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2004 Ethan Grenache

Chuck and I had bottle 2190 or 2400 of Ethan Grenache the other night. We like that one.

2004 Ethan
Santa Ynez [...]

2006 Sugar Levels

We tested the sugar levels with a hydrometer today from samples pulled last night.

Other Merlot: 1ºB
Other Cabernet: 0ºB
PMR Cabernet: 5ºB

These numbers confirm our speculations from tasting and observations of the caps.

The wines taste great, even better after a morning exposed to air. Good tannic structure on the cabs and nice fresh fruit in the Merlot. Chuck [...]

Broke my *$#& Cylinder

…graduated cylinder. Don’t drop your hydropmeter into a glass tube when there is no liquid [...]

Fermentation slows a little

Looks like the 2006 merlot and cabs are slowing down a bit. The cap is not as firm. I took temperature readings and they ranged from 78-81ºF. The warmer bins were marginally closer to [...]

Welcome

I think I migrated all the posts from the old blog here now. Please sign up as a member and post any comments you [...]

Fermentation continues

Strong caps still present after a week. I put a space heater in the garage to keep things warm at night, about [...]

Juice Lab Numbers

First, I am not sure if testing the TA of juice is worth doing. Last year I got too-low numbers and the wine turned out to have an appropriate TA. So here is what I got:

Other Merlot
Brix = 25
pH = 3.48

Other Cabernet
Brix = 24.5
pH = 3.52

PMR Cabernet
Brix = 25
pH = 3.32

Estate Cabernet*
Brix = 21.5
pH = 3.26

* [...]

2006 Crush

Chuck, Lewie and I Crushed approx. 200 lbs each of: “Gardner’s Block” Merlot, “Gardner’s Block” Cabernet, and Peter Ray Cabernet. We used a motorized, auger driven crusher/destemmer from Fermentation Frenzy. It was fast, much faster than us.

Note: Don’t rinse out the hopper when you are standing in front of the chute.

After everything was clean I realized [...]

Added SO2

Added approx. 50 ppm SO2 to each bin in the form of two envelopes of granular effervescent potassium metabisulfite. Man I love that stuff, no mixing, no [...]

2006 Harvest

What a long day. Too much wine last night at the 49ers Academy Party on top of a linger chest cold and an early wake up to go rent the truck. Ugh.

8:30  Picked up the pick up from Hengehold
8:55  On the road
11:00  Stopped in Healdsburg for a sandwich and more coffee
11:30  Met the Vineyard Manager at [...]