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!

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.

First, we set up our yeast starters.  We have 4 cans of must available, so we decided to use 4 different yeasts:  ICV D80, Pasteur Red, ICV D254, and CLOS.  We set up mason jars with about 1/2 cup water at 104 degrees and added about 15 grams of Go-Ferm and 5 grams of yeast in each jar.  We let that sit for about 30 minutes while we went to test the initial brix, pH, and TA of the must.  After 30 minutes we added 1/2 cup of syrah juice that we pulled off of the must to each jar, and let that sit for another 15 minutes.  We could see the signs of life as the jars showed faint signs of foaming.  We then stirred each jar into their respective cans with a stainless steel paddle.

Check out the gorgeous color that is already extracted!

We tested the TA with Accuvin quick tests, which I have found to be very accurate, and quick!

Initial readings before pitching yeast:

#1: brix 24, TA 7, pH 3.46

#2: brix 25*, TA 7.5, pH 3.49

#3: brix 25*, TA 7, pH 3.44

#4: brix 24, TA 6.9, pH 3.44

*initially #2 was 23 brix and #3 25 brix, so we mixed some must back and forth before the yeast was pitched to adjust the brix levels.  It seemed to work!  These readings are pretty much perfect, everything fell in place for this year’s harvest.  Should be an exceptional vintage!

Harvest this year was part of a Hands-on Winemaking class I’m leading at Curds and Wine.  Everyone else in the group started showing up shortly after my arrival, eager and excited for their first wine grape harvest.  After some coffee and muffins, Mike and Tricia Hoffman, the vineyard owners and our hosts for the day, gave a brief overview of harvest then lead the group down to start taking the bird netting off of the vines.

Step one on harvest day: remove and roll up bird netting just before harvest

As we pulled the netting off of the vines, we could hear the birds gathering around us.  It was like they knew the grapes were exposed now,  so we needed to get to work fast to get the grapes before the birds did.  Mike has 140 vines of syrah, clone 877, for us to harvest.  We had about 20 people total, and harvest actually went pretty fast — and no one cut their finger this year!

The grapes looked great this year!  We started in the upper vineyard “Cima Sur,” then Mike hauled the load down to the crushpad with his tractor.

We finished up harvesting the lower vineyard “Este,” then moved the grapes to the crushpad.  The lower vineyard had a lot more raisins than “Cima Sur.”  When we were done, we harvested 1100 pounds!  My group will take 600 pounds for our class.

We fired up the crusher/destemmer and processed the grapes, then put a little Kmeta and dry ice on the must to inhibit spontaneous fermentation.  My group will do a 3-day cold soak before pitching our yeasts, partially because it is a convenient day for us to regroup.

We were done by about 10 am, and we all retired to the patio to toast the 2011 syrah harvest with 2010 vintage Syrah, then have a feast of Italian food.  Luckily we were under some cover, as a pretty heavy rain came out of nowhere just before we started eating!

After a while we packed up the cans and trucked them back down to Curds and Wine.  The must was already warming up a little, so we added a little more dry ice then stirred in pectinase and Opti-Red.

An initial brix check of the must gave an average of about 24 brix, right on the spot!  We didn’t test our pH or TA yet, but Mike reported in that his must was at pH 3.35 and TA 7.5-8.  A perfect harvest this year!  The initial color is a dark fuschia, I expect it to become darker by the time we pitch the yeast in a few days.

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 Hoffman, a fellow gold-medal-winning winemaker, gave an overview of his vineyard then we took a walk through the vines to check out the status of our soon-to-be-wine grapes. We pulled a few random grapes from various points and checked out the brix readings on refractometers.

Besides checking the sugar levels with the refractometers, we looked for the physical signs of ripening:  the grapes pulling away cleanly from the pedicel, the seeds turning brown and getting cruchy, and shriveling or puckering of the grapes.

We then headed back to the shade to taste the 2009 vintage syrah and do some lab chemistry on a pool of random samples of the grapes from each block of the vineyard, ‘Este’ the lower vineyard, and ‘Cima Sur’ the upper vineyard.

After Mike demonstrated the proper technique for mashing up the samples, he strained out the juice from the pooled grapes to test the brix with the refractometer, pH with his pH meter, and TA with Accuvin quick tests.  The readings were as follows:

‘Este’: brix = 21.5, pH = 3.17, TA = 10

‘Cima Sur’: brix = 23, pH = 3.27, TA = 9

The numbers are very close to optimal; we are targeting a harvest at 24-25 brix, ph 3.5, TA 7-8.  Mike originally thought harvest would fall on September 11th, but it looks like we’ll be harvesting next weekend!  Time to get everything ready for the syrah crush!

Tasting notes:  Rich, voluptuous aromas of juicy blackberry, currant, and plums. Lovely ruby-garnet in color. Mouth-filling flavors of blackberry, boysenberry, and cassis with hint of vanilla and cedar in the long finish. This is such an amazing wine, if I say so myself!

One thing I forgot was how much preparation it takes before the actual bottling process.  I do my winemaking in the kitchen, which means cleaning up the surfaces before starting anything.  That’s one benefit to having a dedicated space for bottling, or making your wine at a home winemakers’ center like Curds and Wine, where the proprietor prepares everything and cleans up for you (a little shameless self-promotion).

I racked the 4 carboys together into a 30-gallon “primary fermentor,” AKA food-grade plastic trash can.  It then took about 20 minutes to fill all of the bottles, another 10 minutes to put on shrink capsules with a thermocapsuler, and 10 minutes to slap on labels and put the bottles into boxes.  The final count was 76 filled bottles and one partial bottle.  We had the partial bottle with dinner.  Although it is young and freshly bottled, it is showing great promise.  The wine was very clear, probably due to a year bulk aging.  Light aromas of black currant and blackberries with hint of black cherry.  Good oak, though definitely needs some time to settle in with the chewy, dusty flavors of dark ripe fruit and tea with smoky finish.  The wine is definitely quite closed right now, but hopefully in just a few months it will open up and be ready for late summer cookouts.

In my excitement to get the wine bottled, I completely forgot to test the free SO2 or add an extra dose of Kmeta before bottling.  I guess this will be a test wine to show how important proper SO2 levels are for aging — worse case, we’ll have to drink it all sooner than later!

Our 2010 Fallbrook syrah is hanging out in the flextank, which did pop out into a perfect sealed cylinder once the wine was pumped in.  Paul came by to get a pound of “house toast” French oak to toss in, we’ll taste it in a few months to see what we think.

He also brought a sample of wine for me to test free SO, so I checked that as well as the merlot and petite sirah in the barrels.  I used my new favorite toy, the SC-100 analyzer from Vinmetrica (which I happen to carry at Curds and Wine).  This instrument is so easy and fast, I love it!  It turned out everything needed a dose of metabisulfite, which didn’t really surprise me. The merlot and petite sirah also need more oak, Dave and Josh will visit soon to taste and discuss oak options.  I’m considering a mix of American and Hungarian oak, any suggestions are welcomed!