Fruit Of The Vine II

[usedto]

Well, I'm at it again. Even though I don't particularly care for red wine, it seems to have the bigger following, it keeps longer, and I had fun doing the last one. I have another family photo that is worthy of a wine label, and my cousin has a vineyard of Syrah grapes that are also on family owned property, so I asked him if he'd sell me 1 ton of grapes to do the same thing as I did with Sisters Joens. He really liked the idea, so I contacted the winery that did the last batch, and they sent me a contract this morning. I signed it and made the deposit. Now, we just wait for the grapes to ripen.

No special handling again - just take them from the vine and do the same thing. Here's a Google Maps overhead of the vineyard. I circled it in red because the vines above the circle are Zinfandel - those in the circle (or thereabouts) are Syrah, Below that are almond trees,

I won't be quite as elaborate with this thread because most of the process will be identical to the last, but I'll take photos when appropriate. The vineyard is about halfway between Manteca and Escalon, CA - about 60 miles south of Sacramento. The family has owned the property since the 1800s.

Hope this goes as well as the last batch. Time will tell.

 

[usedto]

Just got an email from my cousin - the sugar is up to 20 now. In this weather, 2 points per week is pretty common, so we're two to two and a half weeks from harvest.

 

[thichtutai]

Well, I'm at it again. Even though I don't particularly care for red wine, it seems to have the bigger following, it keeps longer, and I had fun doing the last one. I have another family photo that is worthy of a wine label, and my cousin has a vineyard of Syrah grapes that are also on family owned property, so I asked him if he'd sell me 1 ton of grapes to do the same thing as I did with Sisters Joens. He really liked the idea, so I contacted the winery that did the last batch, and they sent me a contract this morning. I signed it and made the deposit. Now, we just wait for the grapes to ripen.

No special handling again - just take them from the vine and do the same thing. Here's a Google Maps overhead of the vineyard. I circled it in red because the vines above the circle are Zinfandel - those in the circle (or thereabouts) are Syrah, Below that are almond trees,

I won't be quite as elaborate with this thread because most of the process will be identical to the last, but I'll take photos when appropriate. The vineyard is about halfway between Manteca and Escalon, CA - about 60 miles south of Sacramento. The family has owned the property since the 1800s.
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Hope this goes as well as the last batch. Time will tell.

unbelieveable . i never see it before

 

[usedto]

Took a sample to the winery this morning - brix is 23.9 - a little below the 24.5+ they want. We agreed to go ahead and pick next Friday - the 16th of September. The sugar should be plenty high by then

 

[usedto]

Our 2016 Syrah was born this morning, Sept. 16. Today is also my son's birthday, so that makes it nice.

Met my cousin and the picking crew in the field at 6:30. They had already harvested the rest of the vineyard, but he held back 75 vines for my project. He and I are doing some trading for the labor cost, but he estimated it probably cost around $160 to pick them by hand. Like the Sisters Joens wine, it has to go through a labor contractor to keep everything legal and all. Not sure what the value of the grapes are yet, but I'll find out when he gets paid. I was loaded and on the road by 8:30, hit the winery at 9. We ended up with 1780# - a little shy of a ton. The sugar is pretty high, so they'll probably add some water to bring it down a bit during fermentation. Here's the fruits of our labor:

The temperature of the fruit was 50 degrees - perfect for the process. The winery doesn't like them warmer than 70. If over that, they have to work them differently. Commercial wineries like warmer fruit - speeds up the fermentation. This winery likes the fruit cooler and the fermentation slow and easy. They'll run these through the de-stemmer, then back in the bins for fermentation.

During fermentation, the skins and seeds float to the top and form a cap that can hinder the process. It's necessary - for good wine - to break the cap occasionally. That's what they call "punch-down". Here's a crummy photo of the process:

The bins are apprx. 4' X 4' X 2' tall. During fermentation, they are covered with cloth to keep bugs out and allow gases to escape. The rod in the worker's hand is stainless steel, with a round disc with holes on the end about a foot in diameter. He lifts the cloth off, then "punches" the skins and seeds down to the bottom. They will eventually rise to the top, and they will punch down again. In larger lots, they do a pump-over. The juice is pumped from the bottom of the tank and back to the top. Either way gets the job done.

Time to let mother nature do her thing. I'll track the progress as I get the lab results.

 

[usedto]

Lab report - brix 26.1, temp 62 degrees.

We were afraid the brix (sugar) might be too high, but the cool weather this last week helped out. Sugar makes alcohol, which is good, but too much alcohol and it takes over the flavor of the wine. They wanted 24.5 or higher so we should be right where we'd like to be.

Unlike the Zinfandel grapes in the Sisters Joens wine, which can be used for either red or "white" wine, Syrah is strictly a red wine grape. These were grown specifically for this purpose, though they didn't receive any "special" handling as is done in some of the high-dollar wines. These are raised on a wire trellis, and harvested with a machine. We just kept back 75 vines and harvested by hand.

 

[usedto]

Thought I'd toss this bit of info out - just got the lab report for today.

The grapes were 62 degrees last Friday when we harvested. Now, a week later, the "must" is in fermentation, and today it is 89 degrees. The sugar has gone from 26.1 to 8.7 - turning sugar into alcohol.

There are mixed "schools" about temperature during fermentation. White wine wants to be cooler, but red needs the heat to extract the colors and tannins from the skins and seeds. Some say they prefer about 85, while others will let the temp get over 100. I assume this winemaker subscribes to the latter. Cooler wines are a little "fruitier", while the warmer supposedly produces a "bolder" wine.

As long as it comes out good, I'm happy.

 

[cubdog]

Do you sell any wine Larry or is does the wine stay in family? I have no idea how many bottles your grapes will yield.

 

[usedto]

The zinfandel (Sisters Joens) yielded 914 bottles. I still have 624 bottles, the rest went mostly to relatives and some friends. I legally can't sell it, so I'm letting the remainder "age". I'm considering getting my liquor license so I can market it.

This batch should produce somewhere around 700 bottles. We were a little under weight, so it might be a bit shy.

 

[cubdog]

I'd love to buy some, er borrow some.

 

[usedto]

Quick update - the Syrah is now in neutral oak barrels. We should do the oak trial tasting as soon as it reaches maximum dryness - probably late this year or first of next.

 

[usedto]

I have another old photo that will work great with this second batch of wine. I sent a very poor photograph to AK's own Bogframe to have him work his magic on it. He didn't have much to work with - it was a copy of a copy of the original, which didn't lend itself to tinkering. That being said, it came out great - will serve well for the label.

Should be doing oak trials pretty soon - then another year of aging, then bottle in 2018.

 

[usedto]

Oak trials tomorrow morning at 10.

I'm anxious to see how the Syrah compares to the ZIN, since I'm not a red wine "connoisseur". I'll also find out apprx. how many cases we'll have. We're going to use a different label designer/printer this time - one who does a lot with this winery. We'll get that in the makings right away. I think we have our property (home, not the vineyard) sold, and we'll be moving 4 hours away, so I want it all in place before we leave.

I'll let you know how it goes.

 

[onwardjames]

I'd love to buy some, er borrow some.

Make that two of us, cubby.

 

[usedto]

Make that two of us, cubby.

I'm working on that.

 

[usedto]

Did our oak trial testing today.............

The bottle on the left is the control group - straight Syrah with no oak. The first two are 30% French oak 30% American, the next two are 70% French and 70% American. I had read that Syrah generally doesn't require quite the concentration of oak that other wines do. For me, the control tasted just fine, but I don't drink red wine. The 70% French and American were both a little overbearing. The 30% ers had two unique flavors. We have two full barrels, a 15ga. keg, and another keg with about 10 gallons that will be used for topping off during the aging period. We blended the 30% samples and decided that they created a happy medium. So, there will be one barrel of each at 30%, and we'll leave the 15 gallon keg as it is, then blend it all for bottling. Should make another decent batch of wine that's not too overbearing.

Now we wait again. Time to get the label started.

 

[onwardjames]

I could SO get into what you're doing. Have fun!

 

[usedto]

I could SO get into what you're doing. Have fun!

Where I'm not a big fan of wine, I'm surprised that I'm getting so much enjoyment our of doing it. Alot of it is just honoring the family and all the years we've farmed the home ranch.

 

[usedto]

I didn't realize it's been over a year since I last updated this. We go in the 28th of this month for the final tasting, and to set a date for bottling. I met with the label company a few weeks ago, so they should have proofs for me before too long. Sometime between now and June we should have our second batch.

My siblings have decided they would like to partner in the next batch, so we have chosen to do Zinfandel from the home ranch. Our cousin farms it for us, and he says that there is one section of the field that has a better rootstock, so they are properly training the vines for making red zinfandel instead of white like the remainder of the field. I'll do another thread when that starts.

 

[usedto]

We did our tasting on the 28th. The wine is again good, but we all decided it needed a little "extra", so we are doing a minor blend. I'll give all the specs when it's finally bottled.

I got the first proof for the label today - it came out better than I ever expected. The girl in charge loved the photo, and did a spectacular job of doing it justice when producing the label. I wrote the short bio on the back label and put in one piece of punctuation that I decided would be better omitted, so she's taking care of that, then sending the label in to the TTB for he Certificate of Label Approval. Once that's done, the labels will go into production and we will bottle - hopefully in the next two months.