Slow Time in the cellar --- redeux

It's cold out there! So I'm not real motivated to do much in the cellar. But here are some suggestions of things to do, where you don't spend all your time in the cold...

• Taste your wines and create trial blends



• Visit tasting rooms, make new wine and grape contacts



• Repair Equipment



• Do a Inventory of your cellar



• Plan a dinner to drink those wines you have been saving, or old bottles discovered during inventory



• Make sure your wine making notes are up to date



• Throw a party to celebrate last year's vintage

Today I'll talk about creating trial blends.

Your new wines are now far enough along in their development so you can taste them and get a good idea of what they will be like when finished.

I like to taste my wines whenever I rack them to check their progress and make sure there are no problems developing. But now is a good time to be more critical of a new wines strengths and weaknesses, and plan to address those issues. I believe strongly in blending as a means to address a wines weaknesses and produce a wine that you want to drink.

Blending is a topic that deserves it own entry to cover it in more detail, but here is a brief description on what I'm doing to create trail blends.

Technique:

Pull a small sample of each wine that may benefit from blending, say 1/10 bottle.

Taste each wine. Do you like it? Does it have characteristics that you don't like as much? Does it have a component that needs a little tweaking, e.g. low acid, nose, etc. What are it's strong points. Take Notes!! You can get hopelessly confused if you don't!

Formulate a blend of two or more wines to address weaknesses noted when tasting each wine. I do this with a 40 ML beaker. e.g. 20 ml of wine A, 20 ml of wine B poured into a glass for a 1 to 1 blend.

Taste the blend. Take notes! Did the blend work or not.. do another blend, repeat. It is unlikely that a blend will magically be great at this point, but the idea is to point to the direction that will work in the future for the final blend.

My trial blending of Sauvignon Blanc and Malvasia Bianca.

To be fair, I'm not starting at zero here... in 2007 I bottled a blend of 50% Sauvignon Blanc and 50% Malvaia that I liked a lot. So that seems like a good starting point for the 2009 vintage.

I pulled 1/10 of each wine and tasted them:

Sauvignon Blanc {SB}: Good color, light straw yellow, very strong aggressive nose initially of herbal and grassy character. Good fruit flavors, but a hot finish of higher Alcohol?

Malvasia Bianca: Good color, light straw yellow, Nice nose with floral components, thick in the mouth, good flavors and good acid. Clean finish.

So I like the Malvasia more than the Sauvignon Blanc... so my blending strategy is how to make the Sauvignon Blanc better.

I think it's easiest to think in terms of portions instead of percentages for blending...e.g. 1 to 1, 2 to 1, etc.

I try the 1 to 1, blend mixing 20ml of each wine in a glass. I like this blend. It seems that the Malvasia floral components mask some of the aggressive grassiness of the SB and adds some interesting components to the flavors and smooths out the rough finish.

I wonder if the addition of some acid will help? I add a few grains of Tartaric acid to the glass and taste... seems the acid makes the blend taste thinner? anyway this does not seem to be a good direction to go...

Next I try a 2 to 1 blend of SB to Malvasia. I think this blend is OK, but not as good as the 1 to 1 blend... The idea would be to see how much Malvasia it takes to get a good blend. {It will always be the case where you have a good wine and question how much you are willing to add to a lessor wine to make it better...}

So for now a 1 to 1 blend seems like the right direction, but I have one other white wine, a Pinot Grigio to try in a blend... So a few more trail blending sessions are needed before any decisions are made.....

....And the left over blending wines were consumed with dinner!

Slow time in the Cellar ; my wine making year

I say it's a slow time in the cellar {Feb.-March}, not much happening, but perhaps it's just the way I organize my wine making, a yearly cycle-from vineyard to the finished bottle in one year

I can make wine in one year because of the style of wine I want to make; that is a lighter easily drinking style with lighter varietals. Also I don't use barrels to age wine and I have the limited space to store wine which forces the issue.

So here's a typical year. I going to start with August but of course it is a yearly cycle, so read to the end to see what led up to the start month..... got to be a better way to say that...

August: Get equipment ready, harvest will be here soon.

Clean all the fermentation containers, press, crusher, etc. Most of my equipment sits outside when not in use, so even though I put it away clean, it needs to be checked and cleaned.

Plan for what you will need... e.g. do you have enough fermentation containers for the wine you are making this year? Enough carboys?

Organize space in the cellar; e.g. where will the fermenters go, carboys of new wine?

Bottling time!
Design your label,
Host a bottling party
Store wine in the cellar
Firm up grape sources/price for the coming harvest


Late August - November: Harvest time:
Arrange time off as needed, the grapes are ready when they are ready, too bad if you have to work.
Call grape sources, check brix levels, get schedules worked out. Note you may only get a few hours notice to go pick up grapes.
Travel to vineyards, pick up grapes, crush, press, ferment, rack, taste, rack again, repeat for each variety you are making. Busy Busy!

December - Christmas and New year, too much else going on to do much in the cellar. All the wines should have finished fermentation and been racked a time or two and can be left on their own for a month or two. Get out of the cold, take a vacation....went to Cozumel.

January-Feburary: my "slow time in the cellar..." It's cold out there! So I'm not real motivated to do much. But here are some suggestions of things to do, where you don't spend all your time in the cold...

Taste your wines and create trial blends:
Visit tasting rooms, network wine and grape contacts
Repair Equipment
Do a Inventory of your cellar
Plan a dinner to drink those wines you have been saving, or old bottles discovered during inventory.
Make sure your wine making notes are up to date.
Throw a party to celebrate last year's vintage

March - May: Time to get serious about your blending strategy.

Taste again, make more trail blends
Throw a blending party.
Make final choices
Make blends, add fining agents, and acid if needed {or wait till you see how blend comes together...}

June-July:
Rack blends of any fining agent
Taste blend, make acid decisions,
Plan the wines you will make the next harvest.
Network/find your grapes sources.
Line up supplies for bottling next month... enough bottles, corks, etc.?

August/September:

I try to wait till August to bottle so that the wines have has a chance to warm up, and that any secondary fermentation that is going to kick off has done so. August/September is also a great time for bottling parties with a lunch afterward to celebrate.