We did a 3-day cold soak on our 2011 syrah, mostly out of convenience. I get a little nervous doing more than 2 days, and I don’t think I’ll soak this long again before pitching the yeast. Besides the cost of putting 10 pounds of dry ice into the buckets every morning, the must does [...]
Tag archive: grapes
Time for another syrah harvest at Live Oak Vineyard in Fallbrook! I was the first to arrive, just as the sun broke over the mountains to the East. The weather this year was perfect so far. I did smell a nearby wildfire as I drove up to the vineyard, but nothing threatening to interfere with [...]
Today I took a group of people in my Hands-on Winemaking class at Curds and Wine up to Fallbrook for a preharvest Vineyard Visit. We picked a perfect day (read as sarcasm), as a heat wave recently hit and it was sweltering. But, it’s always a lovely, if not hot, day at the vineyard. Mike [...]
It is finally time to bottle the oak trials today! I am also bottling the 2009 Petite Sirah that I did egg white fining on, so I can compare it to the unfined wine side-by-side. The chardonnays all cleared out really nicely, which is great so I can bottle directly from the individual jugs — [...]
I realized I haven’t really done a head-to-head tasting of my 2008 Merlot lots A and B yet. After being so disappointed with the barrel batch of merlot from that vintage, I’ve been holding out to wait 2 years to pop the smaller batch of lot A. Happily, the time has come! Tasting notes: Merlot [...]
We went to visit Live Oak Vineyard today to see how the syrah is coming along this year. Veraison is already starting in the syrah, so harvest might be a little early this year! Here is the second year growth of the Deaver clone Zinfandel, not yet starting veraison. Check out the giant clusters: And, [...]
We finally set a date and bottled the 2009 Merlot and Petite Sirah from Van Alyea Ranch in Dry Creek Valley, Sonoma. The wines are tasting great, and we could have bottled before now but I realized I didn’t have a spigot to attach a hose to clean out the barrels after they were empty. [...]
I don’t like to give up easily on a wine, but the nasty Cabernet Sauvignon from Paul was beyond any help. When I first tried it, I thought maybe some racking and Kmeta would help it. Today I went to splash rack it, and it was just gross. There is no help for this wine. [...]
At the bottling party, I was talking with Paul about getting some of his Cabernet Sauvignon (also from Lambert Bridge Vineyard in Sonoma) to make a Paraduxx-like blend with my merlot and primitivo. He mentioned he had several gallons of cabernet that seemed to have a VA problem. I hate to dump wine without trying [...]
We drove up to Fallbrook yesterday to meet up with Paul and a bunch of his neighbors to bottle his 2009 Merlot and Petite Sirah from Lambert Bridge Vineyard in Sonoma (the same grapes we made wine from that need to be bottled soon). It was a very nice day, sunny and warm but not [...]