My 2011 Hands-on Harvest class met again last night to check out the progress on our 2011 Live Oak Vineyard Fallbrook syrahs. Details on fermentation and previous tasting notes are in prior blog posts. Here are our tasting notes: Batch #1 — No additional oak was added after the first racking. Peppery aromas and very peppery, [...]
Tag archive: Live Oak Vineyard
My Hands-on Winemaking Class got together last night for a potluck dinner to taste the fruits of our labors. We put French oak cubes in the wines about 2 months ago, so now is a good time to give them all a taste to see if there is enough oak, or if it needs more. [...]
I just tested our 2011 syrah batch #1 for malic acid levels, and it’s finally done! I’m still baffled why this one batch, out of four total, took 2 more weeks to finish MLF than the others. The particular yeast used (ICV-D80) must have produced something that was slowing down the malolactic bacteria. I’m curious [...]
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. [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Got an email from Mike Hoffman yesterday. He took several random samples from his upper vineyard “Cima Sur” and the lower vineyard “Este”. As usual, the upper vineyard has a slightly higher brix reading average of 19 brix, and the lower vineyard is currently at average 17.6 brix. We are shooting for around 23-24 brix [...]
The bottling binge continues! I finally bottled the 2009 Fallbrook Syrah, our first harvest from Live Oak Vineyard. We unfortunately came in short due to a heat wave just before harvest, so we have a total of 11 gallons of wine to split between the three of us. We will each get 18 bottles, which [...]
I have a few wines that are due for bottling, but I was waiting until I opened my shop because I needed corks, and it seemed to make sense that I should buy them from myself. So today I’m finally bottling my Amador county primitivo. I’ll bottle most of it as 100% varietal, but I’m [...]