Chromatography indicates only one of the ‘06 wines has completed the conversion of malic acid into lactic acid. This process, called malolactic fermentation (MLF), is an anerobic bacterial thing - they perform in the absence of oxygen. Simply stated, because that’s the only way I understand it, the little buggers eat the malic and produce lactic acid. Malic acid is the type of crispy acid found in apple, lactic acid is softer, like the acids in milk.

Wines that have not undergone MLF are not biologically stable and will spontaneously commit MLF at some point in their lives, most likely at the worst possible time. If a wine hasn’t completed MLF it must be filtered to be stable in the bottle. White wines usually do not go through MLF, Chardonnay the biggest exception. Red wines almost always do MLF.

I don’t like to rack wine while it is doing the MLF thing. Some people say it doesn’t matter. I’m of the opinion that the lees contribute a great deal of nutrients to the MLF buggers, and since the point of racking is to eliminate the lees, I don’t rack until MLF is complete. 

How do we get our wines to finish MLF? It’s temperature dependent, so once the winery warms up this spring MLF will happen.

Racking is the process of transferring wine from barrel to barrel, leaving behind the fine lees that have settled to the bottom of the barrel. The ‘06 wines haven’t been racked since we pressed, settled and barreled. It has been so cold in the winery that malolactic fermentation has been very slow and I don’t like to disturb the wine during the MLF process. So, time to test to see if MLF is complete.

Wow. The winery was packed from 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. And I mean packed. We’ve got about 18 bottles of ‘04 Zinfandel left and only seven cases of ‘04 Syrah.

A GREAT weekend at the winery. Our thanks to all the new people to visit and a big shout out goes to our friends who volunteered to help pour wines.

This event is an annual thing sponsored by the Lodi-Woodbridge Winegrape Commission. Most of the wineries in the Lodi area are participating. The theme is, obviously, wine and chocolate. I personally dislike chocolate and wine - kinda like ketchup on ice cream - unless it’s a port with certain kinds of chocolate desserts. So, we’re having chocolate-rubbed grilled beef.

We don’t know what to expect in terms of crowd numbers. The Winter Wine Wander event wasn’t as busy as we expected and other folks have told us this one is a big event. We’ll see.

Chris and I spent most of the afternoon in the winery sampling the ’05s that we’re going to be bottling and deciding upon our final blends. We’ll be introducing two new wines - ‘Duo’, a blend of Syrah and Petite Sirah, and our varietal offering of Petite Sirah from Herzog Vineyard in Clarksburg. The Petite is a mouthful of wine, so the Duo ends up as a 80/20 blend of Syrah and Petite Sirah. If you’re a Petite Sirah fan, watch out - ours is going to be a blue-tooth wine for sure. HUGE fruit with enough tannin structure and acidity to carry the wine for years.