MLF for Pinot Noir

[Dom Lausic]

Good morning all,

Just racked my Pinot Noir from primary Sunday night, and I'm getting ready for MLF, but had a couple of questions. I crushed 12 cases of PN to get 110L of wine. I inoculated the must with Lalvin RC212 yeast and added pectic enzymes for colour. When I was racking from primary, the PN was very thick and sludgy at the bottom. I'm assuming that's the gross lees and I have so much partly due to the fact that I used the pectic enzymes? Hadn't used that before so I'm not certain. Siphoning from primary was tough because of that, so I had to run most of it through my press. When filling my 100L barrel, I transferred to buckets and let it settle a bit before filling the barrel. I tried to use the clearest wine to top the barrel up, but had to use some of the thicker (creamier looking) wine to fill the barrel. The remaining 12L was used to fill by 3 gal carboy (see photo attached). There is a fair amount of lees in the carboy, but the barrel should have less. But it will have some, for sure.

So my question is, is this lees beneficial for MLF?? I'm guessing it should be. But just wanted to be sure before adding MLB (Wyeast 4007). Or does it need to be racked again prior to MLF? My thought was to add MLB, let it do its thing, and then rack in 3 months.

Second question is, should I rack the carboy? I as going to add a little MLB in there as well, to use that to top up the barrel as needed. Seems like there may be too much lees for such a small volume?

Looking forward to your thoughts!!

 

[pgentile]

You want to rack one more time off the gross lees very soon. usually 24-48 after press. Then add your MLB. There will be more lees with time but lighter this you want to stir up a few times a week during MLF.


Some of us are co-inoculating MLB 24 hours after pitching yeast these days.

 

[Dom Lausic]

Ok great. I will definitely plan to do that soon!

I will try co-inoculating next year, as that seems to becoming more popular, and perhaps a little easier!

Any other recommendations for MLB? I was going to use Wyeast 4007 Red

 

[pgentile]

The only other this do you have any MLB nutrients? Acti-malo and/or Opti-malo? I did my first few MLF's without nutrients and they finished fine. Just gives the process a leg up.

 

[Dom Lausic]

I don't have any MLB nutrients, but am considering getting some. May be a good idea to get the process moving along a little quicker as temperatures will start to drop in my cold cellar as the winter approaches.

 

[Boatboy24]

Yep - rehydrate the bacteria w/ Acti-ML and chlorine free water. Add some Opti-Malo to the wine before adding the bacteria.

 

[berrycrush]

I normally don't rack until MLF is completed.

 

[Dom Lausic]

So i guess the next question is, if I rack the wine (which I think I will do tomorrow), can anything be done with the "gross lees" that has settled to the bottom?? There is quite a bit of it in this batch (as seen in the photo), and I have a fair bit in the barrel. Enough that it is coming out of the spigot. Wondering if this will settle more, leaving me with or wine?? Or is this lost..... the cost of doing business.....

 

[sour_grapes]

Most of those gross lees are headed for your compost bin (or wherever). You may be able to extract a bit of wine from them, as you suggest, but it won't be much. You could take the extra lees after transferring the clear wine, and put them in, say, Mason jars and put them in the fridge. You will probably get a bit of settling, allowing you to extract a small amount of wine.

As it happens, I am sipping on exactly that kind of bonus as we, umm, speak. But it is not enough to get buzzed on!

 

[Dom Lausic]

OK, just racked the PN off the lees, and because of the amount of lees, i'm a little short in topping up my 100L barrel (used whatever I could get out of the 3 gal carboy). I'm probably about 1-2L short. Question is: should I top up with a couple of bottles of store bought PN, or should I just use a bottle of whatever I have on hand? I have a gallon of a red blend that we just crushed at the same time as the PN, but the extra didn't fit in the barrel. Just not sure if wines should be of the same age and/or blend??

 

[sour_grapes]

I mean, ideally, you would use a wine most similar to the wine in the barrel. But, really, I bet you wouldn't be able to tell. In your case, if you had to add the entire gallon of red blend to the 100L barrel, that is only a 4% addition. While this is not, strictly speaking, negligible, I am willing to bet you could not tell the difference. You can test this by taking a commercial Pinot, and pour two glasses. Have your assistant add 4% of a random wine to one of them, and an equal amount of the Pinot to the other. See if you can tell!

 

[mainshipfred]

I mean, ideally, you would use a wine most similar to the wine in the barrel. But, really, I bet you wouldn't be able to tell. In your case, if you had to add the entire gallon of red blend to the 100L barrel, that is only a 4% addition. While this is not, strictly speaking, negligible, I am willing to bet you could not tell the difference. You can test this by taking a commercial Pinot, and pour two glasses. Have your assistant add 4% of a random wine to one of them, and an equal amount of the Pinot to the other. See if you can tell!

I don't deal with 100l quantities and rarely have enough of the same varietal to top off. I usually just top everything off every 2 weeks and use the same bottle. With the barrels and tastings it usually takes a full one. For me it's just an issue I have to deal with.