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I agree 100% with John. Definitely do MLF with the Merlot and that one should be your primary blender with a Cab. Good luck!

Last season, due to timing, I pressed and barreled a Cab Franc that was still at 1 Brix. It eventually went dry while in the barrel.

Yeah, it started out as a project to just see if, through settling, if there may be any usable juice to add to the primary fermenter. Then we saw them chugging away (like crazy) on their own! I wanted something to see if I could keep the wild yeast at bay and the Avante was just the weapon. I...

We had enough"sludge" to fill three carboys. We left them to settle. Juice was sulfitedto 50 ppm earlier. The next day came into the winery to find they had errupted! They were going like gangbusters! Dumped them in a brute and added a pinch of Avante.

Here's a great write-up about co-innoculating vs. sequential :

Yes, we (@NorCal) have successfully co-inoculated with CH16. We have really come to appreciate this yeast strain. It's a monster. No H2S, high Alcohol & heat tolerant - love it.

Planning to use it on our Chenin Blanc this year based on a tip from someone at Lodi Labs. No experience here but we will see! Anyone else?

That Avante sure has some teeth! I'm letting Prelude do it's job for the 1st 6 Brix or so then I'll add my Avante to finish the job on my Merlot.

You know it's harvest season when.... Your family get very annoyed with you that all their plans are contingent on when the various harvests come in. They have learned not to plan anything in September!

I predict this to be you best wine ever made!

Prelude is a non-saccharomyces yeast used to start the fermentation. You let it consume a few brix of your juice, then add your traditional saccharomyces yeast to finish up the fermentation. We let it go 2-4 brix last season with great results. This year we'll try going a little deeper with...

Very interesting. I'm going to go with a Prelude start before the Rhone 4600. Thinking also about using this opportunity to test another yeast in a carboy. I may go way out of the box and use a red-wine yeast to see what that brings.

Going to try enzymes this year with our Cabernet. I want good extraction and I need to ensure we get the max juice (enough to fill a 60-gal barrel) out of the bin of grapes I'm getting.

We've been sold on Avante for several seasons now. LOVE it! Solid performer. Very high tolerances to heat and alcohol levels. No H2S! The only change we've made is the addition of Prelude non-sach yeast "before" adding the Avante. Last year we let Prelude go for about 2-4 brix before...

plash racking, Good question and one I have been asking myself over the last few months. D254/D80 was used to make arguably the best wine I've ever done - Double Gold and Best of Class Barbera at the CA State Fair. That being said, in my climate (Sierra Foothills) I am always battling high...

It was a fun event! Thanks @NorCal for hosting the tasting and the super prep job. My first take-away was that, on the nose, three (of the four) wines were related. There was a distinct nose on the three and something quite different on the other. I preferred the aroma of the single...

Interesting thread! I wasn't aware this was a competition! :) Really, we are trying to compare these CFs to note anything standing out from blind tastings, then revealing and trying to tie back to components used (or not used). I have two barrels of CF from the same vineyard - 1 with Prelude...

I can't see a price for it on Cellartek, but Lodi Wine Labs has it for $29.50 per 500 gram bag.

No, I haven't heard of this one before. Sounds interesting though. Are you going to try it?

I usually get about 60 gallons of wine from 1 bin or 1000 pounds of grapes....so if you did 200 pounds of grapes in your 32-gallon container, then you may yield about 12 gallons of wine. Depending on the grapes, you may get up to 15 gallons. Not that you're asking about volume of finished...