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Bottling the 2012 Pinot Noir

What a day…March 11, 2014…we just bottled our 2012 Pinot Noir! We started with 96 gallons and filled 39 1/2 cases.

If you want to start from scratch and “Live the Dream”, plan on at least 5 years to grow the grapes, ferment them, let the red wine age until it is ready for a bottle…and another 3 months until bottle shock has worn off for you to drink it.

It was a great time with our 6 of our friends to bottle the wine. John (EMTU Vineyards) and I set everything up in 3 hours the day before…and then it took us another 3 hours to bottle and clean-up. The really great part is over 1/2 the crew was there when the grapes were harvested in 2012.

Here are the empty bottles.

Liz handled the bottling.

Joey and Enrique handle the corking.

John did the labeling.

Chris and Lauren put on the capsules, did a quality check and packaged them up.

Bill and I unloaded the bottles from the cases, moved the filled cases to the truck and of course sampled the product during the day to make sure it was OK to drink!

What you get from small wineries is a hand crafted product that is painstakingly farmed, carefully fermented and aged , and lovingly bottled. I hope those qualities come through when you taste the wine.

Bud Break – March 11, 2014

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Another growing season has begun, our 5th leaf at Turtle Vines! We had bud break March 11, 2014. This is 11 days later than 2013. Why? Our vines are older and we received a lot of rain 2 weeks ago, both contribute to a later start time. So…if the weather is the same as 2013, we will harvest the Pommard clone on September 22 and the 667 clone on September 31.

Adding extra water for weak vines

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I have 3130 vines of very tightly space Pinot noir surrounded by houses and trees on a very slight grade. About 550 vines of the 667 clone were weaker than the other vines. They are near trees and on the top of the small grade. So last week I installed an extra drip line. I will water these vines earlier than the rest of the vineyard to allow them to grow better and catch up to the rest of the vines. It will also let me fertilize them through the irrigation system separately. You can do this type of customization with small vineyard and it will pay big dividends to ensure your vines are healthy producing high quality grapes!

First Bottling – Designing a Label

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After you have picked your wine bottle, you need to brand the wine and design a label.

Our son, Vaughn Aldredge, designed the front label and logo you see above. Isn’t it beautiful? Just in case you didn’t know, the Turtle is our spirit animal. Next, Mary Mitchell incorporated the logo into a wine label. Lastly I found a printer at the Wine Show in Sacrament two weeks ago who showed me the label below from Silvertip Vineyards. The label is wonderful and printed on thick felt paper. We liked it so much we are going to use the size and paper for our label. Lastly, I registered a QR code for www.turtlevines.com and put it on the back label. I hope you enjoy it what you see it!

2013 Sauvignon Blanc – Pick/Destem/Press/Rack/Ferment

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We waited for Joey’s friend Jeanette to arrive from Texas and then picked, destemmed and pressed our Sauvignon Blanc.

We ended up with 200 pounds (enough for 4 1/2 cases). Brix 21.5, pH 3.6 and TA 3.9. Just about perfect…with very nice flavor and brown seeds. Last year we picked at the same time as the Pinot, but this year I put a little to much fruit on the vines so it had to ripen for an extra 6 weeks.

Joey with her harvest

We pulled out all the same equipment as with the Pinot. The real exception with white vs red is you ferment the red on its skins and with the white you press it right away. The press held the 200 pounds easily, in fact I think we could have had 600 pounds in the 170L press.

Here is the wine after we racked the gross lees. You can see that the fermentation has started after we added yeast on 10/21. It should take around 8 days and then we will rack off the lees and add malolactic bacteria and let it ferment again for a few months.

2013 Sauvignon Blanc – Ready to Pick

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For most vineyards the 3rd leaf is the first time you get grapes. Not so for Joey’s Sauvignon Blanc. Last year (her second year) we got 35 lbs which resulted in 2 gallons of wine. In addition, we harvested her grapes the same time as the Pinot Noir on Sept 23rd.

This year I left a little to much fruit on the vines given it does not get as much sun as the Pinot Noir, so it has grown well but is 5 weeks behind in ripening. However, we have had almost no rain and the days have been warm so it is finally ready to pick! How do I know? The birds have started to peck and eat the grapes.

Sunday we will pick, destem and crush the grapes…then on Monday we will rack and introduce yeast…fun, fun, fun!!!

Stirring Lees and of course, Tasting!

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Our 2013 Pinot Noir is now 3 weeks in “barrel” resting on fine lees. It is undergoing malolactic fermentation and I expect this will take another 1-3 months as the nights here are becoming chilly.

Another item we are doing differently this year is that we will stir our lees every few weeks. The theory is that it will enhance the mouth feel of the wine. So…I was off to TAP Plastics this morning to purchase a food grade 54″ long, 3/8″ diameter rod. Worked like a charm.

And of course…had to have a little taste to start the morning out right. It was wonderful and I think better than the 2012 at the same stage last year. A side note…last year we added an enzyme for color and quicker clarification. We found out this is not needed for Pinot Noir so we didn’t do it this year, but you could notice the wine is not as clear. It will take a little longer to fall clear!

New Bladder Press in Action !

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After 5 days cold soak and 8 days of fermentation, it was time to press. This year we pressed when the hydrometer reading hit 0.3, which means we had a little sugar left to ferment. If you are not familiar with a hydrometer it measures the density of the mixture and has a dual scale for density/sugar content.

It is the preference of the winery where to press during the fermentation process. Most of the skin tannins are obtained early in the process as they are water soluble and the seed/wood tannins are more alcohol soluble so they are picked up at the end of fermentation. I want a more fruit forward Pinot, so I press early and let the fermentation end when all the skins/seeds/wood are removed.

One thing you can’t see is the intense color and taste of the pressed skins. At the end of the press cycle is very intense wine…that tastes great if you don’t go to long.

After the wine is pressed I allow it to settle for 1 day and then rack off the gross lees. In my opinion, if I left them with the wine and was not careful I could pick up some back sulfur odors.

Finally, we have added some French Toasted Oak during malolactic fermentation to allow this flavor to blend in, and then the wine is put to bed while we wait for the malolactic fermentation to finish before we taste the final product. In about 6 weeks we will sulfur and let it age.

We ended up with 74 gallons of wine from a little over 1/2 ton of grapes.

2013 Harvest – Turtle Vines Pinot Noir

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Harvest 2013!

2012 was our first harvest, and we made wine with the 1190 pounds, which turned out great!

This year we picked 1037 pounds on Tuesday Sept. 10th just for us and our wine and sold the rest of the grapes. The rest we picked on Wednesday Sept 11th. Wilkinson Vineyard Management showed up at 10:15am with 13 pickers. In 1 hour 45 minutes they finished the entire vineyard. They ended up with a little over 2 tons, split 0.8 tons 667 Clone and 1.3 tons Pommard Clone that was delivered to Horse and Plow Winery. So…with both picks we harvested 2.6 tons!

Here is a picture of our truck and borrowed trailer delivering the grapes.

Awaiting the final weigh tag.

Joey harvesting for our wine.

Setting up the destemmer.

First punch down of grapes with 30 ppm sulfur before they get 5 days of cold soak.

Destemmer Only?

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Last year we were lucky enough to make our wine at EMTU Vineyards with our friends Chris and John Mason. They are about 7 miles away so it was difficult to punch down 3 times per day for 10 days and do all the work necessary to make wine. So this year we decided to invest in some equipment and make the wine at our house.

A few weeks ago I posted a picture of the 160 L bladder press that will handle about 1/2 ton of fermented grapes. Our latest investment is a destemmer, it separates the berries from the stem by use of an auger and paddles. We went the Beverage People in Santa Rosa. They brought these in special just for Pinot Noir home winemakers. They only had three in stock as they didn’t know who would buy these…they said only winemakers who had French friends that had tasted Burgundy would do it. But wouldn’t you know, the three all were sold in one week, and one was to us!

Normally for whites and many reds you crush and destem at the same time. However for Pinot Noir the idea is to destem only and ferment with whole berries. This is gentler on the berry and will prolong the fermentation since the grape is whole and it will take longer for the yeast to penetrate the berry. The goal is a more complex flavor profile by retaining the aromatics in the grape longer, or so I have read. Actually, most of the commercial wineries only destem and then do an inspection on a sorter table to take out any bad berries.

Will have to see how it turns out!