Tag Archives: alcohol

2013 Wine Update

 

2013 wine update

Our 2013 Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir are enjoying the cold temperatures here at Turtle Vines. Not like the rest of the country, but cold enough for wine!

A lot of people ask…”What do you do in the winter?”  Well, you need to rack off the dead yeast (lees), check pH and acidity, determine if secondary fermentation is complete, sulfur the wine so it does not go bad…and of course taste the wine and make sure something “funky” is not going on while you weren’t watching.  Right now we don’t have all the equipment for testing, so we are sending it to a lab…here are the results and the actions we took.

By the way, did a blind tasting of our 2013 Sauvignon Blanc vs 2011 Matanzas Creek Sauvignon Blanc and even as ours is only 3 months old 3 of 4 people preferred it!

Sauvignon Blanc
Alcohol – 12.7%
TA – .375 … sulfured to 0.6 g/100ml
pH – 4.1 … will come down to around 3.9 after acid addition
Sulfured to 60ppm
Malolactic Complete

Pinot Noir
Alcohol – 13.9%
TA – 0.465 … adjusted to 0.55 g/100ml
pH – 3.95 … will come down to around 3.85 after acid addition
Sulfured to 75ppm
Malolactic Complete

 

2013 wine samples

Results from Lab on MLF Status and other Tests

P1030755

 

I wanted to test if our 2013 Turtle Vines Pinot Noir had finished malolactic fermentation, so I sent a sample to the lab on Dec 9th..  You can also just look/listen to the wine.  If the wine is warm and you no longer have small bubbles coming to the surface or when you open the top and you don’t hear the fermentation…it is complete.  However, I have the wine in the garage where it is cold, so instead of warming it up, I took a sample to the lab.  In addition, I had them perform other needed tests so it seemed like a good time to get those done.

Alcohol                      13.94    %                Perfect for a pick at 24 brix
Glucose + Fructose   0.175  %                 Very dry, you can taste sugar at 0.2%
Malic Acid                   5         mg/100ml   <30 is considered complete
Volatile Acidity          0.071  g/100ml      <0.075 is considered good for red wine
TA                                0.465  g/100ml     A little low, will see how it tastes later

 

Everything looks great!  It is now time to sulfur.