The rewards and frustrations of home winemaking

We racked the cab out of the lovely grey trash cans into an even lovelier new American oak barrel with medium toast.  Dave and I ended up with a full 30 gallon barrel plus a 6 gallon carboy and another 2 gallon bottle full of fine lees.  I checked the malic acid, and it’s down […]

Paul sent in a sample of his merlot to Vinquiry for a full panel analysis.  The merlot Dave, Josh, and I made should be similar, although our MLF definitely did not complete like Paul’s did.  Here’s his analysis results: Alcohol: 16.4% pH: 3.56 TA: .765 Free SO2 : 0 (He hadn’t added any yet) Total […]

I stopped over to check the MLF progression on the cab, and it looks like it’s working this time!  Malic acid levels have dropped below 300 mg/L (not at max at least!), and lactic acid is reading positive at 80 mg/L.

This wine is just fizzy, definitely a freshman mistake on my part. Anticipating fizz, I vacuum pumped the wine before pouring into glasses (no decanting), which might have helped the wine. We will just have to drink another bottle to find out. The wine was definitely better, very well integrated and no soapiness. This wine […]

Paul borrowed the bladder press again, and I happily took a day off of work to, well, work on the wine.  Definitely more fun work anyway!  We got it all pressed out and added the Malostart, and tomorrow the guys will add VP41 malolactic bacteria.  Let’s hope it works this time.

Week 3 of malolactic fermentation, and malic acid levels are not going down.  I’m a bit nervous about not sulfiting the wines at this point, and it is possible that MLF might not complete in these wines anyway.  I poked around the internet and decided it was not worth risking, so I added ¼ tsp […]

I went over to the office to check on the wine.  Sugars are dropping steadily, down to 8.5 degrees brix.  We added more yeast nutrient to all of them.

Things are definitely busy.  I am taking care of the “office wine” on the weekends since the guys are taking care of it through the week.  After punching the cans down, I checked the temp and brix.  Temperatures are rising, definite active fermentations at 77-78 degrees now, with sugar levels averaging about 17 degrees brix.  […]

I decided to thief out a little taste of each merlot before giving them a stir and testing for malic acid levels this time.  They are both quite acidic and kinda harsh, but seem to be taking on some oakiness from the cubes I tossed in.  Both lots were at max malic acid levels, >500 […]

Paul got us some great yeast for our cab:  D254 and FX10.  We were splitting a half ton evenly, and we ended up with 6 32-gallon trash cans full of must.  We decided that Dave & I would inoculate 2 cans with D254 and one with FX10, and then Paul would inoculate 2 cans with […]