Snafflebit 2024 winemaking thread

[StimVino]

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I have big hopes that harvesting these lower Brix grapes will make 2024 a finer wine. I can already taste the difference. No acid adjustments were made.

Color looks great! What low brix? Mid to high 20’s is on the higher side, but should be good for those wines. Should get you between 14%-16% alcohol.

 

[Snafflebit]

Color looks great! What low brix? Mid to high 20’s is on the higher side, but should be good for those wines. Should get you between 14%-16% alcohol.

If you follow any of my earlier harvests, Brix always comes in higher than I want, either due to heatwaves or due to my brix measurement technique. “Lower Brix grapes” is relative to my sugar bombs in the past.

I will think that I have reached 24-25 Brix in the field but after crush I have 28, once even 29 Brix ouch. I am trying to determine an “offset” Brix when to pick, maybe plan harvest at 23.

Also, one of the vineyards I manage has “health issues” that affect ripening and berry size, and this throws off my schedule. I am considering leaving it out of the winemaking going forward.

 

[wood1954]

when i'm checking brix and ph prior to harvest i crush some grapes and then wait 24 hours to test as the ph and the brix both move upwards a bit.

 

[winemaker81]

I will think that I have reached 24-25 Brix in the field but after crush I have 28, once even 29 Brix ouch. I am trying to determine an “offset” Brix when to pick, maybe plan harvest at 23.

My understanding is that you check the brix of grapes that appear representative of the vine or the row. That strikes me as something difficult to do, and having a larger sample size might provide a better average.

 

[Rotundifolia]

Curious, did you Saignee some off after adding water so the skin to juice stays the same? This is the first year I had to add water. It would be nice to know what you do since you have dealt with this often and the outcome of the finished wine.

 

[meridaen]

I was a house painter for 12 years and I can’t remember ever masking up as thoroughly as that! Good solid tradesmen is my diagnosis, and probably still have all their own teeth.

 

[Snafflebit]

Here is how I adjust my batches:
First, I measure Brix and TA of the juice in the must.
The second step is to calculate the expected juice volume in the must. This is a bit of a guess but I assume 65% to 70% of the must volume is juice.
The third step is to calculate the amount of water to add to the estimated juice volume to reach 25 Brix using a calculator I have. There are many online and downloadable apps for computers to do this calculation.
The fourth step is decide if I like the original TA of the juice or do I want to change it. If I want the juice to keep the same TA, I will acidulate the backwater to the same TA as the juice. Or I may decide to reduce the acid by just backwatering.

 

[StimVino]

If you follow any of my earlier harvests, Brix always comes in higher than I want, either due to heatwaves or due to my brix measurement technique. “Lower Brix grapes” is relative to my sugar bombs in the past.

I will think that I have reached 24-25 Brix in the field but after crush I have 28, once even 29 Brix ouch. I am trying to determine an “offset” Brix when to pick, maybe plan harvest at 23.

Also, one of the vineyards I manage has “health issues” that affect ripening and berry size, and this throws off my schedule. I am considering leaving it out of the winemaking going forward.

Got it! I dont have a vineyard, but i’ve read that you want to be very random when your sampling. Or, as you said pick at 23 to shoot for 25. Enjoying your post. I pickup my grapes this weekend. Ill try to post some pics of my process.

 

[meridaen]

I’ve never spoken to anyone here who has added water to their must, which is strange given most of our fruit comes in very high sugar-wise.

So @Snafflebit after you add the water to your desired Brix level, are you then extracting juice (saignee) to get back close to the original juice/skin ratio, or does that not really matter?

 

[anthocyanin]

I’ve never spoken to anyone here who has added water to their must, which is strange given most of our fruit comes in very high sugar-wise.

So @Snafflebit after you add the water to your desired Brix level, are you then extracting juice (saignee) to get back close to the original juice/skin ratio, or does that not really matter?

I also added water to my Tempranillo this year. I only dropped the brix by 0.5 or so (from a bit over 25 to a bit under 25) so I just added acidulated water (with tartaric at about 5g/L). If I were dropping brix by much more I would probably do a saignee first to not dilute the skin to juice ratio.

 

[Snafflebit]

So @Snafflebit after you add the water to your desired Brix level, are you then extracting juice (saignee) to get back close to the original juice/skin ratio, or does that not really matter?

I do not saignée. Although I have considered doing it, I never have and the resultant wine seems to have enough body and no one has mentioned it lacking flavor or color. I think that many times (but not all) the high Brix comes from dehydration due to a hot spell, rather than because of overripe grapes. So, you could say that I simply added water that needed to be replaced.

@meridaen what type of wines are you making?

 

[anthocyanin]

Interesting point I hadn't thought of about the difference between high brix from overripe grapes vs from dry spells, and that makes total sense that you might want to saignée one and not the other.

 

[meridaen]

Yep same, I’e never really thought of it that way, we just accept that our reds are going to be +15%.

I’ve had four red vintages, 3 Shiraz and 1 Tempranillo. They’ve all been Heathcote fruit and bit higher sugar and lower acid, and so they’ve been bigger reds and frankly, not great. I have my own Sangiovese coming online this season and my anglianico will be ready next season, and I don’t want to have these big bruising reds because that style just won’t work with those varieties anyway.

I’m looking for ~14% with a bit of body but not enough to take you outside for a fistfight halfway through. I have bit of Cab Franc or Merlot to help with the colour, so EM will my call, not because I need too.

I’ve been getting advice off a local pro who makes a really nice Sangiovese, but he’s an older Italian guy who seems to rely on the ripeness of the seeds. I’m going to keep following his advice, I just need to know what I can do if the sugar comes in too high, also taking my inexperience in determining harvest time into account.

 

[Snafflebit]

I am now bottling 27 gallons of 2022 wine tonight because I need the carboys and the space, ACK
Looks like another Bordeaux blend is in the works. Even adding a touch of PV.

So far, smells great and I like the amount of oak added. one bottle of Petit Verdot added and I can smell it in the whole batch. that is amazing.

I am tasting my 2022 blend and, it needs to rest, I assume that it is very bottle-shocked. I sulfited to 20ppm and raw sulfites can combine with other sensory notes to create a garlicy, burning taste. And the oak (which I may have overdone) is, I think, imparting a sweetness that I did not expect.

I will sit in my chair and meditate on the winemaker's motto, "Give it time."

Update on the 2022 Bordeaux blend I created when clearing out carboys for 2024 winemaking--I made an interesting discovery.

"Give it time" is always good advice that I rarely follow. The sulfite taste and aroma are gone from the freshly bottled wine. This 2022 wine is young tasting, by which I mean fruity when a bottle is opened. The tannins were not coming forward when I sampled the wine after opening and I strongly noticed the absence of that tannic note. I just noted a sweetish medium-dry, slightly burning, overly alcoholic wine with a fruity aroma. It was not terrible, but also it did not evoke the beauty of nice, rounded, aged French or Californian wine.

I left 2/3 of the bottle ungassed and had a glass the next day. I had a similar opinion of the wine.

On the third day, I had a glass of the wine and wow this wine had changed. The tannins were prominent in the flavor and fruitiness had gone. Even the hot, burning sensation of the alcohol was diminished and more balanced with the other flavors. I was surprised how much this wine opened up after two days and became delicious. I am accustomed to a bottle of commercial wine declining and going very flat after that length of time exposed to oxygen. My 2022 Bordeaux blend is tight.

I will try to let all my wines open that I think aren't so great.

 

[winemaker81]

Update on the 2022 Bordeaux blend I created when clearing out carboys for 2024 winemaking--I made an interesting discovery.

Dude ... you are your own worst critic. This is coming from a similar personality, at least in this arena.

Tonight I opened 2 bottles -- 2020 Meritage Plus (40% Merlot, 40% Zinfandel, 20% Bordeaux blend [other 4 Bordeaux grapes]) and 2021 Rhone Blend (FWK Forte Syrah, Petite Sirah, Merlot). Both are barrel aged.

Both wines suck, as opened. Harsh, tannic heavy.

I have a "duck neck" aerator. Both wines, aerated, are completely different wines. The aeration softens them, removing the harsh tones. The nose and the tastes are different.

I'll cheerfully accept the bet that if you serve your wine "as is" and "aerated" to someone, they'll disbelieve that they are the same wine.

Old Bordeaux are always decanted. This is good idea ... although an aerator does good things.

 

[Snafflebit]

I am very critical of my wines. And yes, after the third day, this wine tasted nothing like it did on the first day. Here is the detail that surprises me. I would expect a harsh, overly tannic wine to become smoother after some aeration. But, the opposite effect seemed to happen here. I find it hard to believe that air helped express stronger tannins, that does not seem logical. Perhaps something else was masking the tannin flavor, maybe fruitiness? So, I was not expecting a couple of open days to improve the wine, at all.

Anyway, I am delighted that I do not have 10 cases of plonk to drink!

 

[VinesnBines]

Patience is a virtue in personality and wine and yes, we are our worse critics. Overnight or two days can improve a “young” wine. How young? Like everything in winemaking; it depends.

 

[Snafflebit]

This reminds me of a conversation with, I think @Rice_Guy about tannins in a green banana versus a ripe banana. The same tannins are present in both bananas but they are masked by the sweetness of the ripe banana and able to taste in the green one.

 

[Snafflebit]

W Zin: Brix 27 pH 3.47 TA 10.5 g/L

I said that I did not want to add tartaric acid this year, and I got my wish!

I bottled my experimental 2024 Zinfandel today. I made one gallon with medium toast oak chips in the primary. It is a small batch and I think it will be better protected in bottles.

There was a half bottle of leftovers and I am letting it open while tasting it.

Interesting that the finished wine is 3.80 pH. (I calibrated the meter twice because I could not believe the change from 3.47 pH.)
I am picking up the high TA.

Like WineMaker Mag said:

Zinfandel wines sometimes have high total acidity in the face of relatively high final pH, so it’s not unheard-of to see a pH level of 3.6 or 3.7 and a TA of 0.90.

A little more sweetness would have nicely balanced the high TA, like in a Gewürztraminer, but the wine finished dry. I experimented by adding a small pinch of sugar to the glass of wine and the perception of acid is significantly reduced. In fact, I might keep some wine conditioner on hand to adjust this Zin if I harvest high TA grapes again.

If I can get the high TA under control on these grapes, I think it will make good Zin. The oak in the primary works well and I am getting lots of varietal aroma and taste. Woo, excited!

 

[Garagista]

I bottled my experimental 2024 Zinfandel today. I made one gallon with medium toast oak chips in the primary. It is a small batch and I think it will be better protected in bottles.

There was a half bottle of leftovers and I am letting it open while tasting it.

Interesting that the finished wine is 3.80 pH. (I calibrated the meter twice because I could not believe the change from 3.47 pH.)
I am picking up the high TA.

Like WineMaker Mag said:


A little more sweetness would have nicely balanced the high TA, like in a Gewürztraminer, but the wine finished dry. I experimented by adding a small pinch of sugar to the glass of wine and the perception of acid is significantly reduced. In fact, I might keep some wine conditioner on hand to adjust this Zin if I harvest high TA grapes again.

If I can get the high TA under control on these grapes, I think it will make good Zin. The oak in the primary works well and I am getting lots of varietal aroma and taste. Woo, excited!

Thanks for sharing.
I didn't think acid could increase in a wine, only decrease. My assumption is a grape has a fixed amount of acid when picked and it cannot go up during fermentation or aging. Am I correct?