Winemaker Journal: November 2009 Jeff Herinckx Harvest Our 2009 harvest is almost complete! Most recently, we finished pressing the Pinot Noir and all of that fruit is now fermenting. This may be the only red variety that we produce this year; that is still unclear at this point. I'm aware that there is a lot of fruit coming onto the market for sale, so depending on what becomes available, we might purchase some. We'll keep you posted. The white varieties that we're working with this year include Riesling, Gewurztraminer, Pinot Gris, and Muller Thurgau. This year, we will use the Gewurztraminer for blending and also to make a semi-sweet vintage. We are not working with Chardonnay at all this year. One thing that differentiates the 2009 harvest from recent years is that we are seeing pretty high sugars in the grapes. For example, the Pinot Noir this year came in between 23 and 24.5, and we normally see the sugars around 21 or 22. The fruit was much riper this year than in recent years. This is a positive thing for us; it is much easier to make wine when the fruit is so ripe. In 2007, for example, the fruit just wasn't ripe enough - in fact, some of the seeds were still green - so we had to add sugar. I believe that it was the rain that we got right at the end of our growing season that resulted in this increased sugar level. The grapes stayed on the vine a little longer than they probably would have had the weather been sunny. As a result, some over-ripe fruit ended up in the bins and didn't get separated out. In fact, some growers still have fruit on the vines that they're just going to leave there. We experienced a lot of rain showers at the end of the growing period, and the grapes needed to be harvested during the breaks between the showers. At the very end of the season, we had a lot of constant rain, and the grapes that hadn't been picked already didn't get picked at all. Punch-down vs. Pump-over Punch-down and pump-over are two processes that occur during fermentation. For our grapes in bins, we use the punch-down technique because it is gentler on the grapes. We used to have to perform pump-over on all of our fruit, because we didn't have bins, but we've recently acquired 30 bins that each old 1.25 tons. We now perform the pump-over only on the fruit that is in our tanks because it is the only way to get the cap down. In this process, we take the juice from the racking valve and pump the juice over the cap in order to sink the cap. The tanks have lids on them and we can't get a punch-down tool into them. The punch-down is the preferred method because it is gentler on the grapes. In this method, we use round or square stainless steel punch-down tools and punch the cap down four times per day. By using this method, the grape seeds that have sunk to the bottom the bin will stay there. If the seeds were stirred up, as sometimes happens during pump-over, they can damage the skin of the fruit. By not disturbing the seeds, the fruit experiences a gentler process. Pinot Report We received Pinot Noir this year from the following vineyard sources: Wirtz Vineyard, Mason Ridge Vineyards, Beran Vineyards, Sheppard Vineyards, Dion Vineyards, and Haur of the Daun. Currently, 50% of the fruit from Dion is being fermented in bins and the other 50% is being fermented in tanks. The fruit from Beran is being 100% bin fermented. We will then compare the grapes from both vineyard sources, as well as compare the differently fermented fruit from Dion. We will continue to run ph reports on the Pinot in order to document the fermentation. What we're doing in November We will wait for the 2009 fruit to finish fermenting. While we wait, we will take composites (which is a certain percentage out of each barrel) of the 2008 Pinot Noir. We need to get most of the 2008 out of the barrels so that the 2009 can go into the barrels when fermentation is complete. We currently have 17 lots of 2008 Pinot Noir, and we're keeping them all separate so that we can taste each lot. Through that process, we'll determine if there anything that can be used as a Reserve wine or that can be blended together to create a Reserve wine. Start to finish, it should take us two weeks to get the 2009 into barrels. We're continuing to watch our white fruit, also, waiting for fermentation to be complete. This fruit is currently in small lots, so there's a chance that they could start to ferment too quickly. If this happens, we'll have to centrifuge it in order to pull most of the yeast out of the fruit which will halt the fermentation process. Sometimes, with a lot of fewer than 700 gallons, placing the stainless steel barrels outside in the cold weather is the only way to stop fermentation - we call that cold stabilization. We're keeping a watchful eye on those lots. The 2007 Barbera will be released in December, and we are now deciding when we'll be ready to release the 2008 Syrah and Barbera. The Syrah will probably not be released for another year, but the Barbera may be released sooner than that. That's it for now...talk to you next month. Jeff Herinckx Home | Our Story | What's New | Wines
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