Winter Pruning

I had a half day at work, came home and Dave is in full swing at OSU in his fermentation program and the rain marathon had finally taken a break, so I took matters into my own hands to prune our vines. With our youngest in the carrier and our two year old swinging branches around, it was a semi-family event. I used the spur pruning method, leaving only two buds per spur.

Watch this video for the method.

Still in waiting

The pinot noir.

And the roses.

We had a taste, and for a first time wine, I'd say it's pretty decent. Okay, it was pretty incredible. More to come!

October Update

 

The rose has been racked.

 

The pinot has been pressed.

 

With the help of friends, always.

 

 

Mm... grape juice.

After some time, the yeast was inoculated.

Then, oak sticks added to establish that barrel aged flavor.

 And now, the wait begins.

Carboy Secondary Fermentation

 

  

This is a super late post, but such is life with a toddler and a baby.  Initially, Dave had wrapped the carboy in ice to cool down the temperature and delay fermentation and allow for aroma development. Luckily, the weather started cooling down in early fall and we were able to monitor the temperature in our garage. The pinot noir is in the big food grade tubs and the rose is in the little carboy.

With good wine, always comes good food. My brother-in-law is a sushi chef and made this sushi spread for us. It's okay to be jealous.

Before the Hornets Wake

So, with the mystery grapes from our backyard, the guys began to make a rosé. Early Tuesday morning, Dave and Beau (and a little help from Olivia) got to harvesting our backyard grapes. The hornets have been going crazy over these sweet grapes, many of them sleeping in the dried grapes.

After picking, then sorting and destemming, they manually crushed the grapes and strained them with a nylon straining bag, strong hands and a fine filter in the funnel. This was probably the most grueling day. Ten hours of constant manual labor. The guys decided not to do a cold soak with these grapes, so not too much red color was extracted and there weren't enough red grapes to get a nice pink color, so they added a little of the pinot noir juice.

A day's hard work deserves a little play.  We headed to Les Caves for some happy hour (shrimp hush puppies, pork tostadas, beer pretzel... drool) and a walk around downtown to burn off some calories.

 

The pinot noir grapes are progressing nicely in the primary fermentation stage. As you can see, a rich color is developing and the bubbles signal that fermentation has begun. Once we are past primary fermentation (when most of the sugar has been converted to alcohol), they'll be pressed (not by hand this time but through a press). Then, they'll be placed into several carboys where they will go through secondary fermentation (called malolactic fermentation). Stay tuned!

Harvest Day

Harvest day is a labor intensive day, reaping the bounty of a season's hard work of tending, pruning, and trellising the vineyard. The rain has come and gone and our friend Beau has arrived. The guys headed to Borgo Pass Vineyards early this morning after grabbing some breakfast and 10 lbs of dry ice.

In our opinion, Borgo Pass did a beautiful job of tending the vineyard. Grape clusters are occasionally dropped or thinned throughout the growth cycle to prevent overgrowth and increase the flavor concentration of the grapes. The methods involved in this are an art in and of itself, affecting the outcome of the wine. Without all this attention, I'm sure you'd have a monster of a vineyard... much like our tomato garden.

The guys were assigned two rows on the vineyard by Mark, the vineyard manager, and they went to filling three large buckets of the ripe pinot noir grapes.

 
After the 230 lbs of grapes were picked, they went through the destemmer-crusher to do the obvious - destem and crush - and were collected in a food grade rubber maid brute.

Dave then weighed and added Potassium MetabiSulfite (KMBS), which is an additive to prevent oxidation and microbial growth of wild microorganisms.  Then, he added pectinase which is an enzyme that breaks down pectin to prevent haziness in the wine. Some people say to wait 12 hours after adding the pectinase to add the KMBS, but others choose to add them at the same time to reduce the risk of the juice going bad during those 12 hours. They chose the latter.

After we drove these bad boys home (the buckets, not the guys), we did a cold soak. Adding dry ice drops the temperature of the grapes to stall fermentation from starting and allow a longer time for the crushed grapes to soak and extract more color and flavor from the skins.

Cold soaks are typically within the 55-60 degree Fahrenheit range. After the cold soak (either tomorrow night or Tuesday morning), they'll add a pinot noir specific yeast to begin fermentation.

Here are their supplies for today. Sanitizer, sponges, scale, refractometer, kimwipes, distilled water... The final brix from today's picking was 24. Ideal.

Dave and Beau looked pretty exhausted at this point and in need of a shower, but the cold soak temperature was at 65 degrees. If left at that temperature, wild fermentation would have begun by the natural yeast already present in the grapes. So, they went to get more dry ice. "We don't dictate what we do - the grapes do," they said as they drove away.

We ended the day with a harvest day pot roast courtesy of Ree Drummond and turned in early for the night. Today was just a mini glimpse of what harvest is like at a winery. Two measly rows of grapes. It's mind boggling to think of the attention and manpower required to manage a multi-grape growing vineyard.