Just a quick post…Harvest is next week and I was in the market for a punch-down tool and saw this on-line. “I Love Lucy” meets stainless steel !!!
Getting ready for harvest and winemaking!
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Category Archives: Wine Making
2013 Pinot Noir
I have not posted in a while, so I’ll give you a little update on how our 2013 Pinot Noir crop is shaping up.
Three weeks ago we finished veraison so the nets went up to prevent the birds from getting our crop. Only took 5.5 hours this year top put them up…better than 9 hours last year.
Sunday Joey and I took brix (sugar) readings throughout the vineyard. As expected the vines closest to the house averaged 20.4 and the ones furthest away were at 19.3. We expect to pick when the brix reach 23…so around September 16th!
Now the fun part…as you can see from the picture, we bought a small bladder press. The capacity is 42 gallons, or enough for 1/2 ton of fermented Pinot Noir, or around 400 pounds of Sauvignon Blanc. In addition, we bought 2 thirty gallon breathable tanks for aging, and some 5, 3 and 1 gallon glass containers. Next up is to get a destemmer and a few smaller items and we will be set to make wine this year!
2012 Turtle Vines Pinot Analysis
What you see is our 2013 Sauvignon Blanc just after we have leafed it on Aug 2, 2013. I hope you can tell from the picture that we can see through all 4 of the rows. In order to remove some of the grassiness you need to remove most of the leaves. Should be a great crop this year!
But the real news…I took our 2012 Pinot Noir in for analysis to see what the alcohol content was and if I’m sulfuring correctly.
13% alcohol – 0.565 conversion from our 23% sugar content at harvest, about typical.
pH 3.88 – Very high, so just need a little extra sulfur
VA(volatile acidity) 0.65% – the lower the better, but below 0.7 is OK. You can taste the bad stuff above 0.6%
Molecular sulfur 0.42 mg/l – this should be 0.5 mg/l, so I have to add some this next week. This is what keeps the wine from spoiling.
Free sulfur 50 mg/l – this should be 60-70 mg/l to reach 0.5 mg/l molecular sulfur.
TA(titratable acidity) 5.5 g/l – perfect…this is acid content and between 5-7 is great.
All in all, I’m happy with the results and it tastes very good. In fact, I’ll probably serve it at my nephew’s wedding in a month straight out of the barrel!
Veraison color vs sugar content
As some of you may have heard Sonoma Valley is ahead of schedule this year for version and probably harvest by 1-3 weeks. Here at Turtle Vines I think we are 1 week ahead of last year given all the clouds/fog the last 2 weeks.
We are about 85% into version with some vines still having green grapes. I decided to test the sugar content of the grapes at different colors to understand how it correlates.
Green grape – 8%
Orange grape – 11%
Purple grape – 15%
Dark grape on the same vine where all the grapes have turned is 16.5%.
The rule of thumb is that the grapes shift by 1% per week in “normal” weather. If most of the grapes in the vineyard are around 16.5% and I want to pick at 24%, then I’m 7.5 weeks away, or 9/23…same as last year.
Bottle Shock – I didn’t know it was real until now!
Above is a classic scene in the movie “Bottle Shock”. Little did I know that I would experience bottle shock at an inopportune moment this last week. First…what is bottle shock.
Apparently around a week after bottling and lasting one to three months, the wine undergoes a reversible transformation. “The wine tastes disjointed, unpleasant, and unfinished when in a state of bottle shock, but it doesn’t taste awful/undrinkable. The phrase most typically used to describe wine currently in bottle shock is “muted.” In the forefront are the tannins and the acid, with the fruit hiding somewhere deep in the background. Even more often, the wine throws off odd, reductive aromas.”
Normally when I visit my wine every month to check the sulfur level and taste, I take a few 1/2 bottle samples. We drink them within the week and although young, it tastes great. Well, this time I was having a knowledgable person in the wine industry taste my wine. This 1/2 bottle had been stored for 3 weeks. It normally takes about 1/2 hour to open up but in this case the wine tasted very acidic and flat with no fruit flavors. I could not understand it. Then I remembered “Bottle Shock”, although I had never experienced it until now. The real confirmation will come the next time I take a sample and bring it home…
So, when Turtle Vines Pinot is released, I will include instructions on how and when to open the bottle, as you can also get “Travel Shock”, just like “Bottle Shock”.
What are Growing Degree Days and why do I care?
Above is a picture of the closest part of the vineyard to the house. This year the vine canopy is at least 80% filled in this area…next year it will be completely full. The 667 which is away from the house is about 40% full. It is amazing to me when I look back at pictures from 2010 to now and see the difference.
What are Growing Degree Days (GDD)?
It is a measure of the amount of warmth needed to grow plants and if you know what your area is rated for you can determine what to plant and specifically what kind of grapes are suitable for your area.
Easy math…GDD = (high temperature plus low temperature)/2 minus 50. An example…here in Sebastopol the normal for this time of year is 80 for a high, 45 for a low. So…((80+45)/2) – 50 = 12.5 You then add those up for each day during the growing season and you get a calculation for your area. So for our area when you add the days between April 1 and November 1 you get 2350. Here is how we compare to other areas.
Williamette Valley = 2150 (Pinot contender)
Burgundy France = 2400 (home of great Pinot)
Sonoma = 2350 (we think the best Pinot in the United States)
Napa = 3280 (good for Cabernet)
St. Helena = 2900 (good for Cabernet)
Olympia, WA = 1595 (good for Geoduck clams but on the borderline low for Pinot, perhaps a colder varietal)
Phoenix, AZ – >7500 (good for cactus)
So if you want to grow grapes, find out your average GDD and then see which grape will grow in that climate.
Lastly…how are we doing this year on GDD’s vs the last few years from April 1 to June 15th…or year to date?
2010 564 (very late harvest)
2011 505 (very late harvest)
2012 713 (normal harvest, great grapes)
2013 787 (looks to be an early harvest)
2013 Crop Estimate
In 2012 I estimated 1300 lbs of Pinot and we picked 1190 on our first harvest! This year the vines are more mature and we should get roughly 60% of our eventual total, which would be 3 tons. However, in walking the vineyard the east end is not as vigorous as the west end, so my guess is 2.75 tons. This will make 193 cases of wine.
Let’s not forget our Sauvignon Blanc which has been getting rave reviews but is very limited. My guess is we will get 4 cases of “Nonna’s Vineyard”
Lastly, given the warm spring with lack of rain, we will harvest early to mid-September. I’m hoping September 21st as this is when our friends and relatives said they could come help!
Finding A Winery Partner Since the County won’t let us be One!
This was taken last fall as we were helping our dear friends Bill and Lauren make their Chardonnay at Santa Rosa Junior College.
What does it take to become a winery? In Sonoma County you have to be zoned correctly and then for a small winery comply with regulations and pay around $6,000, mostly to the county. Last month we started paperwork to be a winery but found out we are in the wrong zone. Back to square one.
In order to sell the wine you do make, it has to be made at a bonded and permitted winery. (Of course, anyone can make 100 gallons per person of wine a year, a law leftover from prohibition, and drink it or give it away to friends.) So, we are in search of a good match for our organic grapes that can be hand crafted to make the best Pinot Noir possible.
We would like to find a winery that has the following traits:
– is close by
– we like the wine they make
– will give us a good price for our grapes
– will help us make wine to sell, either as “Custom Crush” or “Alternating Proprietorship”
– values organic grapes
– is fun to work with
Yes, this is a lot to ask, and it is only 3 months until harvest…but once they taste the wine we made last year, all will be good.
And if this does not work…will sell some of these high quality grapes to some nice folks and make more wine on the side for us to enjoy! Either way is OK…
Stay tuned to see where we end up this year.
Removing Leaves
We went to a great deal of effort and expense to orient our vineyard 42 degrees from North/South. Why…do try and get the same amount of sunshine on the grapes evening morning and evening.
But is that enough? No…from earlier posts we thinned the shoots to balance the vine. Now, to add to our “subtraction makes good wine”, we need to remove leaves. Again, why? If you keep all the leaves then you will have herbaceous tasting wine, probably mold on the vines since the spray can’t get to the clusters and it will increase the anthrocyanin levels (taste). But you can’t take to much off or you could sunburn the grapes later in the year. In Russian River Valley, we normally take more leaves off on the morning side (above picture) and keep more on the afternoon side (below picture). You do this after the grapes are BB size to build up their tolerance to the sun.
Another complicating factor is that some varieties want more leaf removal. Pinot has very thin skin, so you can’t take to much off. Sauvignon Blanc is more tolerant so you will probably see most of the leaves removed.
Last year was our first harvest, so the plants were not very vigorous so leafing was very easy. This year…I have to think hard on which ones to take and which to keep. Won’t know until the heat of the season if I took to much.
Turtle Vines Sauvignon Blanc – Labels
Labels, we have Labels!!! We are gettng very close to finalizing our Turtle Vines labels. As you can see above, we put them on our newly bottled Sauvignon Blanc. Vaughn Aldredge is the designer and has done an excellent job on the Logo. Now I just have to determine if I wanted painted or printed labels on my 2012 Pinot Noir and make sure the labels comply with all the government requirements.
