Wines I'm Making: Labels for the 2013 Cabernet

Just finished designing labels for our 2013 Cabernet Sauvignon/Cabernet Franc. I added the words "10th Anniversary Vintage," as this is our tenth wine from the little backyard vineyard we planted in 2001. We made our first wine in 2004.

Wines I'm Making: Bottling and Racking (December 19, 2014)

Busy yesterday and today doing wine chores. I bottled our 2013 Cabernet Sauvignon/Cabernet Franc yesterday. We made 40 bottles in 2013, which is fairly normal, although in a small harvest year like 2014, we make only about 25 bottles. 2013 was our tenth vintage. I've just designed a label. I'll be taking it down to the printers to be printed this afternoon.

This morning I racked and sulfited the 2014 Cabernet wine, which has been undergoing malolactic fermentation since the middle of October. I didn't bother to test it. I'm assuming the fermentation is finished. I also racked and sulfited the 2014 rosé from our Sangiovese grapes. As usual, racking was a breeze. A layer of tartaric acid crystals always forms over the lees in this wine (below), which means there's no danger of picking up unwanted sediment during racking. Next I will have to design labels for the rosé. I also have a hard cider fermentation ready for bottling, but that will have to wait until another day.

Wines I'm Making: 2013 Cabernet Racked and Sulfited (January 31, 2014)

I finally racked and sulfited the 2013 Cabernet, although the malolactic fermentation doesn't appear to have gone to completion. I tested the wine twice using a paper chromatography kit. The fermentation looks like it went about halfway. Nearly two months had passed and I kept the wine warm with an electric blanket, but there is still some malic acid in the wine. It seemed safest to move on, though, given the time, so I racked the wine off the gross lees (which can be seen left behind in the fermentation vessel here) and sulfited the wine lightly, to about 49ppm. I need to look into the long-term implications of an incomplete malolactic fermentation. Live and learn, as they say. It's now time to bottle the 2012 wine, which I recently gave a final racking.

Wines I'm Making: Malolactic Fermentation Initiated (November 3, 2013)

I started malolactic fermentation today in the Cabernet Sauvignon/Cabernet Franc wine that's been fermenting in the living room. The alcoholic fermentation has mostly finished, so it's time to get the malolactic going. I added two 125ml packets of the Wyeast brand malolactic culture to my 8 gallons of new wine. As malolactic bacteria can be finicky, I've wrapped the carboys in blankets and inserted a small electric blanket between them, which is what I've always done, even though this Wyeast strain says it will remain active at a temperature as low as 55 degrees. In the winter months, the house temperature generally ranges from about 58 degrees to 68 degrees, but warmer will be better, I imagine. Malolactic fermentation can take anywhere from four to 12 weeks. After about six weeks, I'll test the wine to see how it's coming along.

Wines I'm Making: 2013 Cabernet Pressed (October 20, 2013)

Today (October 20, 2013) I pressed the 12 gallons of Cabernet Sauvignon/Cabernet Franc that's been fermenting in the living room the past couple of weeks. The must yielded a little over eight gallons of new wine, which is still fermenting in the glass carboys that now contain it. It smells excellent and doesn't taste bad either, although a little sweetness is still apparent. I expect it will be fermented completely dry in another three days or so.

As I added the yeast on October 10, the wine was fermenting 10 days on the skins, but had had a four-day pre-soak, so a total of two weeks on the skins. It looks dark and heavily extracted. So far, so good.

Wines I'm Making: 2013 Grape Harvest (October 6, 2013)

2013 marks our 10th harvest. We picked the grapes in our little backyard vineyard on Sunday, October 6--both the Sangiovese and the Cabernet grapes. October 6 is a fairly typical date for the Sangiovese (the dates have ranged from around September 29 to October 16 over the years).

It's somewhat early for the Cabernet (October 18 in 2012), but a fair number of clusters were already turning to raisins, probably because I watered less than usual this year (only twice, rather than three of four times in most years) and it seemed best not to wait any longer. We harvested 20.5kg (or 45.1 lbs) of Sangiovese grapes, which became just under eight gallons of must after crushing and de-stemming. The must measured 22 degrees Brix with pH at 3.63, just about right for the light rosé these grapes will become.

We harvested 41kg of Cabernet Sauvignon/Cabernet Franc (or 90.2 lbs), which yielded a little more than 11 gallons of must. The must tested at 27.5 degrees Brix--the highest it's ever been, reflecting the high percentage of raisined grapes. The pH was at 3.56. Because of the high sugar level, I'll probably add a small amount of acidulated water to the must to lower the Brix to around 26 to avoid producing an excessively alcoholic and therefore unbalanced wine. The lesson here is to water the grapes a little more, although I'd been hoping to eventually wean the grapes off water altogether.

The Sangiovese is already pressed and inoculated with Epernay II yeast, as usual. We ended up with about 4.5 gallons of pressed juice. I pitched the yeast on the afternoon of the 7th. The grapes spent about 20 hours on the skins, which will result in a fairly deep pink wine.

The Cabernet must is resting. I usually do a three- to four-day pre-soak, which is supposed to result in more extraction from the skins of softer (water-soluble) tannins than the (alcohol-soluble) tannins extracted during the fermentation process. I don't know, but this method seems to produce a wine we like. Today I'll be adjusting the sugar level, as noted above. Tomorrow or the day after it will be time to add the yeast and get the fermentation started. I love this time of year. The whole house will soon smell of fresh yeast and fermentation--like a winery.

[Update: This afternoon (October 9) I dissolved 15g of tartaric acid crystals in 2.5l of distilled water (using a formula provided by the kind people at The Beverage People) and added the mixture to the Cabernet must. It was difficult to mix it all in evenly, so, measuring the Brix after the addition, it comes out a bit low (at 23 degrees Brix), but I suspect that's simply because of an imperfect mixture. The sweetest juice is probably stuck at the bottom of the container. The aim was to reduce the sugar to 25.5 Brix. I'll stir it up again tomorrow and test it once more.]

Wines I'm Making: 2013 Cabernet at 20 Brix

Yesterday I got out the refractometer for the first time this year--out of curiosity; we are still several weeks from a normal harvest date--but a random berry I tested from one of our Cabernet vines was at 20 brix. I normally aim to harvest at around 24 brix. As generally it takes about a week of good weather to raise the brix level by one degree, that would suggest we're about a month from harvest. As we usually harvest in the first week of October, everything seems to be on track, despite the rather cool summer we've had. Looking at the grapes, I noticed some that were beginning to shrivel a little. I'd watered only once so far this year. Given the cool weather, I was trying to see if we could go entirely without supplemental water this year, but I decided it would be best to water once before harvest. I turned on the irrigation system for five and a half hours.

Wines I'm Making: 2013 Grapes--So Far, So Good

The 2013 grapes look good so far. The clusters have taken on full color by now. The grapes are netted. The electric fence around them has been on for a couple weeks now. So far, critters haven't shown much interest in them. I'm hopeful that we'll be able to harvest everything that's on the vines. Fruit set was good this year. I expect we'll get a fair amount of fruit. The 32 vines in the back yard have yielded anywhere from about 90lbs to a little over 200lbs over the years. I expect we'll be at the high end of the range this year. We probably have about six weeks to harvest now.