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2009 Syrah Fermentation Chart

Crushing Syrah 10/4/09

We will be crushing Syrah this Sunday, October 4. Hopefully around noon or 1:00. I will tweet/post from the road Sunday with a better time estimate. Come on by for wine and wet fun. Kids get to foot stomp!

Bottling 2007 Syrah on 12/20/2008

Just in time to give as Christmas gifts. We will be bottling, barcoding and labeling about 25 cases. I have the corks, the bottles and the filler reserved. The argon is full and the wine is ready to go after a final lab analysis. I am going to send out an invite for anyone wanting [...]

Racking and Attempted Bottling

A few weeks ago (when was it Chuck?) Joe, Chuck and I got together for a day of barrel cleaning, racking of the 2007 Syrah, and bottling of our 2006 Cabernets. Things didn’t go as planned. All of it could have been prevented by a little work done a few days ahead. Here is what [...]

Topped Syrah

I topped off the Syrah the other day and pulled a little sample to try. I t seems to be a little musty tasting so I want to rack it off into the other barrel, clean out the lees (with our new barrel rinser!) and put it back into the French barrel. Chuck is already [...]

Pressing

Well this took a long time to post. Our pressing day was fun, long and almost didn’t happen. The first problem was that the press was awfully small for our volumes, the second problem was that the press bleed valve would not close on the bladder press. We also believe that the pressure gauge [...]

Final Fermentation Data Chart

Everything is registering 0 Brix. I hope waiting until next Sunday to press isn’t too long of an extended maceration. Here is the final chart:

Punching Down Syrah

You can smell it from the sidewalk.

Fermentation Chart Update

The Cabernet is still winning, with Merlot second and Syrah a distant third.

 

2007 Fermentation Status

Things are roiling away, lots of CO2 and great smells. I am tracking temperature and Brix. The Cabernet continues to be the most vigorous. Click on the thumbnail to see a confusing chart. I am going to try to improve it as time permits. We should see temperatures go up correlated to sugar dropping, then [...]