Harford Vineyard 2014 Californian Harvest

[Boatboy24]

They do have Central Valley Lodi old vine zin grapes.


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Yep - it's the "Lodi Gold" brand I was after. They are 'supposedly' better, though I have no personal experience to back that up. I think it's been a rather good year overall out there, so I'm sure I'd be fine with the 'regular' grapes. Or I could go with Amador Gold. I bought Amador Gold Petit Sirah, last year and the grapes were very good. The Amador harvest is later too, so that'd give me a few extra weeks to pretty up the wine lab for the new arrivals.

 

[heatherd]

I ordered one bucket each of Californian Chenin blanc, cab franc, and Zinfandel; a lug each of Cal. Lodi old vine zin and cab franc grapes. Also one bucket Italian pinot bianco. Should be fun!
Heather


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[4score]

Yep - it's the "Lodi Gold" brand I was after. They are 'supposedly' better, though I have no personal experience to back that up. I think it's been a rather good year overall out there, so I'm sure I'd be fine with the 'regular' grapes. Or I could go with Amador Gold. I bought Amador Gold Petit Sirah, last year and the grapes were very good. The Amador harvest is later too, so that'd give me a few extra weeks to pretty up the wine lab for the new arrivals.

I have no doubt that the Amador grapes will be great. Amador County is our personal favorite place to visit for wine tasting. It's very low-key, laid back, but they have some SUPER grapes from there. Mainstays from there are Cooper Vineyards and Runquist. Jeff Runquist sources most of his grapes from Amador and wins truckloads of awards.

 

[Boatboy24]

Thanks 4Score. After my good experience with Amador Gold grapes last year, and the fact that their harvest times work better with my schedule this fall, I went ahead and ordered 4 lugs of Old Vine Zin.

 

[joshs]

Thanks 4Score. After my good experience with Amador Gold grapes last year, and the fact that their harvest times work better with my schedule this fall, I went ahead and ordered 4 lugs of Old Vine Zin.

Same here....doing the OV Zin from Lodi as my suppliers don't seem to have the OV Zin from Amador, just the regular Zin.

-Josh

 

[Boatboy24]

Same here....doing the OV Zin from Lodi as my suppliers don't seem to have the OV Zin from Amador, just the regular Zin.

-Josh

You buying from M&M?

 

[joshs]

I think it will end up being Maltose due to timing and schedules.

 

[heatherd]

Central Valley California juices and grapes are due to arrive at Harford this week, ready for pickup this weekend.
Heather


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[heatherd]

I picked up my juice and grapes yesterday. I am doing a batch each of Zinfandel, Chenin blanc, and cab franc. I asked for a lug of grapes each for the reds, and they were nice enough to hand pick and manually crush my grapes.


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[Boatboy24]

I picked up my juice and grapes yesterday. I am doing a batch each of Zinfandel, Chenin blanc, and cab franc. I asked for a lug of grapes each for the reds, and they were nice enough to hand pick and manually crush my grapes.


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Nice!

Did you test the grapes? How are the numbers?

 

[heatherd]

I did test the grapes and juice. Ph ranges in the 3.5 to 3.7 area. Brix is ranging from 19-22.
Heather


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[RonT]

I just picked up 12 gals of Sangiovese. I'm going to ferment each pail separately with a different yeast strain. The juice doesn't have any SO2 added. The winemaker there said I don't need to add it now and should add SO2 after racking into the secondary. But won't that interfere with MLF?

 

[Boatboy24]

I just picked up 12 gals of Sangiovese. I'm going to ferment each pail separately with a different yeast strain. The juice doesn't have any SO2 added. The winemaker there said I don't need to add it now and should add SO2 after racking into the secondary. But won't that interfere with MLF?

Yes, and it'll also interfere with secondary. You don't want to add any SO2 until all fermentation is done. I'm surprised you were told that. Everyone I've interacted with there has been fairly knowledgeable.

 

[RonT]

Yes, and it'll also interfere with secondary. You don't want to add any SO2 until all fermentation is done. I'm surprised you were told that. Everyone I've interacted with there has been fairly knowledgeable.

That's what I thought. Perhaps I misunderstood them. The TA is a little low, .3% and the pH is 3.5. I'll mess with it after fermentation is done.

 

[heatherd]

I added sulfite to my zin and cab franc batches without thinking and had an "oh ****" moment. So I checked white labs regarding the sulfite tolerance of their MLF culture. It will work with sulfite levels up to 10 mg/L. I put in 1/4 tsp for 6 gallons, which does not convert directly so I stopped there...


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[berrycrush]

Central Valley Cab Sauv. Brix=26 ( Refractometer ), Sg=1.114, PH=3.7 TA=3.8g/L

 

[Boatboy24]

A little kiss of Tartaric Acid and you'll have near perfect numbers. Are you using ice bombs to keep the temps down? If so, why?

 

[Treeman]

A kiss, maybe a dollop, but I would get your pH down to 3.5 or lower. The pH will most likely go up with fermentation and MLF, and the TA is on the low side.

Pull out some seeds and chew on them. What do they taste like? If they aren't brown and crumbling you might want to scoop off the cap and rack the juice leaving the seeds behind when you are about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way to dryness.


Cheers!

 

[berrycrush]

A little kiss of Tartaric Acid and you'll have near perfect numbers. Are you using ice bombs to keep the temps down? If so, why?

Those ice bottles were there during the cold soak. Then I found out that I would need a lot more than my freezer can produce to keep the temperature down, so I ended up pitching the yeast earlier than planned.

 

[berrycrush]

A kiss, maybe a dollop, but I would get your pH down to 3.5 or lower. The pH will most likely go up with fermentation and MLF, and the TA is on the low side.

Pull out some seeds and chew on them. What do they taste like? If they aren't brown and crumbling you might want to scoop off the cap and rack the juice leaving the seeds behind when you are about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way to dryness.


Cheers!

Interesting suggestion. The reason to separate the juice from the cap and seeds?