent

2011-04-19T22:26:00.001-04:00

The Regent grape vines I ordered from Raintree Nursey finally arrived! This vine has rootstock 3309, which is different than what I am used to using (101-14). The biggest difference I could find was that 101-14 can handle "wet feet" better than 3309. But considering I am planting these vines on a slope, the extra drainage provided should compensate.

The first step was to soak the vines in a bucket of water for several hours to "wake them up." Next it was time to remove the old Chardonnay vines. I kept one of them and transplated it to another side of the yard. Vinefera is not known to transplant well, so we'll see if it survives. I cut the wires from the trellis so I could more easily access and dig out the existing vines. Next, I had to form the holes for the new vines. Planting on a slope is a bit different from flatter areas. It is important to make sure that water doesn't just run down the hill. You have to provide an environment where water has a chance to sink in and reach the roots. The hole is dug straight down at an angle to the slope and is a little deeper than normal. That way when the vine is planted, you have a sharp ledge, a flat area around the vine, and then a wall of dirt before the slope continues downhill.

After the holes were dug, I performed a quick soil test. The result was approximately 7.0pH. I added some peat to the ground at each hole to increase the acidity of the soil. Grape vines prefer pH's between 5.5 and 6.5. Oddly enough, the row at the bottle of the slope was on the acidic side and needed lime added. I believe the reason for this is that when they were bulldozing the ground around my house when it was built (4 1/2 years ago), they moved all the topsoil to the top of the hill.

Finally it was time to plant the vines. Each vine was placed in a hole, spreading the roots out in all directions. I sprinkled root maximizer around each of them. Finally, each hole was filled with a mixture of the displaced dirt and peat. Then each vine was watered heavily.

It will be exciting to see how this variety does in North Carolina!

Bottling Viognier

2011-04-19T22:26:00.000-04:00

I am now the proud owner of an in-line filter for my Enolmatic vacuum bottler. The Viognier is the first wine I bottled with it. I used a membrane cartridge filter, which is a true sterile filter (0.2 microns). It took a bit of time to figure out how to use it properly, but once I got it going, it worked like a champ.

The Viognier was made from a bucket of juice from California that I purchased at a local winemaking supply store. Now it is a amazing wine that is about 13% alcohol by volume. It has a very tropical aroma, and I can taste both pineapple and peach flavors.

I think this wine is going to be really good in the coming months!

Planting Traminette

2011-03-27T19:49:00.000-04:00

The traminette vines arrived from Double A Vineyards this week. The vines are grafted onto 101-14 rootstock. This rootstock is a good choice for the clay soil in this area.

This weekend I worked on getting the vines planted. The traminette vines are replacing the syrah vines we had previously planted. Half of the syrah vines didn't make it through last winter, and it just didn't seem to be the best varietal for this area. The first step was to cut all the wires in the row where the Syrah vines were, and remove the drip irrigation hose. Next I dug up all the Syrah vines, saving one for a friend who was interested in trying to transplant it. I rented a tiller and tilled up the soil in the row. It is amazing how many rocks I found. I poured some hydrated lime into the soil to raise the pH and some lava sand to help break up the clay. I then used the tiller to mix all the soil again with the additions. The tiller didn't go all the way down to the root level, but at least the soil above it will allow water and nutrients through a little better.

While I prepared the soil, the vines were placed in a bucket of water for a few hours to hydrate them. I dug holes down to the appropriate depth, with some help from my wife. We then placed the vines into the holes, spreading the roots out as much as possible, and then introduced a teaspoon of Root Maximizer Mycorrhizal fungi around the roots, before filling in the holes with a combination of the dirt from the hole and the surrounding area with the mixture of lava sand in it.

Lastly, I watered each vine with enough water to settle the earth around it. It is supposed to rain over the next few days, so they should get plenty of water to help sustain their first year of growth.

Bottling Traminette

2011-03-21T21:23:00.000-04:00

The time had finally come to bottle the Traminette. Some of my readers may remember that the Traminette juice was sourced from Walkers Wine Juice. They shipped a five gallon jug of heat-pasteurized Traminette juice from the state of New York. This is my first time working with Walkers, and so far I have been quite pleased.

I have been a little concerned because the color of the wine was a strong yellow. Oxidation is always the enemy of the winemaker. I have battled this by attempting to do regular SO₂ additions, and using CO₂ or Nitrogen to fill any head-space in my carboys. Something else I am considering is limiting the amount of time I bulk-age wines.

I tasted the Traminette and it tasted fine, though a little on the acidic side. Given the color, I didn't want to spend any additional time trying to undergo a cold-stabilization in order to release the tartaric acid. This might be a mistake, but I have never been one of those people who freak out at wine diamonds (tartaric acid crystals) appearing at the bottom of my bottles.

Because this is a white wine, I decided to sterile filter the wine using the Buon Vino SuperJet. While I was filtering it I could not help but think about how much the wine was getting exposed to oxygen. I finally decided that before I bottle another wine that I would order the filter housing and filters for my Enolomatic. This would allow the wine to be pulled through the filter using a vacuum, and reduces the chance of oxidation.

Overall the bottling of the Traminette took a long time. Not only from all the cleaning that had to be done, but also because there was a lot of CO₂ to pull from the wine before I could cork it. After the wine is in the bottle I always use a VacuVin to pull any remaining CO₂ from the wine so my corks don't pop out of the bottle. I am theorizing that there was more CO₂ trapped because of how chilly the basement has been this winter. That and the fact that I had occasionally used a CO₂ canister to sparge the air out of the head-space in the carboy.

Another issue arose while I was trying to cork the wine. With whites and some fruit wines, I normally use NomaCorc synthetic corks. This time when I was inserting the corks, they were pulled deep into the bottle, no matter how much I adjusted the corker. The only way I could find to solve it was to try and put them in very slowly. Maybe it had something to do with how cold the corks were from being in the basement. Has anyone else experienced this?

I bottled a total of 23 bottles of Traminette - the perfect wine to drink during the Spring and Summer months.

Vineyard renovation

2011-02-25T21:26:00.000-05:00

I'm getting ready to change out two rows of vines in my backyard vineyard. The vines are set to arrive the week of March 21st. I will be planting twelve each of Traminette (hybrid white) and Regent (hybrid red). Both varietals are supposed to have a much higher disease resistance than typical vinifera.

This time I am going to make some soil amendments. When I originally planted the existing vineyard, I didn't really know what I was doing. I had a soil test done, but missed one important piece of information on the results. The results had suggested to add lime to the soil to increase the pH level. This go-around I'm going to add in some hydrated lime. Additionally, I'm going to mix in some lava soil which is supposed to improve drainage in heavy clay soils. I also plan on introducing some compost (probably mushroom compost) and plan on mixing it all into the existing soil before planting. Lastly, I have some Root Maximizer Mycorrhizal fungi that I am going to sprinkle on/around the roots of the vines as I plant them. The fungi is supposed to help the roots process nutrients in the soil around them more efficiently. Cool stuff!

To make the soil preparation a lot easier, I'm going to rent a tiller/cultivator. I was originally planning on purchasing one, but I can rent one that is more powerful than I could afford to purchase. Considering the hard, rocky clay soil we have, the more power the better!
With my past plantings, I've used the Blue-X grow tubes. This time, I'm moving to a different type of grow tube. The problem with the Blue-X grow tubes is that you have to cut the outer sleeve to remove it. If you want to use the inside piece again in the future, you have to buy a new sleeve. The new type of grow tube I'm getting is called Snap-n-Grow. They snap together, and come back apart in two pieces for easy removal and re-use.

Hopefully this time, with the disease resistant vines, the soil amendments, and other things I've learned over the past few years, the vineyard will be more vigorous. And I'm very excited about the two hybrids I have selected. I love Traminette, and I have read a lot about Regent as discussed in previous posts.

Pre-season work in the vineyard

2011-01-31T19:38:00.001-05:00

The job of pruning the vines this year was a long and hard one. Ok, maybe I'm exaggerating a little considering I only had a couple of grape vines that had any decent growth last year. In fact, there were only two vines to prune - a Cabernet Franc and a Mars vine.

I did it earlier this year because last year after I pruned I had a significant amount of sap bleed-out. From what I've read this occurs if you prune too late because dormant vine has started "waking up." This year I think I mitigated the issue.

I spent a little time this weekend planning out what I'm going to do this year in the vineyard. I have decided that I'm going to replace the Syrah and Chardonnay vines. The Chardonnay hasn't done well at all, and half of the Syrah got killed off by the harsh winter we had in 2009-2010. I'm replacing them with Regent and Traminette, pending availability. I have to wait a couple of weeks before I can order vines because we're closing on the house we're purchasing for my Mother-in-Law and all funds are allocated towards the purchase. Regardless, most places won't even ship the vines until March.

One of the many things I have learned since the initial planning of the vineyard is that whites need to be sheltered more from the late afternoon sun. As a result, I am going to plant the Regent at the top of the hill where the Chardonnay currently is and where it will get the most afternoon sun. The Traminette will replace the Syrah at the bottom of the hill.

The next maintenance to occur in the vineyard will be spraying the lime-sulpher spray. I guarantee that you will not want to be hanging around in the backyard while this is happening! The spray does wonders for disease prevention, but it smells horrible.

Maintenance in the Winery

2011-01-02T18:38:00.000-05:00

It has been a long time since I was down in the winery to do any wine-related work. I’ve been busy with the holidays, keeping the house clean while Kelly is going through chemo, and other house-related projects. Today Kelly practically ordered me to spend some time down the in our home winery, so I did.

I topped off the barrel containing the 2010 NC Syrah with some bottles of 2008 NC Syrah. This works out great as the 2010 needed more acidity and the 2008 had too much. It required three bottles of the 2008 to top off the 30-gallon barrel. I shouldn’t have let it go for so long. I need to do a better job staying on top of these things.

The 2009 Zinfandel in the 8-gallon barrel also required topping off. For that one I used a half of a gallon jug of a 50/50 blend of the 2009 Zinfandel and 2008 Syrah. The other half gallon I put into two wine bottles and corked them.

Another project I finally finished was the bottling the Howling Good Red we blending a while back. It is so much easier to bottle things with the Enolmatic we purchased last fall. The batch yielded about 25 bottles. I still need to label them.

Finally, I spent time organizing things and labeling carboys that I hadn’t labeled yet.

I will probably bottle the Traminette wine next, maybe sometime mid-to-late January. After that I’ll probably be bottling the 2010 California Viognier. After all, I have to get the whites bottled in time for spring!

Testing

2010-12-06T18:52:00.000-05:00

My apologies for the lack of entries. I've been a little preoccupied by the fact that my wife was recently diagnosed with non-hogdkins lymphoma. She has her own blog to keep everyone informed on how everything is going. If you would like more information on her diagnosis and how she's doing, please visit http://battlelymphoma.blogspot.com/.

Now, back to wine-related topics. In my last blog entry, I had previously written about a new wine testing center up at Appalachian State in Boone. I decided to have the Lodi Zinfandel and the NC Syrah tested, mainly to confirm alcohol levels and malic acid content. I got the results back a few days ago, and I was shocked at the Zinfandel numbers. The calculation I had been using to calculate alcohol level was to take the Brix and multiply it by 0.55. I measured the Brix level of the Zin to be 26^o. So the calculation would have been 26 * 0.55 = 14.3%. I figured the maximum alcohol was that I would end up with was maybe 15%. The test results show an alcohol level of 17.12%! Yikes! The only thing I can think of is that when I tested the Brix, there was still a lot of sugar in the pulp that hadn't broken down yet.

The yeast I was using wasn't supposed to allow it go beyond 16% so I'm not certain as to why it was able to get that high. The one good thing is it doesn't taste like it has a high alcohol level. At this point I am trying to decide what to do about it. Should I add acidulated water? Blend it with another wine? Or just leave it the way it is? The problem with leaving it the way it is, is the fact that one bottle will put you under the table. The malic acid content was 218 mg/100mls (21.8 mg/Liter), so it appears to have either already undergone malolactic fermentation, or there wasn't much malic acid in the grapes.

The Syrah came in where I expected with an alcohol level of about 12%. The malic acid content of the Syrah was even lower than the Zinfandel, coming in around 77 mg/100mls (7.7 mg/Liter). Though the pH readings indicate I will need to add some tartaric acid again.

So, let me ask my fellow winemakers out there. What would you do with the Zinfandel, and why?

Viognier

2010-11-08T20:56:00.000-05:00

Carolina Wine Supply just recently imported buckets of juice from California. How could I resist the opportunity to make another white wine? I picked out a six gallon bucket of Viogner that my wife graciously drove over to Yadkinville to pick up on a recent day off from work.
The juice was approximately 23.5^o Brix, which will give a potential alcohol level of around 13%. The pH meter is still on the fritz so I used some test strips. The pH is 3.4, which will work out well. A small sidenote, I just recently found out that Appalachian State in Boone will do free wine testing. I am looking forward to sending it in, and getting numbers back on some of my recent wines to see how they compare with my readings.
The ICV-GRE yeast purchased earlier in the year didn't get used for what it was intended (a rosé), so it became the yeast for the Viognier. It should enhance the tropical fruit and mouth-feel of the wine. It is fermenting in our chest freezer with a thermostat to keep it at 55^o F. Keeping it cool while it ferments helps white wines keep their aromas and flavor. We've had a cold spell here recently, so I recently pulled it from the freezer to let it continue fermenting in the basement at around 60^o F.

Pressing the Old Vine Lodi Zinfandel

2010-10-29T18:10:00.001-04:00

The Old Vine Lodi Zinfandel has been pressed! The flavor of the wine at this stage is rich, jammy, and slightly spicy. The color is a deep, dark, rich purple (almost black). This should be an amazing wine after it ages.

The pressing was pretty much uneventful, thanks to a late-day purchase at our local wine shop, Advantage Beer & Wine Supplies of Hickory, NC. The store normally closes at 5 pm, but one of the owners graciously agreed to keep the store open late so I could purchase some additional carboys and a brand-new winemaking funnel (see our previous post on pressing the Barbera). Thanks again Mike!

We started with 504 pounds of grapes, and after pressing, we ended up with about 38 gallons of wine. The wine will sit in carboys for a few weeks until I order an additional 32 gallon Vadai barrel for aging.

Pressing the Lodi Barbera, and the Mystery of the Missing Funnel

2010-10-28T18:06:00.006-04:00

It was finally time to press the Lodi Barbera. It is always a time consuming process to clean, sterilize, and set up all of the equipment to do the pressing. In fact, we've learned that often we spend more time cleaning and prepping than we actually do making wine. We were almost done with set-up: the press was ready and the carboys cleaned. We just needed to find one more piece of equipment. Our wine-making funnel.

When we press wine, we like to press it directly into the carboys. We have to set the press up on something tall to do this (we use a garden cart). But the advantage is that we don't have to move the wine from one container to another. But in order to do that we need a large funnel to capture all the liquid coming out of the press and going into the carboy.

Without the funnel, pressing the wine directly into the carboy doesn't work well. At all. We tore apart our basement looking for it, but were unable to locate it. Where had the funnel gone? Had it fallen down some sort of wormhole and traveled to another dimension? Had gremlins stolen it? We tried to make a "funnel" out of a plastic jug and a smaller funnel. Not our best idea. It looked like a blood bank sprung a seriously leak on our basement floor.

It was beginning to look like we were either going to have to delay pressing, or press into a bucket and then move into a carboy, increasing our workload significantly. But then, my wife came up with a brilliant idea. Her idea was to press the wine into a bucket, hook our vacuum pump up to pull it from the bucket and into the carboy. Hurray! The day was saved! Someday the funnel may rematerialize, but until then, we will use our new method of pressing wine. In fact, we may just use this method later this week when we press the Lodi Zinfandel.

The 144 pounds of grapes is now Lodi Barbera wine, sitting happily in one 6-gallon carboy, one 3-gallon carboy, and a 1-gallon jug. So far the wine tastes great, and the color is deep and rich. I am feeling very hopeful about this batch.

Bottling Strawberry wine

2010-10-27T17:56:00.002-04:00

The strawberry wine we fermented this past spring was finally ready to be bottled. In other strawberry wines I have tried, I noticed that the color was usually a very pale pink. Suprisingly, our wine has maintained its dark rose color. I'm theorizing that it is probably due to the large quantity of fruit we used, and the fact that we used a food processor to completely pulverize the fruit before adding it to the must. Another possibility is that we kept sulfites in the wine to prevent the color from fading. Even though this is a dry wine, the strong fruit flavor makes it seem sweeter than it really is. This wine will be perfect for drinking in the spring or summer.

After bottling, we took the last 2 liters and put it in a bottle designed for maintaining pressure. I added a little sugar (about 35 grams) and some EC-1118 yeast. If this works out we will have a small portion of sparkling strawberry wine.

2010 NC State Fair: Update

2010-10-26T18:04:00.001-04:00

One of my wife's co-workers in their Raleigh office, was nice enough to send us a picture of our wine bottle with the 2nd place ribbon.

One other thing, it should be noted that a 2nd place ribbon isn't like getting a silver medal. A silver medal usually says your wine was awarded the appropriate amount of points to achieve the medal, but there could be multiple silver medals in that category. The 2nd place ribbon means it was considered the 2nd best wine in the entire category. Since the category was White Vinifera, the judges thought that it was the 2nd best white wine made from vinifera grapes that was submitted to the competition.

We've already submitted this wine to another competition in California, and I am looking forward to seeing how it does there as well.

Congratulations to all the winners at the NC State Fair!

Preparing the New Barrel

2010-10-18T20:10:00.000-04:00

The new 30 gallon Vadai barrel arrived about a week ago. I've spent this last week preparing it for use. When you receive a new barrel, it is generally very dry. It is important to hydrate a new barrel with water to allow the wood in the barrel to expand so that it forms a complete seal. If you put wine in it before hydrating, the wine would either leak in between the staves, or your barrel would soak up your wine - and the last thing you want to do is lose wine!

Vadai sends along detailed instructions on how to hydrate the barrel. They recommend pouring boiling water on each of the heads, and then put a prescribed amount of boiling water on the inside (a certain percentage of the overall volume). That would be someone difficult given the size of the barrel. Instead, I filled the barrel up with tap water mixed with SO₂. During the week, I monitored the water level of the barrel, and refilled it as necessary in order to keep it full. I also soaked down the outside of the barrel regularly as well. After a week the barrel was no longer leaking water, so it was ready to fill with wine

The next phase was coating the barrel down with a substance called Mildewcide. This prevents mildew from growing on the exterior wood of the barrel, or in any of the cracks and crevices. This can happen if you store your barrel in a humid environment. My basement has been humid a time or two, and I didn't want to take any chances with 32 gallons of wine. With a smaller barrel, if that happens, you can easily move the wine to a carboy or two and take care of the issue. With 32 gallons, that's a little more difficult.

Another thing about preparing a barrel for use. Once you fill the barrel with wine, it will be impossible to move around, plus you need something that will be able to sustain the weight of the barrel, and prevent it from rolling around. I had previously purchased two furniture dollies back when we moved here from Florida a few years back. I modified one of them by screwing two boards on each side of dolly, to hold the barrel snugly in-between them. The wheeled dolly also allows for me to easily move the barrel around as needed.

Using the pump from my Buon Vino Superjet, I pumped the wine from three carboys, and a demijohn into the barrel. The wine was our 2010 NC Syrah. The demijohn and one carboy contained the portion of Syrah fermented with D254, and the other two carboys contain the portion fermented with RP15. After aging, these two wines together should present a complex, jammy and spicy Syrah. At least, that's the plan.