Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Fermentation Underway


All of the fruit is in for 2009! And pretty much not a moment too soon with the weather that we've been having. It's cold outside, too cold for the vines. This is deja vu of last year with an early, very hard frost that basically stops the vineyard cold, literally. With night time lows dipping down to 20 degrees the vines shut down, leaving the grapes with no more nutrients or water. So the grapes must be picked immediately. Luckily for us, we had only 3 tons of fruit left to pick before the hard frost on Saturday night. That last bit of Cab has been sorted and is in tank fermenting. Now that the outside work is finished, the work in the winery is in full swing and the winery is full of fermentation. All of the tanks are filled and every portable tank and bin is being used. The very last blocks of grapes have been inoculated with yeast and fermentation is under way. Now each day begins with punch downs. Punch downs are an integral part of the wine making process. During fermentation the skins and seeds float to the top of the tank forming a cap, while the juice settles to the bottom. All of the very best parts of wine, the flavor, aroma, color, and tannins reside in the cap. So during fermentation you want extract these elements, so the cap must be mixed back into the fermenting juice twice daily. The crew punches the cap down either with a pneumatic punch down tool for the big tanks or the old fashioned way for the small bins, first thing in the morning and last thing in the afternoon. Samples of the fermenting lots must also be taken daily so that Horacio can check the Brix level to monitor the fermentation. As long as everything is going smoothly with fermentation, the sugar level drops at a steady rate on a daily basis. Horacio also takes samples of the lots for Jean-François to taste. With all of the fermentation at the moment, Horacio is testing 40 different lots of wine. It is a lot of work but at least this part of harvest happens indoors, out of the cold and wet.

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