Hi all,
Looking for some advice here, since I'm in relatively uncharted waters.
The story: As I've posted elsewhere, I'm newly out in the Amador County foothills and finally get to make wine for the first time since moving to California 10 years ago. I networked with several local vineyards and got them to agree to around 3,600 lbs of different varieties. The whites were Viognier, Muscat Blanc à Petits Grains (quite a mouthful) and Grenache Blanc. The Viognier was easy -I drove up and 400 lbs of perfect fruit were sitting there in a macro bin.
The Muscat was a bit more of an experience. The vineyard was one I never heard of and contacted from a link on-line since he claimed to have Grenache Blanc available. Like a lot of these guys he was surprised that I emailed him (even though he had something on the net saying he had grapes) but agreed that I could get 400lbs of Grenache Blanc grapes if I picked them myself. I looked at the map of his winery and saw he also had Muscat, which I also love. A few weeks later I emailed him about that and he said I could probably get 300-400 lbs of it too.
Last weekend I got an email saying the grapes were ready and where to go, arrive at noon. Getting to his place was wacky, since he is an old guy that doesn't like the internet in an area with very little cell service. It took a lot of weird backroads and guesses but we finally got to the vineyard and saw the 20 acres or so of grapes he had. This is in the Fair Play appellation in El Dorado county, just over the border from Amador and about 8.5 miles from my house as the crow flies (it was an hour driving, so the crows really got a better deal on this one). There were many acres of Zinfandel and Primitivo that were not harvested. Very sad, I would have bought some of those, but by mid October probably not in great shape other than a port.
Here finally showed up and showed us where to pick, starting with Muscat. Most of the Muscat grapes had already been picked but we found a few vines that hadn't;t been touched by out was super slow going. After 4.5 hours we got around 400lbs. This guy was impatient so halfway through he said he was going to leave and to pay him for what we had and keep picking if we wanted to. No GB that day he said, it's getting too late, we can come back next weekend and it will be fine. We ended up getting around 400lbs of nice Muscat, 26º Brix, TA .54, pH 3.54. I adjusted to .70 TA.
Any case, I get a (nervous) call from him on this Friday after seeing my emails about the GB and when I should show up. It turns out that they had picked all the GB the Sunday before so we would just be able to get whatever the pickers missed. That didn't sound very promising so I asked about the very large plot of Roussanne and whether that was an option. he acted like I was crazy for wanting it because no one wants Roussanne (why did he plant so much of it then?) but he said feel free to supplement with that and whatever Viognier was left over. I'm glad I asked. Roussanne should be ripe now, but Viognier is probably pretty over rip at this point. he said he wouldn't be coming out but we could just drive over, pick what we wanted and send him a check.
OK, when we get there and check out the GB it is essentially gone. If we spend all day we would probably get 100lbs, if we really didn't care what we picked. I was very sad. On a lark I drove over to the Roussanne and was shocked to see a dozen rows of unpicked, beautiful fruit -probably a ton of easy picking. My jeep can only hold 1/4 ton, so that would limit us. I chose a cluster and shot the Brix and it was great -23º! It only took us about two hours to get 500lbs of great fruit. Back at the ranch I crushed and tested the aggregate stats -22.5º Brix, 3.51 pH, .68 TA -really good for a light Roussanne! From what I've read Roussanne needs to be picked before it gets to 24º Brix or it will lose a lot of its flavors.
Questions I have for anyone who's worked with this supposedly undesirable grape: 1) what are some good yeasts for this one? I was thinking of fermenting half with D47 and the other half with QA23, but I have some GRE, D254 and D21 available too. 2) I have about 30 gallons of juice, the press juice is very dark, since Roussanne is prone to oxidation. any ideas on how I should treat this and if there's a good yeast or other approach for oxidized must?
Thanks!
-Aaron
Looking for some advice here, since I'm in relatively uncharted waters.
The story: As I've posted elsewhere, I'm newly out in the Amador County foothills and finally get to make wine for the first time since moving to California 10 years ago. I networked with several local vineyards and got them to agree to around 3,600 lbs of different varieties. The whites were Viognier, Muscat Blanc à Petits Grains (quite a mouthful) and Grenache Blanc. The Viognier was easy -I drove up and 400 lbs of perfect fruit were sitting there in a macro bin.
The Muscat was a bit more of an experience. The vineyard was one I never heard of and contacted from a link on-line since he claimed to have Grenache Blanc available. Like a lot of these guys he was surprised that I emailed him (even though he had something on the net saying he had grapes) but agreed that I could get 400lbs of Grenache Blanc grapes if I picked them myself. I looked at the map of his winery and saw he also had Muscat, which I also love. A few weeks later I emailed him about that and he said I could probably get 300-400 lbs of it too.
Last weekend I got an email saying the grapes were ready and where to go, arrive at noon. Getting to his place was wacky, since he is an old guy that doesn't like the internet in an area with very little cell service. It took a lot of weird backroads and guesses but we finally got to the vineyard and saw the 20 acres or so of grapes he had. This is in the Fair Play appellation in El Dorado county, just over the border from Amador and about 8.5 miles from my house as the crow flies (it was an hour driving, so the crows really got a better deal on this one). There were many acres of Zinfandel and Primitivo that were not harvested. Very sad, I would have bought some of those, but by mid October probably not in great shape other than a port.
Here finally showed up and showed us where to pick, starting with Muscat. Most of the Muscat grapes had already been picked but we found a few vines that hadn't;t been touched by out was super slow going. After 4.5 hours we got around 400lbs. This guy was impatient so halfway through he said he was going to leave and to pay him for what we had and keep picking if we wanted to. No GB that day he said, it's getting too late, we can come back next weekend and it will be fine. We ended up getting around 400lbs of nice Muscat, 26º Brix, TA .54, pH 3.54. I adjusted to .70 TA.
Any case, I get a (nervous) call from him on this Friday after seeing my emails about the GB and when I should show up. It turns out that they had picked all the GB the Sunday before so we would just be able to get whatever the pickers missed. That didn't sound very promising so I asked about the very large plot of Roussanne and whether that was an option. he acted like I was crazy for wanting it because no one wants Roussanne (why did he plant so much of it then?) but he said feel free to supplement with that and whatever Viognier was left over. I'm glad I asked. Roussanne should be ripe now, but Viognier is probably pretty over rip at this point. he said he wouldn't be coming out but we could just drive over, pick what we wanted and send him a check.
OK, when we get there and check out the GB it is essentially gone. If we spend all day we would probably get 100lbs, if we really didn't care what we picked. I was very sad. On a lark I drove over to the Roussanne and was shocked to see a dozen rows of unpicked, beautiful fruit -probably a ton of easy picking. My jeep can only hold 1/4 ton, so that would limit us. I chose a cluster and shot the Brix and it was great -23º! It only took us about two hours to get 500lbs of great fruit. Back at the ranch I crushed and tested the aggregate stats -22.5º Brix, 3.51 pH, .68 TA -really good for a light Roussanne! From what I've read Roussanne needs to be picked before it gets to 24º Brix or it will lose a lot of its flavors.
Questions I have for anyone who's worked with this supposedly undesirable grape: 1) what are some good yeasts for this one? I was thinking of fermenting half with D47 and the other half with QA23, but I have some GRE, D254 and D21 available too. 2) I have about 30 gallons of juice, the press juice is very dark, since Roussanne is prone to oxidation. any ideas on how I should treat this and if there's a good yeast or other approach for oxidized must?
Thanks!
-Aaron
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