We pressed our first three tons of Soucie Old Vine Zinfandel Saturday. At press Brix was 2.5, pH was 3.67. Fermentation is still proceeding, albeit ve e e er r yy slow. Hence, the title of today’s blog entry. I told Kevin I wanted a refund. I used two different and new-to-me yeasts on this lot - Anchor NT1112 and Lalvin BM 4×4. I’m told both are hybrid crosses of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Saccharomyces bayanus. Turns out the still-unfinished vino has incredible flavor despite the sluggish fermentation. I knew these two yeasts would be slower fermenters than other yeasts I’ve used, and had high nutrition requirements. Soucie’s Zin has a very high natural YAN, so I figured I wouldn’t need much supplemental nitrogen. Still, I’m surprised at the lagging fermentation rate. I think the slowness now is due to low must/juice temperature. Still I wonder, yes I does.

Obviously, from my ramblings here, I don’t know what to make of the experience with these two yeasts.

We also pressed all of the Pratt Vineyard Cabernet this weekend. 2.5 tons of fruit yielded 420 gallons of new wine. After first racking we’ll end up with six barrels of wine.

We barreled down two-thirds of the pressed Lani’s Vineyard Syrah on Sunday - 12 barrels, with another six to go. Incredible color on this stuff. Brix is at -1.3 and my Clinitest tablet test shows less than .05% RS, the limit of the accuracy of the test. I’ve got to take a sample to the lab to be sure, but I’m fairly confident this stuff has completed alcohol fermentation.

Nothing much fermenting right now except for one ton of Cabernet Sauvignon from a vineyard on the Sonoma County side of Mount Veeder. I’m making this ton of fruit for a small custom-crush client.

Our other X-tons of Zinfandel is still in the field, not ready yet. Brix is adequate for harvest but the flavor development is not yet at it’s peak.

Check out the events we’ve got coming up - Taste of Lodi and Best of the Best are this coming weekend. We’re also doing our first ever Winemaker Dinner on October 20 and the musical duo known as Chinapainting, Jim Goodin and Daryl Shawn, will be playing at the winery on October 21. Jim is from New York, Daryl lives in Mexico. They play really cool acoustic music, and rehearse and perform via the Internet. They’re live at m2 on October 21.

Later!

To answer the quextions posed to me, after 24 hours the Zin was at 30 B. I innoculated for fermentation with a Brix of 27.5. (for those who are math challenged, it’s possible to lower Brix with the addition of what’s known as ‘Lodi White’.) Kevin’s Zin is well known for jumps of 3 or 4, or more Brix post-crush, so this wasn’t unexpected. I also added enough tartaric acid to bring the pH down to 3.6 from 3.87. Fermentation started lagging at 4 B. I had it tested at the lab, alcohol was only 14%. Strange. So I reinnoculated with UV43 and will press tomorrow or Sunday.

Now to fun stuff. Pictures.

At Dolce Vino Wine Shop in Cameron Park at a m2 wine tasting event.
Add a big shout out to Ravel!

Here’s the 2007 Crush Crew! (aka, My Minions)
James, Mark, Jim, and Brian!

A Ferrari articulated tractor owned by Jim C. - a kinky little piece of vineyard equipment if there ever was such a thing!

Two tons of Syrah from Lani’s Vineyard in the shade awaiting the truck to the winery.

More later!

So it rained last night in Sacramento. It didn’t rain in Lodi. I dunno about Napa or the Foothills.

Kevin Soucie says a little bit of rain on the grapes at this time of year is no big deal - it’s when it becomes a quarter of an inch for two or three days in a row that you have problems. Hmmm…. I don’t know enough to say either way.

Ted and I pressed 1.25 tons of the Pratt Cab (Fair Play AVA) yesterday. I’m pressing a little sweeter this year so as to not have too much tannin extraction in the wines. I think our ‘06 Napa Clone Six Cab is too tannic; Chris disagrees. We left it on the skins two to three days after it fermented out and since seed tannins are soluble in alcohol, we got a lot of tannin. Ok, fine for Clone Six, maybe. But since the Pratt stuff is headed for the ‘07 Trio/Treo/Treos I don’t want too much tannin.

The first three tons of Soucie Zin are my problem child wine this year. 24 hours post-crush Brix was 30. Yikes. Fixed that issue, I think, yet the yeasty-beasties crapped out at around 14.7 alcohol with 3 Brix to go. I started up a fresh yeast today to re-invigorate the existing fermentation. We’ll see how this goes. I used some new yeasts (new to me) this year on this batch … Nt1112 and BM4×4 … two hybrid yeasts. I’m less than impressed so far with my choices. Color isn’t right, fermentation not as vigorous as I like. I think on the second and third picks of Soucie Zin that I’m reverting to my tried and true D254, D80 and BM45 yeasts.

More later….

So, it’s slow today. Finally. Nothing but punch-downs.

My expected barrel shipment didn’t make it yesterday. The intent was to put together a consolidated load of barrels for several wineries, but one of the cooperages hadn’t delivered their barrels to the loading point by 6 a.m., and I’m told the driver guy got mad and left. We’re trying again for Monday.

Our Soucie Zin is fermenting nicely, as is the Pratt Cab. We’ll be pressing the Syrah tomorrow and the winery is semi-organized again.

I’m off to Lowe’s to look for some mounting brackets to hang stuff on the walls.

I’ve not kept up on the daily postings as I intended… Just not enough hours in the day it seems.

To recap Crush 2007 to date -

Two tons of Viognier fermented in barrel are near completion. I’ll be adding Lysozyme to prevent malolactic fermentation. The almost finished wine is pretty tasty right now.

We crushed 5.38 tons of Syrah from Lani’s Vineyard on 9/5/07 - nine bins total of must. Starting Brix was 27.5, currently it’s at 13.5. pH was 3.75, TA was .405. I added some tartaric acid, our usual dose of nutrients and the special m2 blend of different yeasties. I know for sure that YAN, or yeast-assimible nitrogen, is low in these grapes. I haven’t had YAN measured but still have a small sample in the fridge to take to the lab. Since it’s low, I’m taking great care to monitor fermentation speed, temperature, etc. The must got a pretty good whomp of nutrients, but still, stuck fermentation is a bad thing. If all goes well, as expected, we’ll most likely press next Saturday.

Three tons of Zinfandel and three tons of Cabernet are coming tomorrow. We’ll crush tomorrow afternoon and kick off fermentation on Wednesday.

I’ve been racking some of the ‘06 wines - so far six barrels of Zinfandel, four of Syrah, five of Cabernet. All tasting great. I’m REALLY looking forward to getting the ’06’s in the bottle next March.

38 new barrels to be delivered Thursday.

The biggest challenge so far this year is keeping the winery organized. Our small space (1800 sq. ft.) makes for continual moving in and out of barrels, bins, crusher, press, etc.

More later… lots of pictures to edit and post.

Five point five tons of Syrah from Lani’s Vineyard in Shenandoah Valley, Amador County, to be picked tomorrow morning - two day laborers are hired to help me get it crushed tomorrow afternoon at m2 winery in Lodi. Chris is working his day job, unable to get time off during the work week during harvest this year due to extenuating circumstances - diabetes and dying relatives among them. Not him with the D&D, but people with whom he’s associated, causing me untoward difficulties, selfish bastard that I am. Ted, one of our new partners, will be by around 2 p.m., hopefully bringing beer and water.

Dave Dart, of d’Art Vineyard and Winery, also in Lodi, is coming by for moral support. He’s picking 10 tons of Cabernet Sauvignon from his home vineyard Saturday. I’ll help out as best I can with his big harvest day by taunting his friends providing free labor as well as measuring sugars, pH, TA, weighing out SO2, tartaric, etc., as needed.

We’re also probably going to do 3.5 tons of Zinfandel from Kevin’s 1916 field on Saturday as well. Today I measured 27.8 Brix, 3.65 pH and .615 TA. Fantastic numbers from this old block of vines. Higher Brix than what Kevin reported from his tests on Sunday, but that’s the way it goes.

From what I’ve seen 2007 grapes are holding higher acids than whatever “normal” is. Berries are smaller than I’ve seen in a long time. Flavors are ok, but I like l o o o onnng g hang time and superior physiological maturity. Harvest is generally early this year, at least for our usual vineyard sources.

Overall it looks like 2007 will be one of the best, most - interesting - difficult - unusual - great - ordinary - insert_your_word_of_choice_here - vintages that California has EVER seen. Shortly you can expect to see famous, nationally know wine publications quoting famous, nationally know winemakers who will say “2007 is the best year since (insert great vintage year here.) It reminds me of the great harvest of (insert great vintage year here.) And of course, you’ll see strong recommendations to buy up all the 2007 wines NOW!!! Don’t wait!!! It’s the BEST EVER SINCE (INSERT GREAT VINTAGE YEAR HERE.)!!!!! Jeez. I hate wine cliches.

I’ve had a long day - taking picking bins up to Lani’s Vineyard, answering more than 30 phone calls, I kid you not, delivering a couple of cases of wine to customers, as well as trying to finish a presentation folder design job for Ann P., which is way overdue - the design work being my feeble attempt to make a little cash in lieu of a real job.

Enough of my bitching…. off to bed with me.

So my viognier barrel fermentation is proceeding quickly. The two barrels with the D254 yeast are nearly finished; -1 Brix today. The R4600 is moving slower and is at 3 Brix. Both are fermenting quicker than I would have liked. Ambient temperature in the winery is 63 F, but that’s really not cold enough to really have much effect on the temperature of the fermentation. The 3 stainless steel kegs are in the cooler at 50 F and still at 15 Brix.

A big shout-out at this time to Mark from Pixar Studios - I met him a few weeks ago and he came back in the winery today. I thought the guy looked familiar but faces and names are one of my worst things. Nice to see you again!

Re: grapes - 5 tons of Syrah from Lani’s Vineyard in Shenandoah Valley is coming on Wednesday. This is a great vineyard and 2007 marks the fourth year we’ve sourced our Syrah from here.

Our Soucie Zin, still on the vine, is around 24 Brix, according to Kevin, and he says about seven days to two weeks from harvest. We’re doing our usual two-pass harvest method with this block of fruit. We’ll also be letting a section of grapes hang for a considerable length of time this year. We’ve made a sweet Zinfandel before - our Zinlady - from Kevin’s fruit, but this year we’re doing it in true late harvest fashion - we’re shooting for 30-34 Brix.