All of our wines are fermenting fast this year, the merlot was already at 0 brix by Friday.  Dave retested all the cans Saturday morning after we had all gathered for pressing, and noticed that the hydrometer he had used was broken — there was juice inside of the hydrometer.  But, luckily the juice was actually just at 0 brix when retested with a new hydrometer (these things break often enough you should ALWAYS have 2 around!).  So, we got started.

We got a REALLY big press, it holds 90 liters, and we could actually fill it with 2 whole cans of must before starting the press!

We got through all 9 trash cans and cleaned everything up in 4 hours, in spite of all the trash talk.  I covered all of the juice with plastic wrap and put a layer of CO2 over the top to help protect it until we pump it into the barrels and start MLF in a few days.

On the note of MLF, it’s the second week of MLF for the primitivo and syrah.  Since the syrah had not yet kicked off MLF last week, I tested for lactic acid formation again in that wine.  I then tested malic acid levels in the primitivo, since it had started converting malic acid to lactic acid last week.

Malic acid levels have dropped to about 160 mg/L in the primitivo, which is showing good MLF progression.  The syrah, however, still doesn’t show any detectable levels of lactic acid, so this one doesn’t seem to be moving.  We’ll be picking up fresh MLB and nutrient for the merlot when we go pick up our Petite Sirah this week, so we’ll get a little extra for the syrah.  Although it is the same packet of MLB I put into the primitivo, it was added about a week afterwards.  This bacteria is very sensitive and could have gone bad already, so hopefully a fresh dose will do the trick.  Either way, both wines look lovely!