Ferment diary ... Shiraz, Grenache, Zin/Primitivo

[REDRUM]

My babies ... Shiraz, Grenache, Grenache/Shiraz, Primitivo ... and the little guy in the middle is field blend of all 3 varieties. Introduced Lalvin VP41 MLB yesterday, now they're just going to do their thing for the next couple of months before I rack again and add sulphites.

I want to add oak spirals (med toast french oak) - the recommended oaking time is 6 weeks but I don't want to overdo it so I think I'll do 3 weeks then see what the flavours are like. Do you think it will be best to add the oak spirals now, or wait till after MLF is complete?
View attachment 47487

 

[cmason1957]

I would add them now, but tie a bit of fishing line to them so that you can remove them from the demi John when you are ready, without racking.

 

[Obelix]

Cute babies

 

[Ajmassa]

I want to add oak spirals (med toast french oak) - the recommended oaking time is 6 weeks but I don't want to overdo it so I think I'll do 3 weeks then see what the flavours are like. Do you think it will be best to add the oak spirals now, or wait till after MLF is complete?
View attachment 47487

Oak can actually help benefit the MLF they say. Helps the bacteria to have something to latch onto instead of in the lees.
I was under the impression a spiral needs more like 12 weeks for full extraction. 1 spiral to 5-6 gallon I leave mine in for a full 3 month racking period. 6 weeks might be already playing it safe.
Plus med French toast shouldnt be too dangerous. Heavy American can and has accidentally overoaked tho.

 

[REDRUM]

Cool .. these are 15L demijohns (= approx 4 gallons I think) and the instructions with the spirals suggest 1 for this volume of liquid and that all the oak flavour/tannin gets extracted pretty much in 6 weeks. So any longer than that may not make too much of a difference.

 

[Ajmassa]

I guess when in doubt can’t go wrong if ya follow the included instructions.
This is taken from the morewine guide to red winemaking. http://morewinemaking.com/public/pdf/wredw.pdf

 

[REDRUM]

Brilliant! Thanks for that.

 

[REDRUM]

Disaster! Came home to a strong smell of wine yesterday. Went out to the back room to find the level in the Primitivo demijohn had dropped dramatically and there was wine all over the concrete floor. Carried the demijohn outside and when I tried to lift it out of the plastic basket, the bottom fell out of it completely. Lost 15L - the batch I was most looking forward to. Not even down the drain, because that would have been less messy.
A crack must have formed around the base and wine started leaking out slowly... the weakest point of the jug, because the base separated as a nice neat circle. At least the rest of them are intact.
Has anyone else had anything like this happen?

 

[Obelix]

What a rotten luck :-( Sorry to hear that.

May be an imperfection in manufacture.
Happened to my cousin's 6L demijohn last year.
The crack at the bottom. But the bottom didn't fell of - he salvaged 5 out of 6 L.

I noticed today's bottles are thinner.
Made in China?

 

[REDRUM]

Italian, apparently. Looks exactly the same as my other demijohns but bought it from a different shop, so maybe it was knocked around a bit in transportation.
In hindsight I should have tried to siphon the wine out rather than lift & pour as soon as I saw there was a problem... would have salvaged most of it that way!

Ah well, live and learn

 

[REDRUM]

I have removed oak spirals after about a month in the Grenache and 'GSP' (which is what I'm calling my 20L grenache-shiraz blend+ the little bit of primitivo I managed to save from the cracked demijohn disaster), and leaving the oak in the Shiraz for the full 6 weeks. All are smelling & tasting pretty positive.
However, I thought I could smell a slight development of oxidisation in one of them and started to get paranoid about preservatives as I hadn't added any sulfites at any stage.
So now I have added 1/4 tsp of potassium metabisulfite to each of my demijohns.
They have been going through MLF for the past 5 weeks, I don't have the means to test whether or not this is completed but just wanted to get people's opinions on whether:

• MLF is likely to be complete or close to completion after 5 weeks?
• Addition of SO2 is going to kill all remaining MLB or just halt/slow down MLF for a bit?

 

[ceeaton]

They have been going through MLF for the past 5 weeks, I don't have the means to test whether or not this is completed but just wanted to get people's opinions on whether:

• MLF is likely to be complete or close to completion after 5 weeks?
• Addition of SO2 is going to kill all remaining MLB or just halt/slow down MLF for a bit?

Since you don't have a way to test for completion, take a sample of the wine, degas it (shake it up with your thumb over a bottle or something like that) and give it a taste. If it tastes a bit softer and less acidic than before you started MLF, it's probably done, but the only sure way is to test it. As warm as it is in your area, I'd think that it would finish up pretty quickly if it got started.

SO2 will inhibit the MLB's activity, but won't kill it. So the issue will be, if the SO2 level drops once you bottle it, will the MLB start back up if it didn't finish, hence the reason to test it and let it finish if you can.

 

[REDRUM]

OK - thanks for the tips!
I am planning on bulk ageing for a long time (at least til the end of the year) with fairly minimal SO2, so hopefully if there's still some MLF to happen, it will happen.

 

[cmason1957]

If it doesn't happen before the end of the year, it may happen in your bottles at a later date. That's always my fear with incomplete mlf.

 

[REDRUM]

I do plan on getting a chromatography kit ... eventually ... so this might spur me to do so