Wines I'm Making: 2025 Cabernet Sauvignon/Cabernet Franc

I was away the entire month of September, which made it impossible to monitor the vineyard at a fairly critical time – the period during which the critters have decided the grapes on the vines, even if not fully ripe, are ripe enough to eat. Despite being fully netted and an electric fence around the perimeter, something, probably raccoons, managed to get inside and completely stripped one of our two rows of vines of fruit. Zero fruit. Two vines at the front door, with no protections, were completely stripped as well. Had I been here, I might have prevented some of the damage. The second row was intact, however, and the fruit, despite some incursions and damage from yellow jackets, was in remarkably good condition with virtually no mildew or other rot.

I harvested the Cabernet on October 10. I got 104lbs of grapes from the single row of grapes, which is a very good yield and more than I expected judging from the state of things on my return from overseas. The grapes are now crushed and resting. The must (the crushed grapes, juice, skins, seeds, and all) tested at 22º Brix, which is at the low end of the acceptable range of sweetness (and may require a slight adjustment). Ideally, I would have waited another week or two in the hope of seeing the sugar levels rise a little more, but at some point it becomes a question of balancing the potential for additional ripeness with the potential for more animal damage. 

In the next day or two, I'll inoculate the must with yeast and the 2025 Cabernet will be off to the races. Almost no Sangiovese grapes were left on my return. I glean a couple of handfuls of berries (literally) from the stripped vines and chucked those grapes in with the fermenting Cabernet. We usually make rosé from the Sangiovese, but there will be none this year. And so it goes...

[Edit] Circumstances have prevented me from getting to the vineyard supply store to pick up yeast. As of today, Monday, the crushed Cabernet grapes have been sitting for three days. While I've kept them cool in the garage, they have spontaneously begun to ferment, as grapes will do, yeast naturally present on the skins starting the process. Vineyards sometimes promote their wines as natural and authentic because fermented with "wild yeasts," but I've never in 21 years of making wine tried to just let the fermentation go. The conventional wisdom is that using a commercially available yeast strain developed specifically for winemaking is more consistent and reliable. At the same time, I've read that the "wild" yeasts hanging around in winemaking areas are often the very same yeasts sold commercially, having become present in the air from decades of their introduction and use in making wines. Without analysis, it's impossible to know what strain of yeast is now working on my gape juice, but, everything else this year having been left to chance because of various circumstances (mainly my absence in September, but then being unable to go out on Saturday and Sunday because of my participation in the ArtTrails open studios event, the store being closed today, on Monday), perhaps it would be appropriate to just let the 2025 wine go and see what the result of the fermentation is. Tomorrow I'll try to confer with the experts and see what they suggest.