Last week, our friends Don and Lynne Smith came for a visit from NJ. Being it was harvest time, I did my best Huck Finn impression and had them help me with picking/destemming/pressing and racking! They got to experience everything except bottling. Below are some other pictures of them enjoying the process!
Every year we look at what we did the previous year, if it worked, and what to do differently.
We are very happy with the how the 2013 Pinot turned out based on the sampling we did at bottling. I’m hoping it progresses to a wonderfully complex wine in the next 9-12 months.
That said, here is what we did last year and changes this year.
Vineyard – Pick when flavors are optimal, usually around 23.5-24 brix. Mix of Pommard and 667. 2014 – Will ferment/pick Pommard and 667 separately. Depending of flavors we will bottle 1 to 3 wines.
Fermentation – Inoculate with Assmanhausen yeast after 5 day cold soak. 2014 – 7-10 day cold soak and then allow fermentation to begin for 1-2 days before inoculation to allow complexity from wild yeast.
Oak – 1 Xoaker per gallon of wine. 2014 – 1.33 Xoakers per gallon of wine to add slightly more oak flavor.
When we were in Australia last year, we attending the Taste of Tasmania. It was a fantastic festival where we got to taste Wines from Tasmania with 40,000 of our newest friends.
Last week we had guests over and decided to see if anyone could tell the difference between the winner of the festival, Kelvedon, and Turtle Vines Pinot. Interestingly enough, they both had the same flavor profile and only 2 of the 5 people correctly named the wines.
The morale of the story is…we are on the right track with wonderful tasting wine!
One last note of interest. Almost all of the Australia wines had screw tops and many were made with Flextank technology.
Sometimes you can plan when to press and pick…sometimes it plans for you. Last week we had a hot spell and the Pinot for Turtle Vines had to be harvested. This week I thought I had another day of fermenting the Pommard clone…but when I checked at noon on the 9/17…it was ready! So…I really should have changed my white hemp shirt…but we just started pulling out and cleaning the pressing equipment. Three hours later we had 96 gallons of pressed juice. On 9/18 I inoculated with malolactic and will rack on 9/19 and add Xoakers (oak balls). The 667 clone will get pressed on 9/19. I think that will go to plan as the temperature had cooled off.
It rained today, September 18th here in Sebastopol. Not a surprise in most parts of the country, but here it is big news during harvest as the moisture can ruin your crop. We picked our Pinot last Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday so that is safe. Our Sauvignon Blanc is still hanging for another month or so…so I blew them off and sprayed them today.
On Sunday we will pick the seconds from the Pinot and some rogue Merlot to either make a Rose or a low alcohol field blend. Will have to see how it tastes.
As to the picture…we have the press on the left, 1100 pounds of fermenting Pinot in the middle (clone 667), and 95 gallons of pressed Pinot (clone Pommard) on the right. I’m really looking forward to how the Pinot’s turn out this year as I let them naturally ferment before inoculating with yeast. Should add complexity.
California Wine Month in September celebrates one of our signature agricultural products and all that vintners and growers bring to the economy, culture and lifestyle of the Golden State.
Whether you are drinking Russian River Valley Pinot, Napa Cab or White Zinfandel, chances are they were grown and made in California. So…find what you like and think of us here in California fondly! Better yet, contact me for some Turtle Vines Pinot Noir.
September 2nd, 2014 was the start of our harvest activity. Friends of ours came over and picked 1300 pounds of Pommard (Pinot Noir clone). The next day, with the help of Bernadino, he and I picked 1100 pounds of 667 (another Pinot Noir clone). Then on September 4th, Rob’s crew came in and picked the rest of the Pinot Noir that was sold to Horse and Plow, 5100 pounds. Since my truck and Bill’s trailer only hold 2 tons, I had to make two trips to the winery.
So for those following the last few years…we planted 3130 vines in 2010 and had our first harvest in 2012 of 1400 pounds. 2013 was 5200 pounds and this year was 7500 pounds. Next year we should be close to a fully mature vineyard and will get close to 10,000 pounds.
By the way…a few months ago I predicted 7780 pounds. Pretty close when you add in the 100 pounds I will pick for Rose this week and the 200 pounds I dropped due to mildew damage.
I just finished a wine class from Vinquiry that focused on bottling and the keys to good wine preservation. It was stressed over and over that oxygen is great for humans to breath, but for wine after fermentation is complete, you have to limit the oxygen.
What does that me to a small winery. After primary and malolactic fermentation is complete and you have racked your wine, give it a good dose of sulfur to stop any further fermentation, say 75-100ppm, depending on the pH of the wine. Then resist the temptation to taste every week. If you are using a flex tank, you can let it sit for several months since you won’t have any evaporation. Sulfur as necessary and when you deem the wine is ready, rack one last time. If you process >50 cases I would recommend a small vacuum filler like the Enolmatic. It pulls a vacuum in the bottle and fills wine from your tank to the bottle. Again…very little oxygen. Then cork right away with a good quality cork.
They claim that the Enolmatic will fill a bottle every 10 seconds. When we did the Sauvignon Blanc we added a 1u filter. This slowed the process down but resulted in a very clean/clear wine. When we do the Pinot in the fall, we will not use a filter to preserve the flavors in the wine. The one draw back we have seen so far is that the level in the bottle was a little hard to control. I’m guessing it was due to our inexperience and the filter…hopefully we will improve when we bottle in September.
Oh…it runs about $400, so with the corker, labeler and renting or borrowing a spinner you will spend about $1000 getting you wine from a tank to a bottle.
I purchased an Italian Wine Corker over the internet for $130 as this was supposed to be a big upgrade, per my friend John, over the $50 model. Ended up I had a defective one and the corks did not go in straight. In addition, I learned that if you don’t have fresh corks, they will always go in poorly with dimples on top. After wasting about 20 corks, I sent this one back and rented a corker from the Beverage People in Santa Rosa. It worked like a charm! and for only $10/day.
Now onto the labeler. Again, most items in the “small winery” seem to be at least $1,000. I looked around the web and found a bottle labeler from the website www.easylabeler.com and it was only $399.
We tried it out last week while bottling our 2013 Turtle Vines Sauvignon Blanc. It took me a little while to set it up the way I wanted it, but once it was set up it worked like a champ. I think if you had a partner handing you the bottles, you could do at least 10 cases/hr.
After you fill, cork and label you need to add foil to the top of the bottle. Many folks use heat shrink plastic…not good in my taste. You can either wax them or put metal foils on top. That is the route we chose. Historically the foils were made of lead, but now they have switched to tin for obvious reasons. You would think that a foil spinner would be inexpensive, but it is over $1100. So…I borrowed one for this run and in the future will probably rent one for $50/day. Even I have a limit on spending money on wine equipment!
One last word on foils. Make sure the foil size and the bottle size match. If not, then when you “spin” them the foil will have lots of wrinkles or won’t fit on the bottle. We know from experience. Another thing…you have to purchase 1800 at a time…so make sure you carefully select you bottle size or you will be stuck with a lot of extra foils.