Wines I'm Making: Bottling 2023 rosé and 2022 Cabernet

I spent some of the weekend of February 10 and 11 attending to winemaking chores I had been putting off. I bottled our 2023 rosé of Sangiovese, made labels, and got the labels on and did the same for our 2022 Cabernet Sauvignon/Cabernet Franc. We ended up with 15 bottles of the rosé and 62 bottles of the Cabernet, which is pretty typical. This past weekend I also racked and sulfited our 2023 Cabernet and added oak on the assumption that the malolactic fermentation has probably gone as far as it was going to go, although I did not go to the trouble of doing a paper chromatography test to see. It is what it is.... I treated the wine for a slight hydrogen sulfide smell, which is a reminder that next year I'll need to go more to provide yeast nutrients during fermentation.

 

Wines I'm Making: Bottling the 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon/Cabernet Franc

I spent part of the weekend bottling our 2021 backyard Cabernet Sauvignon/Cabernet Franc. Tasting the finished wine for the first time, I'm very pleased. This may be the best wine we've ever made. Other particularly good years so far have been 2008, 2012, 2019, and 2020.

I've designed new labels every year since we started making wine in 2004, but have run out of ideas, so I've decided to start rotating the labels every ten years. I've bottled the 2021 wines basically using the label I designed for the 2011 wines. Next year, I'll use the 2012 design for the 2022 wines, and so on....

We had 14 gallons to bottle from 2021. These were in a 3-gallon container, a five-gallon container, and a six-gallon container. Stupidly, I forgot the modest sulfite addition I normally make altogether when doing the largest of the three containers, so I've ended up with 30 bottles that will have to be emptied back into a large container and bottled again.... A pain, but we like to let the wine mature for a good long time, so it will have to be done—a job for next weekend.

Wines I'm Making: 2021 Sangiovese Rosé Bottled

Finally got around to bottling our 2021 backyard rosé today. I bottled three gallons, or 15 bottles, from the nine Sangiovese vines behind the house. Normally I do this before Christmas, but it's been a busy year. Now it's time to design a label.

[Edit: Label done—see below.]

Wines I'm Making: 2017 Cabernet and Sangiovese Bottled

Newly bottled and labeled 2017 wines

I finally got around to bottling and making labels for the 2017 wines--a very small batch of Cabernet Sauvignon/Cabernet Franc from the backyard vines and two batches of Zinfandel from the neighbor's grapes, some oaked, some unoaked.

2018 Sangiovese in the press

In other wine news, I pressed the 2018 Sangiovese from our vines on October 14, after an 11-day fermentation. We got a little under four gallons of Sangiovese, which will make 20 bottles. I pressed the Cabernet Sauvignon/Cabernet Franc today, October 17. The 2018 yield was six gallons, which will make 30 bottles, or 2.5 cases.

Sangiovese ready for the press

Wines I'm Making: Bottling 2016 Zinfandel and 2017 Rosé

I finally got around to bottling our 2017 rosé last week and it was time to get the 2016 Zinfandel I made from our neighbor's grapes into bottle as well, so I spent a day at it. I designed labels for the two wines as well as for a few older bottles of rosé that hadn't been labeled. Everything looks pretty good.

Wines I'm Making: 2015 Cabernet Bottled

Bottling by hand siphoning

Yesterday I finally got around to bottling our 2015 Cabernet Sauvignon/Cabernet Franc. It was a short job as our 25 vines (21 Cab Sauvignon, four Cab Franc) produced a tiny harvest that yielded only three gallons of finished wine, or 15 bottles. The low yield was in part because of a row of overgrown trees in my neighbor's yard that have increasingly shaded the vines over the years. This spring, I persuaded him to remove them, as he had wanted to anyway. I'm hoping the greatly increased sunshine now will result in both better yields and fewer problems with mildew.

Siphon and bottles ready

I tasted the wine as I was bottling it. It promises to be very good—perhaps as good or better than the 2014, which has been the best wine from our little vineyard to date.  2016 was a disaster—so little fruit that we made no red wine at all, only 15 bottles of rosé from the combined fruit of the 25 Cab vines and our nine Sangiovese vines. I'm hoping 2017 we'll be the turnaround year.  Below is a finished case of corked wine. Now it's time to design the label for the 2015 wine.

Wines I'm Making: 2014 Cabernet Bottled

I finally got around to bottling our 2014 Cabernet Sauvignon/Cabernet Franc (on January 24). We made only 25 bottles—but that's more than the vines yielded in 2015 (I expect to get only 15 bottles from the grapes harvested this past year). The wine is sound, but a little lacking in ripeness. The trees in the neighbor's yard have gotten so tall that the vines get too much shade now. I'm looking into ways to counteract that effect. I used the same label design as for the 2004, which was our first vintage.

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: 2012 Cabernet Bottled (February 21, 2014)

I bottled our 2012 Cabernet Sauvignon/Cabernet Franc today, putting eight gallons of wine into newly washed and sanitized bottles. From the tastes I got while siphoning the wine, it's turned out very nicely. In particular, it's got more ripe fruit flavors than in some past years. I won't be able to truly judge the wine until it's settled down and I can sit down with a bottle over a meal, but I'm hopeful that we've made another good batch. Now it's time to design a label for this wine, but also for our 2013 rosé (from Sangiovese), as well as the hard cider we bottled on December 23 last year. I need to hurry. The cider is quickly disappearing.

Wines I'm Making: 2012 Cabernet Final Racking (January 26, 2014)

Today I finally got around to racking the 2012 Cabernet that's been resting for more than a year now. I've racked it off the remaining lees in preparation for bottling the wine, which I'll do in the next couple of days. I sulfited the wine lightly, to about 50ppm. Judging from the taste I got siphoning the wine, it has turned out nicely. I look forward to opening the first bottle after it's been bottled, labeled, and given a chance to settle down again, probably sometime in late February--sooner, if possible. Getting a label designed will be the determining factor.

Wines I'm Making: Hard Cider Bottled (December 23, 2013)

Yesterday, December 23, I bottled the hard cider made from this year's apples. The ten gallons ended up as 48 22-ounce bottles and 19 12-ounce bottles. I dosed the fermented cider with about 26g of corn sugar for each gallon of cider in order to start the in-bottle secondary fermentation that will give it some sparkle. The recipes call for up to 33g of sugar per gallon, but I didn't have enough sugar, and the first time I made hard cider (in February this year) I used 26g per gallon and the bubbles were fine, so I didn't bother to get more sugar. Knowing that a fermentation is going on in a sealed bottle always makes me a little nervous (probably needlessly), so I've decided to leave the bottles in the upstairs bathtub while the fermentation is underway. If there are any accidents, spilled cider won't destroy the carpet or hardwood floors that way. I don't really expect problems, though.

I capped the portion fermented using White Labs English cider yeast with green caps. The portion fermented with the Mangrove Jack yeast I capped with gold caps. After about two weeks, the cider should be lightly carbonated and ready to drink, but longer aging should allow it to develop a little. We'll see how long this batch lasts. The 3-gallon batch I made earlier in the year was so good it disappeared in about three weeks.  

Wines I'm Making: 2013 Rosé Bottled (December 19, 2013)

Yesterday, I bottled our 2013 Sangiovese Rosé. The wine is a beautiful, deep, pink-amber this year--deeper in color than in past years. I don't know why. This year, the grapes soaked about 20 hours with the skins before pressing, which has been fairly typical. Depth of color should mostly be a function of the time the grapes spend on the skins--all else being equal--but the 2012 wine spent 22 hours on the skins and it was a paler color. Whatever the reason for the deep color this year, the wine is pretty. I'm very pleased with the results in general. I think this may be the best rosé we've made so far, edging out the excellent 2009.

We had some very cold weather while the wine was resting (down to as low as about 19 degrees F). Cold causes the formation of tartaric acid crystals in the bottom of the container (photo below), which is very convenient, as it creates a hard crust over the deposit of dead yeast and other precipitates that can be a pain when siphoning wine. With the rosé, siphoning is always a breeze as there is nothing floating freely to cloud the wine or suck up from the bottom; it's all encapsulated by the crust of crystals.

We had the first bottle last night with an asparagus and portobello mushroom risotto that I made. Excellent, if I do say so myself. Now it's time to design a label.

Wines I'm Making: Wine Chores (July 10, 2013)

In the past couple of days, I've made some progress toward finishing various wine chores I've been putting off. Following the odd rain we had at the end of June, it was important to spray the vines with sulfur again to prevent mildew. That I achieved a few days after the rain. So far, everything looks good--no signs of the mildew and the vines set a lot of fruit this year.

I racked the 2012 Cabernet that's been resting and topped up the containers with a bottle of our 2011 wine. Judging from the tastes I got while siphoning, the 2012 looks very promising. The 2011 was a bit light, but the 2012 seems to have real depth. I look forward to tasting it again after it's bottled. I'll probably bottle it around harvest time, or sometime in late October.

I finally bottled the "second-run" wine I made a while back from the pressed skins of the 2010 grapes. I've neglected this experiment--and for good reason. The wine was never very attractive. Making wine from pressed skins works. That much I learned, but the wine it makes is dull and lifeless. Having let this go so long, it has acquired an added oxidized component. It's in gallon jugs now and out of the way, but it's probably destined for the drain.

The most important chore remaining for this year is getting the nets straightened out and on the vines before this year's crop of grapes begins to show color, which should be in about a month. The nets are off the vines but tangled and full of dead weeds. I need to stretch them out, check them for damage, clean around the vines, and then get the nets back in place sooner rather than later. It's my goal for the day.

Wines I'm Making: Hard Cider Bottled (March 16, 2013)

Bottled the hard cider yesterday--my first attempt at making the stuff. I dosed my three gallons of fully fermented liquid with 78 grams of dextrose to fuel a secondary fermentation in the bottles--which will give the cider a little sparkle. I hope I've calculated the sugar correctly; the proper amount is supposed to be 3/4 of a cup of sugar to five gallons of cider. I converted that to grams and reduced the amount appropriately for three gallons. Too much sugar will mean too much fermentation, which will mean too much carbon dioxide production and possibly more pressure than the crown caps can hold. I hope the bottles don't burst. I've been told that I should leave them at room temperature for about two weeks to do their thing (until March 30). Then I'm supposed to throw a couple bottles into the 'fridge and give 'em a try when they're nice and cold--that's the delivered theory anyway. Fingers crossed.

Wines I'm Making: 2011 Cabernet Bottled (January 4, 2013)

Finally got around to bottling the 2011 Cabernet Sauvignon/Cabernet Franc. It was a small batch last year. We produced only 33 bottles of wine, but it's quality that counts. I had a tough time of it this time around. First, I used a slightly larger diameter tube for siphoning the wine and a shorter length--mostly because when replacing my siphon I couldn't remember what size I had used in the past. The large size made the wine flow much faster than I'm used to and the shorter length combined with cold weather made the tube stiff and unwieldy. The result was much more spillage than usual. I estimate I lost more than a bottle. In a commercial winery that might be a miraculously small amount of spillage. Here, making wine from the grapes we grow in the back garden, it's 3% of annual output. Second, the crushed Campden tablets failed to fully dissolve. It really is important to see to it that the sulfite is evenly distributed throughout the wine. Finding much left at the bottom of the carboy, I had to laboriously siphon thirty bottles back into the container and then rebottle them. I didn't want some of the bottles to be unprotected and others to have much too much sulfite. Two lessons learned the hard way. Anyway, the wine is now in bottles awaiting capsules and labels (which I have yet to design and print). Judging from what I consumed while siphoning, the 2011 wine will be good, but it is more tannic than usual and has a bit more acidity, suggesting that it will take time to open up. I estimate it will start showing well around 2018.

I also did the first racking of the 2012 wine. Working on the assumption that enough time had passed to allow malolactic fermentation to go to completion, I sulfited the wine lightly and transferred it to clean containers, leaving behind the gross lees. I added oak staves, as usual. The wine (8 gallons, or 40 bottles) is now resting.

Wines I'm Making : 2012 Sangiovese Rosé Bottled (November 30, 2012)

Didn't quite make it for Thanksgiving, as we sometimes do, but the 2012 rosé from our little backyard vineyard will be ready for Christmas this year--actually, well before; I bottled the wine today.

It appears to be excellent. Good color--a deep magenta pink--with a soft, fruity nose, crispness on the palate and with a solid core of fruit behind the acidity. Delicious. Made only 15 bottles, which is typical, as we have only nine Sangiovese vines, but that allows us to drink a bottle every few weeks, and it's very satisfying to drink wine from grapes you've grown yourself, crushed and fermented yourself, and bottled yourself. Now it's time to design a new label.

Wines I'm Making: Bottled the 2011 Sangiovese Rosé (December 23, 2011)

Between bouts of late Christmas shopping and food shopping yesterday I found the time to bottle the 2011 Sangiovese rosé from our backyard grapes. I'm quite pleased. It's come out a nice medium-deep orange-pink and, based on some quick sampling while siphoning, it has good flavors and length. It will be a big improvement from last year's thin wine, made from grapes that just never ripened fully--even if it's not as good as the excellent (as good as any rosé I've ever tasted, if I say so myself) rosé I made in 2009. Just in time to open the first bottle tonight, on Christmas Eve, with friends and family. Now I need to design a label....

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: A Busy Time of Year (2010)

This is a busy time of year because of all the winemaking going on--a winery in miniature is in operation here. Yesterday I bottled the 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon/Cabernet Franc to make room for the Sangiovese rosé in the only six-gallon containers I have. The rosé appeared to be mostly finished fermenting--on day 18, the longest fermentation I've done so far. But I 'm only the shepherd; the time it takes is the time it takes. Next chore (although a pleasant one) will be to design labels for the 2009 wines--and, before too long, for the 2010 rosé; the rosé should be ready to sample by around Christmas.

The turbid, fermenting rosé was beginning to clear as the action of the yeast slowed, and the wine tasted dry, so I thought it best to limit oxygen exposure by racking the wines into a single big container. I sulfited lightly (four Campden tablets in six gallons plus three fifths, or about 40ppm). Sulfite is supposed to kill any yeast still alive, but I suspect it wasn't enough because the wine continues to send up streams of fine bubbles, and the airlock is still percolating. That's just as well. The new rosé is now protected from oxidation at least to some extent by the sulfites and the lack of air space in the new container, and any ongoing fermentation will make the wine completely dry, the way I like it.

I put the 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon/Franc into 30 bottles but left one uncorked. We tasted it last night for the first time. It was in shock from the bottling and the sulfiting, so not at its best, but it was enough to get a first impression. I'm very pleased. I reserved some overnight in a decanter, helping to blow off sulfites and giving the wine air--it had developed some lovely leathery scents, rose-like scents, and cocoa scents. The palate was broader and more generous too, again marked by leather and cocoa. An excellent effort, if I say so myself. The photo shows toasted oak staves that were in the resting wine for a full year and the siphon filling bottles.

The 2010 Cab is still in the front room undergoing malolactic fermentation. Soon that will be done. It's been 11 days since the wine was inoculated. Activity appears to have slowed, but malolactic fermentations can be hard to judge. I will have to test it. I have every reason to hope the 2010 wine will be better even than the wine just bottled--the vines are a year older, I know what I'm doing now, the vines didn't suffer from mold or critter attacks (raccoons) because I've got the sulfur spraying, netting, summer trimming, and electric fence down to a routine now. As long as the weather cooperates. This year, we made good wine despite difficult weather. Should be ready for anything now--except the unexpected.