Chile - Spring 2018 - Malbec - Petit Verdot - Syrah

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Racked off the gross lee’s this weekend. The Syrah (on the left) gave the least amount at just about 5,5 gallons. Malbec and PV both yield a bit more than six gallons. I threw a couple heavy toast oak fingers into each carboy. Will probably add more in three months. No sulfite yet. I’ll run a paper chromatogram this week to see where mlf is but the syrah and malbec still have some airlock activity. I’ve got a barrel (just about neutral) I can put these through over the next year.

A small tester glass of each and I’m happy with them at this point.

Almost ready to put them under vacuum for a nice summer rest.

Cheers!
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Looks like the PV is done and the Syrah and Malbec are both still MLF’ing.
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The delineation between malic and lactic can appear quite blurred. This is with some fairly extreme filtering to highlight. I’m a bit nervous about holding off on kmeta. I’ll test again this weekend and maybe rack and sulfite depending. I could probaby bump the temp a little. It’s about 65*F ambient in the cellar.

Cheers,
Johann

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You're almost there!!! I agree with @cmason1957 , give it another few weeks, the syrah, it appears, still has a couple weeks to go. It's a bit unnerving to let em sit without sulfite, just keep them closed up and the month will pass and you can get them protected. Doing just fine, it's only been 6 weeks since pitching yeast, had a batch of Chileans from 2 years ago went 4 months with no sulfite and never did finish up, you got it all going your way!
 
The delineation between malic and lactic can appear quite blurred. This is with some fairly extreme filtering to highlight. I’m a bit nervous about holding off on kmeta. I’ll test again this weekend and maybe rack and sulfite depending. I could probaby bump the temp a little. It’s about 65*F ambient in the cellar.

Cheers,
Johann

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The heads have spoken Johann! I think your about a month behind my batch- and I I’m still k-meta free.
After having back-checked a seemingly complete chroma test with the MLF strips last year I was able to see 1st hand how misleading “complete” chroma tests can really be. And ~100 g/L remained in one.
I’ve seen with my own eyes how far you can truly push it w/o sulphite too. Keeping vessels topped is all the protection you need—so no rush! Not fearing a lack of sulphites and confident I’m allowing MLF to fully finish!
You should make a sulphite-free batch one day. Would help any uneasiness feelings from unprotected MLF. Extra high pH might be the only factor to rush it
 
That Syrah is stalling mlf. I have my heating pad in use till this weekend but it’s moving to the syrah to bump the temp a little this weekend.

Cheers!
-johann
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I'll have to take another chromatogram to check but I racked all three off sediment this weekend, sulphited, and degassed a bit by splash racking multiple times (four times back and forth).

I moved the Syrah into my neutral barrel where I'll keep it till next racking and was able to degas the PV enough to take a headspace eliminator but I'll be monitoring and topping up that vacuum because it's not fully degassed yet.

I'm using "oak fingers" that I make out of some JD barrel staves that I cut up and toast. All three of these wines took two fingers of medium+ toast (400F@4hr) for the past ~three months. I have left that 400F oak in and now added two more slightly longer fingers of medium- toast (300F@6hr).

These are coming along and I'm getting in some Pinot Noir frozen must for the fall. Also bottled a Cab/Merlot blend (20+ bottles) from last summer now @ ~14mos and have probably 4.5gallons of each cab and merlot still in bulk for bottles or blends.

Cheers!
-johann
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Just a quick update on these since they've been sitting in the basement bulk aging for a while.

Malbec
- Bottled a couple weeks ago and it spent almost a good year in a neutral barrel. This was pretty good at bottling time and I got about 25 bottles out of it. Looking forward to letting it rest for a couple months and enjoying it.
- The over extraction on this one was not as pronounced. Has a little bite.

Syrah
- This is a little bit tannic with the over-extraction and it spent maybe three-4 months in the barrel. Might top up with some smerlot to tame it a bit.

Petite Verdot
- This one has not seen barrel time yet and is a little lighter than I expected.
- Tastes good though so waiting for some barrel time to concentrate a little then bottle.
- This one was not over extracted as I used a different enzyme which I measured correctly.

Will update more later.
Cheers,
johann
 

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