Pinot Noir Words of Wisdom

[stickman]

I racked the Amador Sangiovese today, went into demijohns and will stay in the cellar until a few weeks before bottling day when we'll move it to the high rack. Very nice wine, good fruit, a little forward oak at this point, but that will harmonize in the bottle. PH is 3.70, I'll check sulfite content a little closer to bottling.

 

[ibglowin]

What kind of oak adjunct are you using?

 

[stickman]

This batch I used 3 - Mercier French Oak medium toast, and 2 evOAK French Classic medium plus convection toast. The Mercier medium toast looks more like medium plus based on appearance; the toast is somewhat variable along the stave. The evOAK convection toast is very uniform light brown in appearance and matches the marketing claim.

 

[stickman]

Just updating; we finally bottled the Amador Sangiovese yesterday. It ended up being close to 33gal with the two demijohns and one 3gal carboy. It went into a mix of regular bottles, some magnums, and two 24btl cases of splits. I tested the sulfite level and it was a bit low at 22ppm free, I recommended to raise it, but it's not my wine, so the owner decided to bottle half as is, and the other half was raised by 12ppm by dosing the bottles with 1ml of a calculated sulfite solution. We dosed the bottles because there was a small amount of sediment in the demijohns that we didn't want to disturb by mixing. The wine is very nice at this point; we'll see what happens in the bottle.

 

[Redbird1]

On first glance, it looked like you were running wine through those black iron pipe fittings, but I can't tell what's going on inside that tee. Those aren't made to handle anything potable.

Brown paper on the carboys is a great idea. I have tons of that around the house. I'll be stealing that idea.

 

[stickman]

The wine does not run through the tee, it goes straight through the 1/2" polyethylene tube which is compression sealed inside the adapter below the tee. This allows you to adjust how much of the tube extends into the bottle to get the right fill height once the bottle is removed. The sealed annular space in the lower portion of the adapter forces the bottle to vent through the overflow tube. The black pipe is only used to provide enough weight to kink the silicone tubing which shuts off the flow when the bottle is lowered. It is not the best system by any means, but it works for my purposes.

 

[Redbird1]

The wine does not run through the tee, it goes straight through the 1/2" polyethylene tube which is compression sealed inside the tee. This allows you to adjust how much of the tube extends into the bottle to get the right fill height once the bottle is removed. The sealed annular space in the lower portion of the tee forces the bottle to vent through the overflow tube. The black pipe is only used to provide enough weight to kink the silicone tubing which shuts off the flow when the bottle is lowered. It is not the best system by any means, but it works for my purposes.

Makes sense. I was wondering what that smaller tube was for.

I'm a big proponent of "If it works, go for it," so that is my kind of device.

 

[stickman]

I managed to get the Carneros Sangiovese and Pinot Noir filtered and pumped up to the bottling rack. The Sangiovese had a ton of tartrates at the bottom, looks like a folded blanket. I ran a sulfite test and found both fairly low, Sangiovese was at 17.9 ppm, and the Pinot was at 12.8, so I added 17.6 ppm to each tank. We'll be bottling this stuff sometime this week. I'll need the tank space soon as I just received another 1000 lbs of frozen must. I'll be doing two different Cabernet blends; I'll post in a separate thread.

 

[sdelli]

Who do you make all that wine for?

 

[stickman]

Two other people are involved; one guy makes his wine here during the fall with fresh grapes that he sources from a local vendor, the other guy is a neighbor that has a share of the wine I produce from frozen must during the winter. My share of the wine is is around 30 to 40gal and is primarily for myself and family parties we host, a few special gifts, as well as the occasional bottle I bring when visiting others. It's always an adventure to open bottles of wine throughout the aging process, and I found that if I don't make at least 30gal annually, I'll run out of the wine before it has had a chance to mature.

 

[ceeaton]

,,. It's always an adventure to open bottles of wine throughout the aging process, and I found that if I don't make at least 30gal annually, I'll run out of the wine before it has had a chance to mature.

One good thing about the flextanks is that they keep you from "tipping" to get samples out! Maybe I should invest in one or two...

 

[sdelli]

Two other people are involved; one guy makes his wine here during the fall with fresh grapes that he sources from a local vendor, the other guy is a neighbor that has a share of the wine I produce from frozen must during the winter. My share of the wine is is around 30 to 40gal and is primarily for myself and family parties we host, a few special gifts, as well as the occasional bottle I bring when visiting others. It's always an adventure to open bottles of wine throughout the aging process, and I found that if I don't make at least 30gal annually, I'll run out of the wine before it has had a chance to mature.

That is not too bad. I end up making around 60 to 75 gal a year. It is a lot but it is nice always drinking 4 year old wine!

 

[Johnd]

@stickman , just curious for an update on your ‘16 Pinot and Sangiovese. I’m sure they’re bottled by now, and approaching 2 years old, how are they tasting? Any lessons learned to share?

 

[stickman]

John thanks for asking; we're getting ready for another 1,000 pounds of frozen must, mostly Cab including some Red Mountain fruit, which should arrive in the next couple of months.

We did the main bottling for both wines in Dec 2017, and had a 5gal carboy of each left as unfiltered reserve. We just got around to bottling the reserve two weeks ago. Both wines are very different than the typical Cabernet I'm used to making, more lean fresh and crisp style.

At this point the Pinot really stands out, it has the strawberry, raspberry, and cranberry type of profile that I have not seen in any wine I've made before; however, I've never made a Pinot before so I have nothing to compare. I will be making more of this in the future.

The Sangiovese is still closed at this point, more complex, fine tannins, but less fruit overall than the Pinot, nothing like the ultra ripe 32 Brix Chalk Hill Sangiovese I made back in 2004, that wine was massive fruit from the day it was fermented to the day it went into bottle. I suspect the current Sangiovese has a greater potential to improve in the bottle, unlike the 2004 which never improved though it was always very good (I still have one bottle and one magnum left in the cellar).

When comparing the reserve vs the initial bottling, the flavor profiles are the same, but both wines have a greater CO2 content in the earlier bottling, maybe a little too much, I was a bit overprotective given the sensitive nature of these wines, but that will all be part of the fun in future tastings.

The photos are of the final racking and SO2 adjustment before bottling of the reserve wines. The glass is the reserve Sangiovese, alongside the fumbled Riedel glass (they don't last long in my cellar).

 

[Johnd]

John thanks for asking; we're getting ready for another 1,000 pounds of frozen must, mostly Cab including some Red Mountain fruit, which should arrive in the next couple of months.

We did the main bottling for both wines in Dec 2017, and had a 5gal carboy of each left as unfiltered reserve. We just got around to bottling the reserve two weeks ago. Both wines are very different than the typical Cabernet I'm used to making, more lean fresh and crisp style.

At this point the Pinot really stands out, it has the strawberry, raspberry, and cranberry type of profile that I have not seen in any wine I've made before; however, I've never made a Pinot before so I have nothing to compare. I will be making more of this in the future.

The Sangiovese is still closed at this point, more complex, fine tannins, but less fruit overall than the Pinot, nothing like the ultra ripe 32 Brix Chalk Hill Sangiovese I made back in 2004, that wine was massive fruit from the day it was fermented to the day it went into bottle. I suspect the current Sangiovese has a greater potential to improve in the bottle, unlike the 2004 which never improved though it was always very good (I still have one bottle and one magnum left in the cellar).

When comparing the reserve vs the initial bottling, the flavor profiles are the same, but both wines have a greater CO2 content in the earlier bottling, maybe a little too much, I was a bit overprotective given the sensitive nature of these wines, but that will all be part of the fun in future tastings.

The photos are of the final racking and SO2 adjustment before bottling of the reserve wines. The glass is the reserve Sangiovese, alongside the fumbled Riedel glass (they don't last long in my cellar).

Very nice update, thanks for taking the time to do it. Just curious, what determination did you make that caused you to set aside a portion of the Pinot as “Reserve”? Anything more than unfiltered?

 

[stickman]

@Johnd Both of the wines left were unoaked, unfiltered, and sitting on a good layer of fine lees. I wish I could say it was a well thought out decision, we just decided to leave the two carboys for after the holidays, which was based on how we felt at the time after bottling 60 gallons, no real schedule planned, but as you know, one month turned to two months etc. I finally said to my neighbor WTF we have to get this stuff out of here, the 2018 fruit will be here soon enough, and we still have around 70 gallons of 2017 Cab to bottle.