Measurements II

In an earlier post I estimated that a 240 gallon t-bin completely filed with must yields 165 gallons of wine. I've been trying to monitor this throughout harvest and so far I'd say 165 gallons is on the low end. In a recent pressing I estimate we yielded 195 gallons of clear wine/T-Bin. That seems high, so let's call it 190 -- still significantly more than 165. The data I'm seeing makes me want to estimate 180 gallons of wine from a full T-Bin. This is an important measurent when determining acid and water additions to the must. For adding yeast, nutrients, and So2, I believe you measure total volume including solids, so this ratio is not important there.

180 gallons means that the grapes are about 25% solids and 75% liquid.

A few French words I've learned this harvest

Delestage: A fermentation management process
Saignee: Bleeding juice
Batonage: Stirring lees
Elevage: Making wine

Harvest Update

All juice has been innoculated and we still have some Kanzler and Rosella's fermenting. We should be done pressing within two weeks.

Our last crush of the harvest

woo hoo!

This is wine making

Your truly enjoying dinner at Limon winemaker style (with Brenda and Michelle).

Kanzler pick

The lights are mounted on a trailer and towed by a tractor.

Kanzler pick

Andrew watches the pickers. They picked 4.1 tons in 90 minutes. It was some of the cleanest fruit we got. Credit goes to Steve Kanzler and his vineyard manager Eric. It should make great wine.

Punching Down SF Style

This is a compost dumpster overfilled with pomace and stems. You can see our new neighbors' campsite in the background..

Brenda cooling fruit with dry ice before crushing.

Fruit Ripeness and Brix

Today I was punching down the must from Garys' upper vineyard and from Rosella's, both harvested on Oct 14. Both are still cold-soaking. I think the Rosella's tastes perfect, but I think the Garys' has a little stewed nose and flavor. So all else being equal, I think harvesting the Garys' a little earlier would have been better. But when?

On 10/8 the Rosella's measured 24.6 brix. We didn't measure the Garys' at that time, but it was tasting sweeter. Harvest was 10/14, and on 10/17, after 3 days of cold-soak, the Garys' measured 28.0 brix and the Rosella's measured 25.8 brix. Must tends to increase 1.0 - 1.5 brix during the cold soak (by absorbing sugar from dehydrated berries).

My best guess is that the Garys' was harvested at about 27 brix, which maybe was too high. The lesson here, I'm thinking, is that all else being equal Pinot, at least from Santa Lucia, should be harvested around 24.5-26 brix. Probably wrong to generalize, but I've got to start somewhere.

Brian Loring

Brian is seen looking dapper at the Wine Spectator Grand Tasting last night. I was lucky enough to join Andrew in pouring at this event and I got the chance to taste some amazing wines. Pride Mountain was my favorite Cabernet. Paloma makes an outrageously good Merlot. I also loved the Araujo cab and Robert Foley cab (Foley's is called a claret, but he said it was 100% cab). In the "value" category I was impressed with Plumpjack's $75 cab. I also liked what Ramey was pouring.

Disappointing wines included Harlan, a Gallo Sonoma 1992 Reserve Cab, Dominus, Dunn, and Far Niente. Some of those wines were overwhelmed with Brettanomyces. From bad barnyard to band-aid to nasty antiseptic. It really made me wonder what they were doing. Maybe I'm just too sensitive to that flavor. But I'm guessing that many new barrels come to the winery already infected with Brett. Cabs, being aged so long in oak, are more likely to get infected. I need to study this a bit more though.

Fermentation Update

The stuck fermentations started moving again, though slowly. We started moving some of the fermenters into the sun, we got electric blankets for some, we built a little "fort" out of picking bins and put the fermenters in there along with space heaters, and we got aquarium heaters which we put in some of the fermenters. We also added yeast hulls at the rate of 2 pounds / 1000 gallons. Must that was in the range of 2-4 brix has moved down to 0-1 brix. Adam Lee of Siduri says his AMH fermentations average 14-17 days. That was a little comforting.

Stuck fermentation issues

The Keefer we innoculated with AMH on Oct 3 has really slowed down. The brix have stalled out on 5 of the bins around 2 degrees Brix. Andrew is warming them up a bit with electric blankets and jugs of hot water (icecube style). Hopefully this will get the yeast moving again. More measurements this afternoon.

The reasons for this are unknown and the possibilities are many. I speculate that we didn't innoculate or "pitch" enough yeast to begin with, so that now the yeast are getting weak and old. I also think the temperature in the winery has been a bit cool. It's probably averaged about 68 degrees F in here lately.

In the future Andrew is going to hit everything with Uvaferm, a very strong yeast, at 10-12 brix.

More on Measurements

I want to begin measuring titratable acidity, pH, Brix, and total SO2 of the grapes as they enter the winery. Andrew only measures pH and Brix after a 48 hour cold soak. I need to find a good methodology, perhaps digging around in the bins and selecting random berries. The advantages I hope to attain are being able to bleed, acidualate, and add water just once and to do all this prior to any cold soak. The earlier the better for many reasons.

I need to figure out how many tons of grapes equate to how much liquid, so I can make acurate adjustments.

We often have beautiful women hanging around

The boys

After crushing 4 tons of Garys' and Rosella's.

Donna Barber

Adding dry ice to the must.

Don Barber

Brenda's dad learning how to make wine.

Kelly Krueger adding S02 and enzymes to the must.

Even Dictators Love AP VIN

1.6 tons of Turner today

We got 1.6 tons of fruit from Turner, our first fruit from the Sta. Rita Hills (map). Brian Turner's vineyard is a 21-acre vineyard off Highway 246 in the north part of the appellation.

The fruit was picked late yesterday morning and delivered late this morning. The truck was late in picking up the fruit so it got warm. Also the truck was supposed to be cooled to 40 degrees F, but was only at 45. The warmest fruit was the 777 clone which measured 79 degrees F in the center of the picking bin -- not good. We discarded the juice in that bin (about 5 gallons) which tasted a little pruney. We kept the rest of the juice. We also had about 3/4-ton of 667 and 1/2-ton of 114. Each clone was put in separate fermenters. Also, we did not destem about 1/4 of the 667.

It should be very interesting to see how this fruit turns out!

Brenda punching down

Note how hard everyone else is working.

Ed Kurtzman

Guest fork lift driver.

Titratable Acidity vs pH

I've been trying to get a handle on the difference and I think I've finally nailed it, Here's some excerpts from various web sites that have helped:
Gerald Goodwine has this to say:

We apparently taste both free and bound H+ ions. I think I have heard that we taste the free ones "more loudly" than bound ones, but there are so many more bound ones that titration gives a more accurate measure of taste. The pH gives a better measure of whether or not the wine will go bad, whether the sulfite will work, or whether the mash will produce the right amount of sugar.

Jack Keller offers this:

Although TA and pH are interrelated, they are not the same thing. A solution containing a specific quantity of a relatively weaker acid such as malic will have a different (higher) pH than a solution containing the same quantity of a stronger acid such as tartaric.

Wikipedia:

A strong acid is an acid that dissociates completely in an aqueous solution.

In any other acid-water reaction, dissociation is not complete, so will be represented as an equilibrium, not a completed reaction. The typical definition of a weak acid is any acid that does not dissociate completely. The difference separating the acid dissociation constants of strong acids from all other acids is so great that this is a reasonable demarcation.

Due to the complete dissociation of strong acids in aqueous solution, the concentration of hydronium ions in the water is equal to the concentration of the acid introduced to solution: [HA] = [H+] = [A-]; pH = -log[H+].

Finally, here's a little taste test you shouldn't try at home because it will probably burn your mouth:

Emile Peynaud, in his seminal work Knowing and Making Wine (originally Connaissance et Travail du Vin in French, 1981, translated into English by Alan Spencer, 1984, John Wiley & Sons), offers the following experiment which is best suited to be administered by a winemaking club, society or guild. Prepare the following six buffered solutions with the same pH:
* Tartaric acid at 1 g/L
* Malic acid at 1 g/L
* Citric acid at 1 g/L
* Lactic acid at 1 g/L
* Acetic acid at 1 g/L
* Succinic acid at 0.5 g/L
...Future considerations might well be shaped by realizing that tartaric produces the hardest taste, malic the most pronounced, citric the freshest, lactic the weakest, acetic the bitterest and most odorous, and succinic the saltiest.

First Press

Today we are pressing our first grapes. The press is a SK Group PSP16 1600 liter bladder press. We are pressing about 3/4 ton of Keefer 777. It was innoculated with D254 on October 3. It is reading -0.4 brix.

We filled this T-bin a little too high

Jarrod is enjoying it though. We processed 1 ton of Keefer Ranch fruit today. Keefer Ranch fruit has lots of earwigs relative to what I've seen from Ontiveros and Garys'. Interesting, but of little consequence I'd think.

When to bleed

When berries come in at 25 Brix or higher it is necessary to add water in order to bring down the final alcohol content. Different winemakers do this in different ways. You can just add water, or you can bleed off an equivalent amount of juice as you add water. You can do this at any time from immediately after crush to during fermentation. By waiting to bleed, you will be discarding juice that has already absorbed some of the compounds from the skin.

Andrew bleeds and adds water after 2-4 days of cold soaking. Another winemaker I know does this during the early stages of fermentation. I have also read of winemakers bleeding at crush (saigner). I am inclined to want to bleed at crush. This will result in the least amount skin compounds lost.

Destemming

From Wine Business Online:

The berry size for the varietals to be destemmed should determine the hole size for the destemmer cage. Ideally, the holes in the destemmer cage should be just slightly larger than the berries to be destemmed. Too small and berries will be ejected with the stems; too large and there will be more jacks in the must.

I need to take some measurements, but I think our holes are too big for our berries.

Maceration

Wikipedia has this to say:

This time, during which the broken skins are in contact with the juice, determines much about the colour, flavour, tannin content and aroma of the resulting wine. Different kinds of maceration may be distinguished:
* Pre-fermentation Cold Maceration is the period of time used to extract colour and flavour prior to the start of fermentation. This time period can be extended by chilling the macerating fruit to prevent fermentation.
* Extended Maceration is the extra time that the red wine is in contact with the skins after primary fermentation has completed.
* Carbonic maceration is the fermentation of whole clusters of unbroken grapes in an atmosphere saturated with carbon dioxide, which prevents fermenation. This method is used to increase the fruitiness of a wine.

Only whole clusters are used in carbonic maceration! Destemming the grape leaves a little hole in it where the stem was attached, I guess.

Of course carbonic maceration is the winemaking method used in vins nouveaux such as Beaujolais Nouveau. Maurizio Gily with a nice description of the process:

The bunches of grapes are placed whole (without stemming or crushing) into vats, saturated in carbon dioxide and left for 5-10 days preferably at a high temperature (25-30°). In this environment the enzymatic processes cause the skins to lose their substance; at the same time the colour moves from the skins to the fruit flesh, the malic acid is partly degraded and certain aromas develop (strawberry, caramel). After carbonic maceration the grapes are pressed (after destemming and crushing in some cases) and a coloured must is obtained, which is fermented as if it was white – ie, without the skins. The resulting wine has particular aromas, lower acidity and is less sour than normal wine at the end of fermentation: generally these wines are drunk within a few months because their aromas are unstable over time.

Measurements

It is important to know how much liquid there is in the must in order to add the proper amounts of yeast, nutrients, and sulfur. It is estimated that a full 240-gallon Macrobin T-Bin (36.5" deep) of must yields 165 gallons of wine. Of course this will vary based on the amount of solids (skins, seeds, stems). I like the following formula for estimating the amount of liquid in the must: ((36.5 - distance from top to must surface) / 36.5) * 165.

One day after innoculation

Linda Knetsch, who is visiting from South Carolina and helping with harvest, checks the must.

Adding yeast to the must.

Acclimating the yeast to the must

Yeast

The two types of yeast Andrew is using. This is his first time using D254.

Innoculation

Mixing AMH yeast with Go Ferm prior to innoculation.

Innoculation

Measuring yeast.

Punch Downs

We've been cold soaking Keefer since late Tuesday, Ontiveros since late Friday, and Garys' (lower block) since Saturday. The point of the cold soak is to extract more Pinot Noir goodness from the skins prior to fermentation. During the cold soak we punch down (stir up the must) every day. We also test pH and brix. If brix are too high, acidulated water is added. Garys' didn't need any water, but everything else did -- up to about 10%. Prior to adding water, we bleed off an equivalent amount of juice. This keeps the solid to liquid ratio constant. The juice (46 gallons so far) is put in barrel and will be made into Rose (in the past Andrew has discarded the juice). If you see a Rose from a Pinot Noir producer, this is likely it's source.

The numbers are in

We checked Brix and pH of Garys' and Rosella's. Rosella's was the lowest brix at an avergage of 24.0, Gary's was at 25.6. Acid levels were still a little high for both at a pH of about 3.1. For Rosella's it will be a real battle of weather versus berry maturity and ripeness. Up to 3/4 inch of rain is predicted for the next week.

Deciding when to harvest

Andrew and Adam Lee of Siduri are discussing when to pick Rosella's Vineyard. Up to 3/4 inch of rain is forecast in the next week. The grapes are not as mature as everyone would like. But leaving them on the vine is risky because rain can foster Botrytis fungus which leads to bunch rot and crop loss.

Andrew and Gary Francioni

Gary and his wife Rosella grow amazing Pinot Noir.

Andrew and Rosella Francioni

Rosella and her husband Gary were kind enough to host us for an impromptu tasting of their August West 2005 Pinot and Chardonnay from Rosella's Vineyard in their beautiful wine cellar. We also enjoyed Rosella's delicious antipasta which she made with her mother-in-law.

Gary's Vineyard

Garys' Vineyard in the Santa Lucia Highlands. Here's a great 3-D map. This view is looking east towards Highway 101.

Sampling Grapes

Ed Kurtzman, the winemaker at August West Wine samples grapes in Garys' Vineyard. (Ed is sampling these grapes as a favor for another winemaker.) The grapes are tasted and will be tested for sugar and acidity to decide when to harvest. Note that he is looking away from the grapes he grabs. This is to help ensure that the bunches chosen are random. A cluster is picked and placed in a ziploc with about a dozen other clusters. In the lab it will be pressed and measurements will be taken.

Grapes being dumped into the Crusher

This bin of grapes is about 15 feet off the floor on the forklift. The forklift has a rotator and the grapes are being dumped into the hopper bin of the crusher.

Adding dry ice to the must

Brian shovels dry ice into the must. About 100 pounds of dry ice go into each T-Bin depending on how cold the fruit is when we crush it.

Must fresh out of the crusher

As crushed grapes fall from the crusher/destemmer the addition of dry ice for the cold soak creates a fog.

4 tons of Garys' Vineyard grapes

These grapes arrived by refrigerated truck about an hour ago. We will process them today, which involves sorting, crushing/destemming, adding enzymes, adding sulfur, and adding dry ice. The must is put into Macro Plastics T-Bins (you can see these stacked in the background) where it will cold soak for a few days. After the cold soak, we will innoculate with yeast for fermentation.

Cleaning is a a huge part of winemaking

Gary and Kevin volunteered to help crush grapes. When they arrived we were adjusting the acid and sugar levels of the Keefer Ranch must. That involved bleeding some juice and replacing it with acidulated water. They are cleaning up the mess.

Pinot Noir Clones

From Professional Friends of Wine:

Genetically unstable, the parent vine may produce offspring that bear fruit that is nothing like the parent's in the size and shape of the berry or cluster and will frequently even have different aromas, flavors, and levels of productivity. There are 46 recognized clones (genetic variants) of Pinot Noir in Dijon, France. Ampelographers estimate there are as many as 200 to possibly 11,000 clones of pinot noir worldwide. By comparison, cabernet sauvignon has only twelve identifiable clones.

I've adapted this short and sweet clone description from Cambria's website:

The Pommard clone [4] adds deep plum fruit, Swiss clone [2A] adds floral components and structure, while bright red fruit characters come from Dijon clone [777].

This Issue of the Pinot File also has a great article on Pinot Clones. I excerpt:

[The Pommard Clone] is known for its structure, tannins and density. [The Swiss clone] provides more red fruit flavors and notes of violets and blueberries. It can be blended with Pommard grapes to soften the wine as it texturally has less density and tannins than Pommard. [Dijon clone 777] features more black fruits in its flavor profile such as black raspberry, black cherry, cola and spice.

Sour Grapes (waterberry, sour berries)

Well rumor has it that there will be some more sour grapes in the ton of grapes we get today from James Ontiveros and his Rancho Ontiveros vineyard. Here's a link to an article about James (and Peter Cargasacchi).

In 1997, James established Rancho Ontiveros Vineyards and planted five acres, all pinot noir, and Clones 113, 114, 115, 2a and Clone 4 from Pommard. He planted an additional three acres in 2000-Clone 1a from Burgundy and two clones from vineyards in California - Benedict Selection (from the Sanford & Benedict Vineyard) and Swan from northern California, from the late legendary, Joseph Swan (not to be confused with T.J Swann, of "Night Train" fame, I think.)

So we will again be sorting grapes by hand to pick out sour berries. Sour grapes are redder and more translucent. They also taste sour because they have little to no sugar. Nobody I've spoken to seems to have a definitive answer as to why this is a problem this year. A limited Internet search on my part found overproduction and poor nutrition to be likely causes. But I'm not sure I've actually found the right symptoms.

Punching down the cold soak.

Measuring sugar levels of the must.

22.5 Hour Work Day

I started work at 2:00 am Wednesday morning and finished at 12:30 am this morning (Thursday). It was our first day of harvest and I have a lot to blog about. Here is a list of upcoming topics:
- Sour berry problem, worse with clones P4 and 2A. Not as bad with 777
- What's the difference between clones (777 was ripest)
- Back to sorting again. What are the disadvantages. I've heard there's a great discussion about sorting at Harlan I need to find
- We hand sorted every single cluster today to eliminate sour berries.
- Adding sulfur, how much and best method
- Cold soak -- advantages and disadvantages
- Letting grapes sit for hours before crushing/destemming. Any problems here?
- mixing clones prior to fermentation -- how to avoid

I'm exhausted.

Sorting table

Andrew and Casey sorting sour berries at our Ikea sorting table.

First grapes into the new winery!

Marcy Keefer

After a night of harvesting grapes.

Andrew and Kim Loring

Kim is Brian's sister. They got Andrew started making wine.

Harvest

Andrew, Craig Keefer the wine grower, and the hard working pickers. It amazing how fast they work.

Picking Keefer Tonight

We bring our first grapes in tonight! We are picking Keefer Ranch in the Russian River Valley starting at 4am Wednesday. Due to some problems with a higher than expected percentage of sour berries, the grapes will require extra sorting. It should be an exciting day! The photo is of Andrew today at his "still dry" winery.

Boss

Andrew Vingiello, the Winemaker/Owner of AP VIN

Bakerlane (Baker Lane ?) 2004 Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir

I enjoyed a great dinner at Nopa the other night and had the 2004 Bakerlane Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir. The wine, from grapes grown on The Hurst Family's Twin Hill Ranch was cellared and bottled by Bakerlane Wines in Sebastapool. I mention it because it was a good value. It retails for about $30, and Nopa was selling it for $40 (also by the glass for $10).

I really enjoyed the wine at dinner. Here's my notes from finishing the last glass two days later:
Smoky, berry fruits on the nose with some earthy notes. Great acidity. Currant, cherry and blackberry and a hint of oak. Noticing a touch of menthol on the finish. Lingering oak and vanilla.

The Wine Aroma Wheel is a great tool for new wine tasters like me.

Harvest starts Tuesday night with Keefer Ranch. More later.

Fruit Variabilty

In an earlier post I speculated about how to deal with harvested fruit that may vary from under ripe to raisined. Yesterday ran across this article by Mark Greenspan on the Wine Business Monthly website which addresses this topic.

I think that it's a fair statement that if you ignore variability in the grape, your wine will tend towards mediocrity.... Winegrowers need to pay closer attention to the cream of their crop and how to prevent blending it in with the lesser fruit from their vineyards.

...Great wine can only come from great grapes...There are numerous factors in any vineyard that can limit the potential fruit quality, regardless of how ripe the fruit is...but it often does come down to uniformity of ripeness.

So my earlier speculation that variability in ripeness may add to a wine's complexity seems pretty clearly refuted here. The question becomes how high of a cost is a winemaker willing to pay for uniform ripeness? I think I would be willing to discard a significant percentage of the grapes that show up at my winery door. We will see...

Winemaking is not glamorous

After living in San Francisco for over nine years and making many trips to beautiful Napa wineries I was under the impression that winemaking was a fairly glamorous business with beautiful people and beautiful wine estates. The reality I've confronted couldn't be further from that. Great grapes are grown by true rural farmers. Great wine is made by onetime cab drivers. Apprentice winemakers have fulltime "second" jobs that are nothing to wrie home about. Wineries are squeezed into industrial warehouse spaces (one I saw resembles an old car repair shop). Expensive wines collections are held by ordinary people who have a wife and two kids in Livermore. The glamour is in the bottle I guess...

Sanitizing

It seems that most everything I learn in winemaking has multiple answers. Take sanitizing equipment, which I seem to spend most of my time doing. At AP VIN I've learned to mix a solution of about a half tablespoon of potassium metabisulfite per gallon of water. We follow that up with a ozonated water rinse. That, by most accounts, is pretty effective. Another winery I've visited sanitizes with an iodine solution, followed by a 5 minute wait, followed by a water rinse. Not sure what is best, but I prefer the sulfite/ozone both for its double cleaning and for the fact that sulfites are naturally occuring in wine and any residue left behind is only going to have the mild effect of minimally increasing a wine's sulfite level, which gets tested anyway.

Here's a nice link about sanitizing with chemicals.

Here's another about using ozone.

Crushed 4 tons of Pinot Noir today in Berkeley

Today was my second day ever actually making wine. I was helping out at a winery in Berkeley where we crushed 4 tons of Pinot Noir from Brosseau Vineyards. So what did I learn today? That grape quality can vary. Of the 8 half-ton picking bins, ripeness varied from just barely ripe to raisined. We sorted out the damaged fruit and leaves, but most everything else went into the fermenter. When I make wine I would consider sorting the fruit more heavily. I would try to eliminate almost all raisined and partly raisined berries. I don't like wines with prune flavors and I think this may be where that comes from. I also would taste test bunches that looked slightly less ripe and eliminate those as well.

I wonder if this would lead to better wine. Maybe it would just lead to one-dimensional wine...