Wines I'm Making: Racked 2010 Wines Yesterday

I finally got around to racking the 2010 wines yesterday. I transferred eight gallons of Cabernet Sauvignon/Cabernet Franc to new containers and sulfited them lightly (to 48ppm). I also racked three gallons of experimental "second run" Cabernet--wine made by adding sugar and water back into the pressings of the real wine and letting it ferment again. The real wine smells good and tastes good as well. It seems to have retained the strong Cabernet spiciness I noticed in it the first time I racked it. The second-run wine will probably prove to have been a waste of time and sugar, but we'll see. Finally, I racked all the second-run rosé I made--again, an experiment, but one that looks like it may have been worthwhile.

Wines I'm Making: 2010 Sangiovee Rosé bottled

On the morning of Christmas Eve, I bottled the 2010 Sangiovese rosé, a simpler process than it often is because I had already racked the wine a couple of weeks earlier and there was no sediment to deal with. We got thirty bottles of rather pale wine--disappointing compared with the lovely 2009 I made. The weather in the past year was some of the worst in memory. A very wet spring, a cold summer, and late rains were all a problem. Some vineyards made no wine at all. We survived the sudden hot spell in late August (I think it was) that ruined many vines (growers pulled leaves earlier in the year to try to prevent mold and encourage ripening, but that left the grapes exposed to the blistering heat and sun, causing many to shrivel). In the end, our Sangiovese grapes never really ripened, and the wine is an expression of the year we had. Quite drinkable, but thin and not very satisfying. One can only hope for better weather next year....

Wines I'm Making: Bottling 2010 Sangiovese Rosé, 2009 Zinfandel

Yesterday I racked this year's Sangiovese rosé off its lees and a deposit of tartaric acid crystals (shown in the photo). This wine always forms a crust of crystals over the lees, making it very easy to siphon clear. I also did a final racking and sulfiting of the rest of the 2009 Zinfandel we made from the neighbor's grapes. For reasons that aren't clear to me, the wine from this second (five-gallon) container seems to have better flavor and more body than the 2009 Zin I've already bottled (from a three-gallon container).

Today I'll bottle the Zinfandel. I'll let the rosé sit another week or so and then bottle it before Christmas. Tasting the wine yesterday, it seems pleasant, but it's much less flavorful than the excellent rosé we made last year. I expected that. The weather was so cool for so long in the summer of 2010 that the Sangiovese just didn't ripen fully.