Winemaking 2023 is gearing up.

[Snafflebit]

I am getting ready for a lighter harvest this year, 600 lbs if I am lucky. My new house has a workshop and I would like to move my winemaking into this space, but the room gets southwest exposure and is a little too hot for wine storage, or for me on hot summer days. I will see if the insulation can be improved, but even then, it has a garage door that points south.

Chemicals are purchased and we just need to prep for harvest. I will use my usual adjuncts of Lallzyme EX-V, FT Rouge. Enological tannins will help with any stray nasty mildewy grapes that get in the batch. Yeast will be BM 4x4, and MLF will use CH-16. My local homebrew shop is closing so I will begin the search for a new place to shop for chemicals.

I am trying to predict when the vineyards will hit 25 Brix. The grapes are maturing so much more slowly than years past. The wet spring and coolish weather has thrown off this year's harvest, with mildewy vines and uneven ripening. But I have another vineyard that is beautiful and is only yards away. The difference is amazing.

 

[Snafflebit]

Here is the four day update on Brix. I am getting excellent hang time, but I am anxious to start making wine.

 

[BarrelMonkey]

I would like to move my winemaking into this space, but the room gets southwest exposure and is a little too hot for wine storage, or for me on hot summer days.

Not great for wine storage but may be a fine place to ferment your reds!

Love the brix vs time data. Do you ever look at pH in your vineyard maturity samples? Sometimes that can be the deciding factor in when to call the pick...

 

[Snafflebit]

I never targeted pH to harvest, getting ripeness has never been an issue for me. I am aware of the Brix x pH^2 target. Unfortunately I don’t have my pH meter handy!

 

[Snafflebit]

Brix is creeping up. I may be harvesting next week. I have pulled the M Row 1 data out of the average because that row always seems behind, and kind of green tasting. I have started doing a seperate ferment from row one for possible blending.


The grapes are beginning to soften and I see a little shrivel in some locations. I don't want too much of that. The nights have been cool and giving the chance for exceptional ripening conditions.

 

[Snafflebit]

Harvest 2023 is scheduled for this weekend. We have clear, beautiful weather predicted all week Yay!



The sad vines are still sad and I will remove them as soon as I get some replacements ready. I may or may not use these grapes which are approaching raisins at this point.



The good vines are looking great and grapes are softening nicely.

 

[David Engel]

Go man go!

 

[Nebbiolo020]

Nice grapes, still a bit bummed we’re waiting on our grapes.

 

[Snafflebit]

I have a light crop this year. I never would have expected that going into such a wet year.





Here is the Cab from the GW vineyard that was hit bad with the powdery mildew. I had to let it hang longer to let the other vineyard get ripe. What clusters I did not have to drop have a lot of raisins. I don't know what to expect from this wine but my expectations are low. I am hitting the grapes with enzyme and tannins and I will hope that any off flavor will settle out in the lees.


The Merlot is beautiful and perfect as always.


Grapes are destemmed and we are cold soaking with enzymes. I have not bothered to record sugar, pH, acid yet, only weight and volume.
The sad grapes I have nicknamed "Raisin Bran for Dinner". The must is...rigid haha, two scoops of raisins at least.

 

[Nebbiolo020]

I have a light crop this year. I never would have expected that going into such a wet year.

View attachment 106448View attachment 106449



Here is the Cab from the GW vineyard that was hit bad with the powdery mildew. I had to let it hang longer to let the other vineyard get ripe. What clusters I did not have to drop have a lot of raisins. I don't know what to expect from this wine but my expectations are low. I am hitting the grapes with enzyme and tannins and I will hope that any off flavor will settle out in the lees.
View attachment 106445

The Merlot is beautiful and perfect as always.
View attachment 106446

Grapes are destemmed and we are cold soaking with enzymes. I have not bothered to record sugar, pH, acid yet, only weight and volume.
The sad grapes I have nicknamed "Raisin Bran for Dinner". The must is...rigid haha, two scoops of raisins at least.
View attachment 106447

Dang that cab is rough looking, yields are not down where I am they are average this year but the overall grape quality is looking like it will be excellent. Grapes are perfect this year, our cab has super tiny berries and good fruit set and we haven’t had any mildew issues despite the weather. It should be ripe by the 23rd. Our merlot is this week.

 

[Snafflebit]

Numbers are in. Someone should fire the quality control guy!

Vineyard	Brix	TA, g/L	pH
M Cab 1	25.5	3.8	3.56
M Cab 2	29.0	5.4	3.76
M Merlot	30.0	3.8	3.71
Raisin Bran for Dinner (aka GW Cab)	32.5	4.6	3.78

I need to increase my sample size when measuring Brix in the vineyard, I am missing some of the shriveled grapes in my Brix samples. Oddly enough, the TA and pH are not bad at all and the juice tastes good. This could make some good wine after acidulated backwatering. The Raisin Bran is tasting a little jammy, no surprise.

I remeasured a sample of 2022 wine that I think has the right amount of acid and it measured at 6.2 g/L. In 2022 I adjusted all the musts to have 25 Brix and 4.8 g/L TA. I will do the same adjustments for 2023.

Planning my next move...

 

[Nebbiolo020]

Numbers are in. Someone should fire the quality control guy!

Vineyard	Brix	TA, g/L	pH
M Cab 1	25.5	3.8	3.56
M Cab 2	29.0	5.4	3.76
M Merlot	30.0	3.8	3.71
Raisin Bran for Dinner (aka GW Cab)	32.5	4.6	3.78

I need to increase my sample size when measuring Brix in the vineyard, I am missing some of the shriveled grapes in my Brix samples. Oddly enough, the TA and pH are not bad at all and the juice tastes good. This could make some good wine after acidulated backwatering. The Raisin Bran is tasting a little jammy, no surprise.

I remeasured a sample of 2022 wine that I think has the right amount of acid and it measured at 6.2 g/L. In 2022 I adjusted all the musts to have 25 Brix and 4.8 g/L TA. I will do the same adjustments for 2023.

Planning my next move...

Damn those are some rough numbers Raisin Bran is toast lol.

Cab 1 is fine,

2 is toast so is the Merlot

 

[winemaker81]

Planning my next move...

Cab 2 and Merlot? I'd water them back to reduce both brix and pH.

 

[Snafflebit]

Cab 2 and Merlot? I'd water them back to reduce both brix and pH.

That’s the plan, water down those two batches and adjust TA. The juice samples I used for SG were not entirely juice I notice, sort of cloudy and maybe a little bubbly, so I don’t completely trust the values. I hope after some iterative backwatering I get an accurate SG.

I agree the Raisin Bran makes me think why bother. But I will give it a shot, maybe make a port style something.

 

[CDrew]

Looking forward to the results. You'll have a challenge here, but I'll bet you can make something happen!

Your GW Cab might be the base for a Port? I sure would not say it's toast, it's just a bit over ripe.

 

[winemaker81]

I agree the Raisin Bran makes me think why bother. But I will give it a shot, maybe make a port style something.

BITD one of the guys I knew chaptalized all his grapes to 30-32 brix. You can make extra cash selling the result to the airlines for fuel!

I'd ferment it -- use a yeast good for 15% ABV and it will stop with residual sugar. Add EverClear, to 18-20% ABV and barrel age for a year.

Last year I took a few bottles of year-old wine, bumped it to 20% ABV and backsweetened. We opened a bottle recently and it's a lot like a Ruby Port.

 

[Snafflebit]

The Raisin Bran is a small batch. I predict 18L of juice maybe less because of the raisins. And I am using Lalvin BM 4x4. It should go up to 15% ABV. I have never made high alcohol wine (on purpose ). Is the barrel really necessary or would a carboy be fine for aging with some oak?

 

[winemaker81]

The Raisin Bran is a small batch. I predict 18L of juice maybe less because of the raisins. And I am using Lalvin BM 4x4. It should go up to 15% ABV. I have never made high alcohol wine (on purpose ). Is the barrel really necessary or would a carboy be fine for aging with some oak?

The barrel is not necessary. In trying to emulate a real Port I used barrel aged wine, but a carboy with oak works.

My notes are here -- it was easy to do. The thing I like about this is that at any time I can take a few bottles of an aged wine and transform it into a Port. I have some 4 yo Zinfandel I'm considering doing this with.

 

[Snafflebit]

Hey, that’s great! I can totally use that recipe to make some “Porto” and I have some Frankenwine as well that had me scratching my head trying to find a use.

 

[Snafflebit]

I remeasured the juice brix with my Hanna bench Refractometer, samples filtered using coffee filters. The numbers are still high but better. I can work with this.

I tested the calibration with 20g sucrose in 80g distilled water and got 19.9 Brix

Vineyard	Brix	TA
M Cab 1 + Cab 2	26.0	7.1
M Merlot	27.8	3.8
Raisin Bran	30.4	8.0

Back to work...