Rain, Rain, Go Away … Or Not. Really, It’s No Big Deal. Yet.
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….
September 20th, 2007 at 9:00 pm
Brix of 30! Yikes is right! There was some dehydrated fruit in that batch but that’s quite a jump. Sounds like you’ve got your hands full. Perhaps this cooler weather will help with the remaining fruit.
We got some rain out here in the lower foothills but not much.
September 21st, 2007 at 10:02 am
Layne…what Brix did you pitch the yeast. Our Zin came in at 28 Brix and we pitched at 26.5 and the BM 4×4 finished, although the unpressed wine is very earthy, color is not bad. The VQ15 and the VRB are at 0.1 Brix (they’ve gone from 0.4, to 0.2 now to 0.1 over the past 3 days) although they are very jammy and really taste good for this early stage (as an aside..what was Steve martin int he Jerk thinking when he wanted the fresh stuff????). We are pressing tommorw for sure; are there any problems with pressing at 0.1 Brix (if it does not finish)?