Getting Serious - Made Rose Blend

In my last post I wrote about a plan for the final blending and cellar work for the 2009 wines. So it was into the cellar last week to get to work.

The first wine I worked on was the Rose' blend. I planned to use a 4 to 1 ration of the "press" Pinot Grigio to Zinfandel. This blend tasted very good in late June when I made a trial blend and tested it with my WGWNN friends.

So I blended 10 gallons of the "press" Pinot Grigio and 2 gallons with the Zinfandel. This Rose blend went into 6.5 and 5 gallon carboys and a few bottles left over to sample....

I was surprised when I tasted the blend; it was just not as good as I remembered it from the trial in June... it did not have the same Raspberry/strawberry fruit flavor, and it had more tannin in the finish. What happened????

My guess is that one of the carboys of the "press" Pinot Grigio had more tannin than the other, and that the final ML fermentations changed the flavors of the Pinot Grigio and Zinfandel

slightly. While it was a perfectly acceptable blend, it was just not as good and lively as my trial blend.

One of the procedures I try to follow, is to blend all containers of a wine together to get a uniform wine. e.g. You don't want one carboy to taste different than another... so I guess I forgot my rule and got caught....

So in an attempt to get back some fruit and mask some of the tannins, I added a small amount of Malvasia and a little more Zinfandel. I also added a small amount of tartaric acid to bump the acid slightly to make up for the lost of acid from the ML fermentation. {1 gallon Malvasia and 1/2 Gallon Zinfandel to the 12 gallons of Rose blend, and 1 teaspoon tartaric acid.}

The Malvasia and Zinfandel additions got the Rose blend back closer to my trial blend from June.

I shared a sample of the final Rose blend with my wine making friends Mike and Holly and Joe and Sandy last night and I think it's going to be a very good wine....

I'll probably give the blend a week or so to meld and bottle it to enjoy the rest of the summer.

Here's the label I intend to use for the Rose'. The artwork for the label was created by Joni Tanis. The colors in the drawing are a perfect match for the Rose'.

{Yes, this is the proper orientation for the label... I wanted a long label for a clear Bordeaux style bottle...}

Nebbiolo and Zinfandel - Day 10 Pressing

Sept. 20. This is day 10 for the Nebbiolo and Zinfandel, and it's time to press. The fermentation was a fast one lasting about 8 days. I let the must sit for another two days to hopefully extract more color and some tannins since it seemed like the wine(s) will be light in color and body.

You can tell when the fermentation is finished by measuring the brix, or by the amount of CO2 coming off when you punch the cap down. Measuring the brix will give you a false reading since the must now contains alcohol which is lighter than water... there should be a formula someplace for adjusting the reading..... I should research that.... anyone know? please comment!

Anyway, when the CO2 has blown off the must it is time to press, since the wine is now getting air exposure.

Step 1: is getting all the equipment ready... If you cleaned everything from your last pressing; it's not too much work. See the pic on the right... clean press, catch bucket, clean carboy waiting...

Step 2 :I like to rack off as much of the "free run" wine as possible. I found a great tool to aid in this step... it's a stainless steel tube about 2 feet long with holes in the sides. It is wide enough to insert a racking hose into it. The holes in the tube will allow the wine in and keep the skins out...

Step 3: While I'm racking off the free run, I use a bucket to scoop out the skins and fill the press. My wife watches the catch bucket under the press, and changes the full bucket for a empty one as needed. The wine is poured into the carboys.

Step 4: When the press is full, put on the top, add the wood blocks and press. Ratchet down the blocks, watch the wine flow, wait for the pressure to ease, then repeat.... You're done when the resistance makes it very difficult to ratchet down the blocks another step, or the handle gets down to the top of the basket.

Step 5: be sure to taste the new wine. Yes, the wine will be changing quite a bit over the next couple of years, but this first taste is telling; how is the color, what's the tannin level, high or low acid, any off odors, varietal character in the nose, etc. See the video where Doris, my wife and I taste the Nebbiolo and Zinfandel.

Step 5: Add fermentation locks to all the carboys, and move them into the cellar. Not an easy step for me as the cellar is full!

Step 6: Clean everything...this step takes as much time as all the previous ones... So we saved some time by pressing both the Nebbiolo and Zinfandel one after the other.

Here's a video of the process and first taste of the reds.

And fitting the carboys into the cellar....

Nebbiolo and Zinfandel Grape Pickup

On Thursday Sept. 10, I picked up the Nebbiolo and Zinfandel grapes from Villa Spatafora.

When I arrived, the vineyard workers had everything ready to go, so the entire crushing/de-stemming and loading into my car took only 15 minutes!

The Nebbiolo and Zinfandel grapes bins were sitting side by side, and I couldn't tell which one was which! A quick taste test confirmed what the workers told me... the Nebbiolo grapes were the ones with the chewy skins!

Don't laugh, it's not easy...On the drive over my wife was reading me a story about a large winery owner that got sued for selling Zinfandel as Cabernet Sauvignon...

Not having any labels with me, I had to remember which containers were Nebbiolo and which were Zinfandel! Let's see... Nebbiolo crushed first, into the car first, so it's the last containers out...

When I got home I measured the brix. The Nebbiolo came in at 25 brix, and the Zinfandel at 22.5 brix.