I went to the ASEV convention in Reno last Wednesday, not for any of the seminars but for the trade show. I was on a barrel quest - looking for oak for the 2007 harvest - several of the cooperages had reps there with info on their barrels and some had wines that had been aged in specific barrels to taste and compare.

I’m thinking of acquiring a lot of Canton barrels - 36 month air-dried staves, Pennsylvania oak, medium plus toast. The differences between cooperages and the flavors their barrels impart to the wine is remarkable. This particular Canton barrel lengthens the finish on the wine and adds a spicy note, something I’m looking for to enhance our Zinfandel.

I also talked to Lallemand and Lalvin reps regarding yeasts and fermentation supplements - nutrients, enzymes, etc. There are some new hybrid yeasts on the market now, Lallemand BM 4×4 is one of these; a hybrid of BM45 and another ‘unnamed’ yeast. I’m going to try some of this yeast on our Zin as BM45 has always been a favorite of ours.

Lallemand says “BM 4×4 is a combination of yeast strains that have been specially seleetec for the positive synergies to optimize the sensory profile of wine and reliably regulate fermentation with a timeframe.” Huh? Sounds like marketing BS to me but the upshot of this is that the yeast purports to increase color stability, lowers astringency, decrease VA and enhance MLF.

These yeasts are not genetically engineered, they are naturally-occuring yeast crosses and/or lab-created yeast crosses. Again - NOT genetically engineered, they’re just messing with the sex life of yeast. I don’t know how the lab geeks help the yeaties get their freak on, but the tests and analysis show that the hybrids do work as advertised.

There’s also a new yeast from Anchor that’s rep’d by Scott Laboratories, another hybrid. Because we ferment in small lots we can keep different yeasts separate through the fermentation and aging process and my contacts at Scott are interested in seeing the results of our use of these yeasts.

More on this as the year progresses…….

It’s June 14 today … in three short months we’ll most likely be days, or hours, away from our first harvest and crush for the year.

So, I’m trying to get ahead of the game. The plan for ‘07 is 40 tons, plus or minus. That equates to about 90 barrels, 6700 gallons of must, 6000 gallons of wine at press time, and something around 2000-2200 cases of finished wine.

We are getting rid of a LOT of barrels this year. A barrel is, theoretically, good indefinitely as a storage container but contributes oak flavors to wine for only three years or so. Our oldest barrels date to 2000 and are completely ‘neutral’ in terms of impacting the flavors of the wine. Neutral barrels still contribute to the voodoo that is the complex interaction of wine and the outside atmosphere that happens during barrel aging however.

As I said, properly maintained, a barrel will theoretically last forever, but because certain bacteria love wine, even the best maintained barrels eventually build up a bacterial ‘load’ that you can’t effectively get rid of. So, our oldest barrels are going to Terry at Fair Oaks Nursery in Sacramento for planters. And I’m figuring out how many new barrels we want, and from which cooperage to acquire them.

I’m also making decisions on yeasts, nutrients, cellar chemicals, and other crush supplies that need to be ordered for fall. All in all, a lot of decisions. And decisions aren’t always my quickest thing to make happen.

(posted by Chris) i had a very unique experience at the winery on saturday…

We bottled two barrels of Cabernet Saturday that we put together for a group of friends, sort of a very small lot custom-crush deal, and at the tail end of bottling the cabernet, a group of 4 walked into the winery, seemingly to do some wine tasting. they were of asian descent. there were 2 older people, and 2 younger people…parents and sons. they walked up to me at the tasting bar and one of the sons started talking to me in a broken, soft spoken english. he explained that his father had just started a winery in MONGOLIA!! yes, MONGOLIA!! and was interested in our practices in the winery. they wanted to know if we would show them our winemaking equipment and talk with them about the winemaking process. so, i obliged…

first we went back to the crusher/destemmer and i explained the function and how we used it. they asked me some basic questions regarding the crusher through their son translating. and they would talk among themselves, mother and father, for a bit and ask more questions. then we went to the horizontal rotary bladder press and again, same thing, more questions, talking among themselves, etc.

they asked if there was somewhere locally that they could get a press and a crusher/destemmer and i said that ours was specialized equipment and was special order only. and they asked if there was a place where they could buy supplies, so i sent them to napa fermentation supplies.

and then toward the end, they discovered our little 3 nozzle syphon bottler…they went CRAZY for this…lots and lots and lots of talk between them. all this time, they had a sony digital camera and they were taking pictures and doing videos of all the equipment and the winery. they asked if we were “making wine today”…i told them, no, we only make wine once a year during crush, but that we were bottling today. so, finally they tasted some wine and bought a couple of bottles and left, seemingly happily…they taught me to say “you’re welcome” in mongolian…

fascinating, if odd and weird experience…

We’ve gone live today with our ‘new’ winemaker’s blog. For years I’ve kept a diary/blog about m2 and the events surrounding our winery and winemaking. It’s always been written in HTML because I didn’t have time to spend on figuring out blogging software and how to convert the ‘old’ into the new. The past years, 2004 thru 2006, will stay as HTML pages and I’ll have the links to those pages working soon.

Thanks to a new friend, James J.; he helped me figure it out and set up his server to host the blog. We’re using WordPress to administer and publish the blog; you can now post comments, and add links or trackbacks to our site. Soon, I’ll figure out how to set up the RSS feeds, like next week or so.

Be sure check out the new wines on the Our Wines page. We finally got our winemaker’s notes put together and posted with our take on all the ‘05 wines.