Batch #1 — No additional oak was added after the first racking. Peppery aromas and very peppery, spicy flavors with light fruit.
Batch #2, Free Run — Hungarian oak cubes were added after the first racking. Buttery, smooth, almost sweet aromas; smooth on the tongue initially, becoming sour, harsh, tannic and acidic on the finish. A little cherry in the finish.
Batch #2, Press Run — 50/50 French/American oak chips added after first racking. Butter, floral, tobacco aromas with light fruit. Big flavors of vanilla (hello American oak!), light spice, good fruit and good balance. Had a light effervescence.
Batch #3 — French oak chips added after racking. This was (almost) everyone’s favorite, this time and at the previous tasting. Dust, leather, and dark red fruit aromas. Hint of chocolate on finish, good fruit and perfect balance.
Batch #4 — American oak chips added after the first racking. The “love it or hate it” wine, this was our least favorite after the first tasting. A little butter and a little spice in the aromas, very mellow. Flavors were contentious. I tasted bug spray and thought it smelled better than it tasted, others thought it mellow but just kind of bland or dull. The wine did not taste bad, but compared to the other samples was the least exciting to most of us.

We did a little bit of blending with the different syrahs with some viognier I made from a wine kit, and we all agreed that #4 blended with 10% viognier was a good combination.   So, we will bottle half of #4 blended and half unblended.   All of the wines were deemed ready to bottle!

We also tasted my 2010 Live Oak Vineyard syrah, which had a very bad acetone problem at the last tasting. Since then I did a splash rack out of one barrel to another and dosed up the sulfite. It was a success — no more off odors or flavors! This wine has a more floral, characteristic violet aroma and flavor balanced with cherry and bright red fruits. Oak seems fine, though it is still a little acidic, but I think this will mellow in the bottle. This wine is probably also ready to bottle — I just need to find time!

I was given some samples of a new product called “One Little Drop,” touted to “improve wines.” We opened a bottle of my 2009 Merlot, which is a bit on the tannic side, so decided it was a good opportunity to test it out. Basically, you put one drop of the solution into your wine glass and give it a swirl with the swizzle sticks included. We had one glass untreated to compare with the treated sample, and were quite impressed with how the product smoothed out the flavors and softened the wine immediately. The only drawback was that vegetative flavors that were masked by the tannins were brought forward, but that is due to the inherent flaws of the wine, not added by the product.

I don’t know that this is a product I would ever take out to a tasting event of any sort, unless it involved home winemakers.  But, for homemade wines, it seems to help “fix” wines that aren’t quite up to potential.  I’ll post an update when we try this product out again.

We started with Batch #1 of the 2011 Fallbrook Syrah, which was fermented with ICV-D80 yeast. This wine has a slight acetone aroma, though not too bad, with nice aromas of spice, roasted plums, sage, and tobacco. It is a lovely ruby-garnet in color, very opaque and dark. We all agreed this wine is loaded with oak already, with lots of spice, smoke, and very acidic/tart on the tongue. It’s also a little gritty, it definitely needs a racking and more time to clear.

Batch #2 was next, this batch was fermented with Pasteur Red yeast and we kept the free run and press run separate. We tasted the free run first, happily it did not have the acetone aroma like batch #1. This wine has more fruity aromas with light spice and smoke, cherry and tobacco. It is more purple in color than batch #1, with mouthwatering, smooth, buttery flavors of ripe red fruits balanced nicely with rich tannins. This wine is not as tart as batch #1, in fact it has a slightly sweet finish. We then tasted the press run, which we expected to be harsh in comparison but is surprisingly smooth and buttery as well. It was definitely more tannic than the free run, with a sort of sweet/sour agrodolce flavor and a little more acidity than the free run. We also got the classic floral rose and violet flavors often associated with syrah on the finish with this wine.

On to Batch #3, fermented with ICV-D254. No acetone with this batch either, lots of dust, leather, and dark red fruits on the nose. This wine is a lovely ruby-garnet, very smooth and clear already. Nice grippy tannins on the tongue, with well balanced, smooth flavors of fruit, spice, and oak.

We then tasted Batch #4, fermented with CLOS yeast strain. This batch has been the most disappointing, it just lacks anything special. No acetone, good mouthfeel and very drinkable but just kind of bland and boring, lacking depth. This wine went well with food, and would probably benefit from blending with another varietal.

I also needed to check the 2010 vintage for oak anyway, so we gave it a taste. This is the Stinky Syrah — LOTS of acetone! Although we all poured from a single bottle, a few people did not have any acetone aromas. The acetone was overwhelming where it was present, in those glasses it was absent we could detect licorice and spice, definitely potential for a great wine. But, something needs to be done to address the acetone problem — I will splash rack it out of the barrel into the empty barrel I have and dose up the sulfite, hopefully that will fix it as it has in the past.

Finally, we tasted the original vintage, 2009. This year was the third leaf for the vineyard, but was hit by a heat wave just prior to harvest. As a result, the berries were very concentrated — the ones that survived, anyway. This wine has changed a lot over the years, which gives me hope for the problems with the 2010 vintage. This wine is now splendid, with aromas of black tea and stewed prunes, a lovely garnet in color. Smooth, slightly sweet flavors of raisins and light spice are nicely balanced with light tannins and a long finish. Unfortunately I only have 9 more bottles left, but I’m going to sacrifice one to send in to the Winemaker Magazine competition this year, I definitely think it will get a gold!

Overall, everyone loved the 2011 vintage wines. It was a toss-up whether the free run batch #2 or batch #3 was the favorite, but everyone agreed that the 2009 vintage is amazing. We will rack all of the 2011 batches and add more oak to some: Batch #1 does not need any more oak; Batch #2 free run will get a little Hungarian oak, while the press run will get a blend of French and American oak; Batch #3 will get a little bit of French oak chips; and Batch #4 will get American oak to hopefully give it some oomph. We’ll get together again in about 4 – 6 weeks to see how they’re doing!

Now it’s finally time to add sulfite and French oak chips and let this wine hang out for a few months.  I’ll check in on it in 2012!

Malic acid quick test results, batch #2 on the left and batch #1 on the right

It’s almost 6 weeks after initiating malolactic fermentation on our 2011 Fallbrook Syrah. I tested malic acid levels today with the Accuvin quick tests. Batch #1 (fermented with ICV-D80) is the one batch that didn’t seem to be progressing at all, but today it seems to be below the max value on the scale. When the readings are in the middle it’s sometimes difficult to tell exactly what the value is, but I think it’s around 110-150 mg/L. The remaining 3 batches are definitely done, no malic acid detectable! I’ll give batch #1 two more weeks of stirring then test again, it should be close enough to done to add sulfite. The rest are getting their sulfite today, and the group will decide what oaks, if any, to put in each batch. I’ve been very happy with 100% medium toast French oak, but trying something different is always fun.

Then I moved on to the 2010 vintage of Live Oak Vineyard Syrah.  I got out my handy-dandy (yes I love this thing!) Vinmetrica SC-100 sulfite analyzer, and in less than 2 minutes knew there is basically NO free SO2 in the barrel.  Yikes!  Doing a quick calculation from The Winemaker’s Answer Book, I estimated I should add about 7.5 grams of Kmeta, which is about 1 1/2 teaspoons.  After stirring this in, I need to take a little volume out of the barrel so I can put in a pound of medium toast Hungarian oak cubes.  The 5-gallon carboy was partially full, but since I didn’t want to deal with this on Monday I added marbles to the Better Bottle to top it up into the neck to minimize air exposure.  Which means now I need to get the marbles out so I can put the extra wine from the barrel in.  Since my hand won’t reach down the neck of the carboy, I racked the wine out, dumped out the marbles, then pulled the wine from the barrel and added this back to the carboy.  Yes, a bit of probably needless wine shuffling, but it happens.  At least I did think to dump in about 2 ounces of medium toast French oak chips into the 6-gallon carboy as I was filling it.  Now we’ll let that oak hang out for a few months and hopefully the syrah will come around the way we want it!

Prefermentation American Oak (10 g/gallon, 1 week exposure): Dry, but brings out citrus and vanilla flavors.  Oak very subtle, but definitely detectable.

Prefermentation French Oak (10 g/gallon, 1 week exposure): oak is also very subtle, but adds to the flavor; seems to add more to the mid-palate than the prefermentation American oak.

Post fermentation American oak (1 month exposure):  Oak more perceptible, wine is more buttery with more vanilla; 10 grams per gallon oak definitely more intense oak flavors than 5 grams per gallon, and both more oak flavors than the prefermentation oak.  10 grams per gallon post-fermentation oak is almost a little too much for the American oak, finishes flat with no mid-palate.

Post fermentation French oak (1 month exposure): the most “pleasant” oak flavors to our palates.  Smooth, rich mid-palate with cloves and cinnamon.  Again, the 10 grams per gallon is almost a little too much, though with longer aging this may turn around.

Our favorite is the post-fermentation 5 grams per gallon French oak, and we both prefer the French oak over American; it’s a more subtle, rounded oak influence than the American.  However, I remember that at the Winemaker magazine conference in Santa Barbara, all of us at the table preferred the prefermentation oak samples.  Tim used a different Chardonnay kit than I did, which could definitely influence our preferences.  In fact, I’m sure if I did this trial with a zinfandel or cabernet, I would prefer American oak over French, based on how it compliments the varietal.

It is very interesting to taste the difference between pre-fermentation oak and post-fermentation oak.  The yeast metabolize the oak flavor molecules to yield a different flavor profile.  However, this type of oak trial is quite an endeavor, and not something to do with every wine!  But, if you’re feeling ambitious, I highly recommend doing one on your own.  Maybe try both a red and a white!

When I first opened up the flextank, there was a very nasty layer of white film on top again.  I’ve seen this too many times before, but it has always just been an innocuous pectin haze.  The wine overall smells OK, though it has a slight acetylaldehyde whiff at first.  This odor does go away with a little time in a glass, so hopefully will blow off with all of the transferring it will go through today.

We pumped the wine out into several carboys and loaded them into the car with the empty flextank.  Then the syrah got to go for a ride down to the shop, where it was pumped back into one of the empty, neutral American oak barrels.  We also filled another whole 6-gallon Better Bottle and partially filled a 5-gallon carboy.  It’s been a long day, so I pitched about a teaspoon of Kmeta into the barrel and 1/4 tsp into each carboy.  I’ll check the free SO2 later and add some oak cubes, it definitely needs it!