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At least the lignified stems will not add green flavor to your wine. That is worse than low pH in my opinion Are you finished with 2023 winemaking yet?

You can heel in the vines in a shady spot of your land. That way you don't need to focus on irrigating the potted vines and they will grow slow---er. Don't leave them there forever. I have a large number of rooting canes in pots and grapes are thirsty. I have to finagle some help from my...

Tasted the GW Cab again last night and it is becoming a nice wine. It is obvious that aging helped. I can taste subtle seed tannin bitterness after I have had a couple of glasses, towards finishing the glass. Probably more of a flaw than a fault, IMO. It seems that it takes a little time for...

Pinot Noir is still coming in, later than usual and recent rains are not helping the harvest. Pinot Noir Harvest 2023: The Race to Ripen This season has been a learning experience for me

I have been told the Grenache clusters can get very big, like the size of soccer balls sometimes. The primitivo looks amazing, no green berries at all.

I like this, and then I can cook ramen the other 11 months of the year! But seriously, I hate trying to clean the strainer after each measurement, and it never seems to get completely clean.

I entered the last turn of the race to the finish line. One batch of cab sauv is at 0.998 SG. Merlot is 1.008 The port was at 11.5 Brix yesterday, today it is 9.3 Brix = 1.036 SG. I will fortify the must at 1.023 SG Pressing day looks like Thursday maybe Friday

The freeze dried culture is pretty resilient, and of course, ML activity is really subtle. I barely see it in a glass carboy.

grandma is not going to be happy with you using her good table like that!

My technique is to take a measuring cup and press the opening against the side of the fermenter ( I use Brutes) and push down slowly through the cap until the cup fills through the small space between the measuring cup and the Brute wall. I do this BEFORE punching down the cap, Punchdown stirs...

🤔 maybe it is a matter of opinion? The Hackbarth model is a 10th order polynomial relating SG and Brix. FermCalc uses the model to find a solution to then solve another equation. Perhaps a grad student has been tasked with the algebraic problem by an evil doctorial advisor.

Still considering the barrel. Probably the port will be my gateway drug for barrels.... The port has reached 16 Brix. I added 1.5 g DAP to 20 liters of wine, just a bump to keep things happy. I have had some ferments drop 10 brix overnight, but so far, this is really slow and steady, and BM 4x4...

I took a sample of my wine and agitated it for 2 minutes with a plastic fork. Much of that bite is gone. It is difficult to describe sensations that are right at the edge of detection. I am certain now that I was experiencing the sparkling quality of a gassy wine, great in Champagne but not in...

I think everyone is right about barrels. I need them to go to the next level, it is a committment I have been delaying. Midwest Barrels has a variety of used 5 gallon barrels for $120 plus $50 shipping, ouch but I may bite the bullet. I can get used 60 gallon barrels for $50, but there is...

And here is most of the tartaric acid, 🤣

Yes, this acid taste problem could really be my friend CO2 again, still dissolved in the wine like last year's carboys. I assume the barrel aging helps a lot with letting out CO2. That will be my next check, to see if my degassing wand makes a difference.

Strictly carboys

You would have to search hard for a tasting room that provides cheese between sips. Crackers are a maybe, but not all that common. It is like a bar, keep the fruit behind the counter or the customers will start making a meal!

Although this was interesting to see on the back side of the bottle Ridge adds tartaric acid also Hmm

Dredging this thread again, stirring the lees and seeing what gurgles up! I am sampling my wines and in comparison when I open a bottle of something commercial that I really like I have decided to test the pH, and TA when possible. So, I opened a bottle of 2019 Ridge, and interesting blend of...