Left Coast Cowboys

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted a technical winemaking post. So here goes.

Andy has perfected the ultimate homemade topping up system for wine for less than $200 for the whole system, which in the winemaking world is a huge bargain.

A bit of background: when your wine is in barrels and resting, you want to make sure as little air as possible can get to it to oxidize it. But you still want to siphon out some for periodic tasting. Which means that you are lowering the volume, therefore introducing more air. What to do? Obviously, you need a methodology for “topping up” your barrels easily and quickly.

Here’s the homemade system Andy devised:

Andy has a selection of every one of our varietals in a separate tank under very low pressure, topped off with nitrogen, similar to Coca Cola in a soda fountain.

So when Andy pulls out some wine from a particular barrel (as he does here with the appropriately named “wine thief”), he can top up the barrel to prevent the air from oxidizing the wine.

Removing some Grenache to mix with the Mourvedre to see how they might meld as a Rhone-style blend.

Now the barrels can be topped up with fresh wine from the pressurized cannisters, thus avoiding the dreaded air contact.

Topping up the barrels.

Dr. FrankenWine mixes Grenache and Mourvedere. Results: very encouraging!

Verdict on the Mourvedre, Grenache and Cabernet: Much better than expected. High hopes for this very first vintage.

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know we have finally amassed enough winemaking equipment and knowledge that we have a system. It’s not always pretty; it’s seldom elegant. But we can get grapes from the fields, through crushing/destemming in less than an hour and from primary fermentation through pressing and into secondary fermentation in less than two. Ah, yes, we have our system and it’s almost scientific. It worked for the Cinsault, the Grenache and the Mourvedre. Then there was the Cabernet. The teeny, tiny yield of Cabernet. So teeny tiny a yield that dragging out all those hoses and pieces of equipment and instrumentation just didn’t seem to make sense. So we went back to the Stone Age. Or at least the age when old Italian men crushed wine in their basements in their wives’ washtubs and with old oars from rowboats to stir it.

As you can see above, rather than set up our elaborate hose system, we defaulted to the old Bail and Pour Method of getting the macerated grapes out of the primary fermentation vats and into the press.

Didn't Martha Stewart say a full set of Pyrex measuring pitchers would always come in handy?

So maybe we didn’t revert all the way back to the Stone Age, because we did wheel the new press out to squeeze and separate the juice from the wine skins.

And let the wine flow. Minus the skins and seeds.

It's young, but at this stage, you can call it wine.

Now another piece of high-tech equipment. Yes, it’s the plastic funnel:

Kids, don't try this without terrier supervision.

The whole sad little operation, glass carboys and all.

The only consolation: it’s actually tasting pretty good, even at this early stage. So when we are drinking our first Cabernet, will we even remember the humiliation of having so little that we had to process it the Barney Rubble Way?

A bit jejeune, but with a certain je ne sais quoi. And a back note of terrier fur.

And speaking of the two terriers of Two Terrier Vineyards, it seems they will emit uninterrupted, ear-piercing shrieks during the whole process — even if there is no noisy machinery.

Our fearless leaders. Now you know what we mean when we say: "Our wine's special flavor? It's the terroir."

Who knew our harvest and crush would stretch over SIX WEEKS as each of five varietals managed to come ripe at one week intervals. After harvest, each grape type has to be crushed/destemmed, then put into primary fermentation vats where they require intense, full time babysitting for a week or so — what with three times daily punchdowns, temperature checks and specific gravity readings. The problem was, every time I shepherded a varietal through that labor intensive process and into secondary fermentation, the next varietal would be screaming to be picked. So the process went on and on and on.

Today we picked the last of our Cabernet and will have it all in primary fermentation vats by tonight. Then one more week or so of Grape Daycare and my life will be “schedulable” again.

Funny thing about that Cabernet. It’s eventually going to be our largest crop, but apparently our land seems vastly more suited for our Rhone style varietals: the Grenache, Mourvedre and Cinsault. Although we aren’t technically at the full three year point, where one expects to get useable grapes, those three yielded nearly a ton each of lovely fruit. And that’s in a year when we dropped fifty percent of the fruit just to give the vines a chance to strengthen! But the Cabernet is still sulking like a four year old who doesn’t want to go to daycare. It grudgingly put out tiny fruit on about every third vine. And it stubbornly sat at 25 Brix level until we gave up and just started harvesting.

Our Cabernet harvest is laughable. I’d be surprised if we managed to get 100 pounds of fruit. Which is probably a good thing since we had to pick it ourselves and my wrenched back still has me hobbling around like a 90 year old.

I can tell you, there aren't many of these bins we're filling out of the Cabernet block.

Did I make it clear how teeny tiny our Cabernet yield was? Look at the puny size of these "berries". Well, the vines aren't yet technically mature.

However, we have a plan. A small amount of Cabernet is just perfect for experimentation with blending and trying out different techniques. If we ruin it all and learn what not to do, who cares? I think we’ll be pleased with our Rhone varietals and can afford to play with our Cab. So far the experiments we’re contemplating are fermenting naturally without adding yeasts, trying different temps for fermentation and experimenting with unusual blends.

Call our fermentation shed “Frankenstein’s Lab”. And be careful going around there on moonlit nights!

Found this tiny bird's nest in the Cabernet. Makes me happy to think such a tiny bird would feel safe only a few feet off the ground. Guess those biodynamics principles are working!

It's off to Frankenstein's Lab for these guys. MWWWWWAAAAAAAHAAAHAA!

So this Insectary seems to be working. The goal was to plant masses of bird and bee-friendly plants and aim for year round color and food for these beneficial vine guardians. After our recent hot spell, I thought everything was done, but suddenly new plants have burst into bloom.