2022 Cab growth starting off great.

[Snafflebit]

for the idly curious, here is the Brix progression

 

[Snafflebit]

and here is the whole month of August showing Brix development.

The Merlot is always early and I have to let it go riper in order to pick the Cab Sauv at the same time. I have to transport the grapes a ways off and rent a destemmer which forces me to wait.
When I buy my own destemmer in the future I can be more selective about my pick dates.

Row 1 of the Cab Sauv is also slow to develop each year. I think it gets more water than the other vines and it is younger. So, I will probably pick that later and hand destem.

 

[GSMChris]

These graphs are great - thanks for sharing.

With the upcoming heatwave, I would be very interested in what happens next. Also, if you are taking any measures to mitigate, I'd love to know what they are.

 

[Snafflebit]

I had the same thought in mind. I watched a video conference by WineMaker magazine. I do not remember the guest speaker. He said that during a September heat wave do not be shy about drenching the vines with a single deep watering. I plan to do that over Labor Day weekend if we hit triple digits.

September 10 is the as of now planned pick date

 

[GSMChris]

Best of luck!!

 

[meridaen]

So you guys are having a bad summer in CA? We're about to have our third la niña summer in a row which means mild and wet, not really business as usual in southern Australia.

Watching this thread with interest because these cycles are usually flowed by 8-9 year droughts here, and I'm super interested in how you manage through this.

 

[Snafflebit]

Because of the heatwave over the west coast we decided to harvest at 4:30am this morning sugars were spiking fast This year was not a big haul I have not weighed yet

 

[ChuckD]

Do you crush and press in the living room as well? I don’t think my wife would allow that .

 

[Snafflebit]

Just temporary storage. The garage becomes an oven in this heat. I could literally cook hot dogs in there.

I am a little concerned what will crawl out of these clusters.

 

[VinesnBines]

I'm planning to start picking some tomorrow. We aren't supposed to get to 70 before noon. I'm concerned about too much rain.

I feel for you; we stay at the mercy of the weather.

 

[ChuckD]

Just temporary storage. The garage becomes an oven in this heat. I could literally cook hot dogs in there.

I am a little concerned what will crawl out of these clusters.

I figured as much with the heat you are seeing.

 

[GSMChris]

The Brix on the grapes down here in Paso is really rising as well. I am in a group that is buying two macro bins of Syrah from one of the local vineyards and doing a group wine effort. We were initially expecting to be making wine near the end of September or early October.

The brix was 18.8 on Monday August 29th and 24.2 on Monday the 5th. So a 5.4 point rise in seven days. We will be making wine Friday - and I suspect we will be watering it down.

 

[Snafflebit]

The Brix on the grapes down here in Paso is really rising as well. I am in a group that is buying two macro bins of Syrah from one of the local vineyards and doing a group wine effort. We were initially expecting to be making wine near the end of September or early October.

The brix was 18.8 on Monday August 29th and 24.2 on Monday the 5th. So a 5.4 point rise in seven days. We will be making wine Friday - and I suspect we will be watering it down.

I will definitely water back to 25 Brix. These vines were almost dry farmed since I don't own the vineyards and cannot babysit the vines. Destemming is happening today.

 

[Snafflebit]

Man oh man. The sugars in these grapes went ballistic. I am not sure I trust my field refractometer now. I expected something around 26 on the Merlot (I should have measured at harvest but I did not) but the results in the must are 29.5 Brix. I did not see any raisins but there was a little bit of shrivel. I guess the vines could have really sucked the grapes dry during this heatwave.

Must was cold soaked 3 days then measured again:

Merlot Brix 29.5. TA 3.7 g/L. pH 3.85. Not great, but I expected the acid to be even worse. TA moved from 3.1 to 3.7 after cold soak

Cab 1 Brix 28.5 TA 4.5 g/L pH 3.79
Cab 2 Brix 28.5. TA 4.4 g/L pH 3.73

Backwatering to 25 Brix and throwing in tartaric to 4.8g/L on all batches. Going to start buying tartaric acid like bags of sugar.

 

[CDrew]

I might go even further, but you are on the right track, Not that it matters (taste does) but that's really low TA. Maybe take the pH to more like 3.5-3.6. But Brix of 28,5 is huge. Not many yeasts can deal with that.

 

[Snafflebit]

I have backwatered to 25 Brix which is a little bit of a crap shoot with must, because who knows exactly how much juice is available in the must. I estimate 65% of must is juice.

This is the 29.5 Brix Merlot Monster. 45L must + 9L water. pic is backwatered must.
The resulting liquid is 22 Brix but I believe it will climb. There are some raisins.

And 100g of tartaric acid. pH went from 3.85 to 3.1

I retested TA and it came to 4.875 g/L just like I wanted.

I have to trust the math at this point.

We have yeast liftoff!

 

[CDrew]

This is great. I had the same situation last year, and overshot a bit for the same reason. Bet things turn out great. I went to 24.5 instead of the 25 I was going for. But that wine is tasting great at this point and no problems with fermentation. Acid balance is perfect. But 29.5 is at the outer limits! Nice work.

 

[Snafflebit]

Last year I experienced the same overshoot with water and acid, but those wines taste fine also. So, I am not worried like I was last year. Acid hides a multitude of sins. My low acid wines taste bitter. I believe the acid masks the bitterness and enhances other flavors like sweetness and oak. Maybe I could add even more acid like 6g/L. Also I am trying to ferment reds faster to get the juice off the seeds. That is my guess about the source of bitterness.

 

[Snafflebit]

I checked the Brix of all 4 ferments this morning and they range from 25.5 to 24.

Yay!

Gotta trust the math sometimes.

 

[Snafflebit]

Ferments are bubbling, slowly. I am using BM45 yeast this year. Supposedly it adds lots of flavor character. We shall see. This yeast does not rip through a ferment like Merit or D80