Hard to believe but Mary got up at 2am this morning the fire up the fans and light the burn piles to protect our vines. It got down to 32F last night and is predicted to be similar tonight. The joys of being the owner and living on the property! After driving around this morning she seems to have protected everything, no crispy leaves. Now to do it again tonight! So if you come out tomorrow, be gentle, she is going to be very short on sleep!
As for me I just had to drive to Bend yesterday, a beautiful drive and pour wine for a few hours before driving home again. The tasting was at the Broken Top Country Club and though you can't tell from the picture we had a gorgeous view of the lake and the mountains beyond. Snow capped mountains in fact hard to believe it was almost 70F in the valley and I was still supposed to be carrying chains going through the pass.
Otherwise things are quiet in the winery. Checking SO2's on the pinot today and still trying to encourage the Chardonnay to go through ML. I decided to reinoculate but so far have not seen an effect. The parameters of pH and temperature are within limits so I'm not sure what the problem is. If it doesn't start going soon with the barrel room warming up I'll have to send a sample to lab and see if there is a competitor inhibiting my ML bacteria.
On the home front the bathroom is done! Yeah! I just have to nail up a little bit of trim that I was repainting. I'm very happy with how it came out and it is so nice to have it done. Now to gear ourselves up for the master bath. Ugh!
Yes, it has been another 2 weeks since I wrote but we really were busy around here. And to add to the mayhem the bottler didn't run like a perfect dream the whole time which I really needed it to because we were supposed to have 4 jam packed bottling days. Instead we had 4 full days complete with plenty of stoppages, a few broken bottles and lots of brainstorming. Then after grafting we had to take on one more day to finish the pinot gris and rosé. Throw in a little sunburn and a bad head cold and the hall bath that just won't finish and you have the last two weeks of my life. And we are still working on those new labels, closer, closer . . . I must admit a little quiet time would be appreciated!
On a positive note we think we know what the problem with the bottler is and I spent this morning partially disassembling it to get to the part we want to get fixed. Of course, along the way I had to fix and tighten everything else that I can now access. Fingers crossed getting this one part straightened will solve all our problems. You can stop laughing now and I only meant all our problems with the bottler. Really, stop laughing. Instead admire our beautiful rosé and dream about the beautiful summer weather coming perfect for enjoying it on the patio.
After bottling we all moved out to the vineyard and spent a whirlwind Monday and Tuesday last week grafting about two thirds of the the maréchal foch over to pinot blanc. The advantage of grafting as opposed to replanting is that we will only lose one year of production. The process was straightforward but multi stepped. First we went through and cut off the upper part of the foch trunk, cleaned away all the brush and sawed a few cuts into the base of the trunk to bleed off the rising sap. Then the grafting crew came through and did the delicate work of actually grafting two pinot blanc sticks onto a foch trunk and taping up the graft joints. Next we went through again and hand painted every trunk, joint and fresh cut with grafting sealant, the black paint. Just a note, there is no comfortable way of spending the day painting something two and half feet off the ground. You either hunch over or get on your knees. We did have beautiful weather to do it in, hence the sunburn, and it was neat to watch the process.
The crew has gone through and cut the trunks again to bleed the sap, apparently the rising sap can push the graft off the trunk and next we need to go through and repaint the sealant anywhere it may have cracked. Keep your fingers crossed that every graft takes. It won't happen but it doesn't hurt to wish. I've included two videos of the grafting process, one is of the process on the trunk and the other of what happened to the pinot blanc stick. The second video is short, the grafter is fast but what he is doing is shaving the stick, trimming the end and then adding a slice so the trunk and the stick slide together making several layers.
The bathroom is grouted and as of last night the toilet and sink are in, now to run some caulk, hang the mirror and cabinet and rehang the door and I think we will be done! Yeah!
I have been spending the last month getting the whites and the rosé ready for bottling, which will start this week. We have also been putting a lot of hours into our new labels including building the pages where the QR codes will be directed. My understanding is that the page the QR code leads to is also under the Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) regulation so until we have those written we can't submit the new labels for review. We are almost done with those for the first labels we are having done so I hope to get the labels submitted soon for review.
I've also been disgorging more of the sparkling wine. It's getting easier if not any faster. Barry came by and help for a little while and that was good. One bin down and 6 to go! It really is at most a two person job but I'm planning on having a few disgorging days at the winery when anyone who is interested can come out and see the process and try disgorging a few bottles. I'll post on Facebook when I set those days so if you are interested in getting notified make sure you are a fan of Airlie Winery. If you look closely at the bottle you can see the yeast beads frozen in the neck. When the black crown seal is removed the pressure in the bottle pushes out the plug of ice and all the yeast which is caught by the upside down plastic box. Remarkably effective.
Since I last wrote I've racked the rosé to tank and cold stabilized it as well as all the other whites. Cold stabilization takes between two and four weeks even with the help of cream of tartar and I was glad we had as many cold nights as we did over the last month. It helps keep our electricity bill down. The next step after making sure the wines are cold stable is to start filtering. I use a pressure leaf filter with Diatomaceous Earth (DE) to bring the wine from pretty well settled, it looks slightly cloudy, to brilliant, sparkling clear. It isn't actually sterile at this point, the DE doesn't create that uniform of a filter medium but it is close and should go through the next two filters during bottling just fine. After filtering everything I added a small amount of sugar to the rosé to round out the mouth-feel and reran all of my lab work. During cold stabilization the wines throw tartaric acid which can cause a shift in pH as well as titrateble acidity. I also checked all sugars again. It really is a fun test because of all the colors. And speaking of colors while checking the total SO2 in the rosé the Sodium Hydroxide turned the wine green and then the Sulfuric Acid turned it pink again. White wine just turns yellow and then back to white, still interesting but not quite as dramatic. And who thinks chemistry isn't fun?
I've also been attending the twice weekly meetings at OSU for the sensory panel. That has been interesting though time consuming and I'm glad tomorrow is the last meeting. For the last three sessions we have been evaluating Matt's research wines and I'm curious to hear about the wines and what he is hoping to find out. He didn't tell us anything about the wines, to not bias us, so I don't know what characteristic differences he is hoping to find but the wines certainly are different.
On the home front Chad has been taking care of more dinners with my bi-weekly meetings and here is a picture of his beautiful Fragrant Fish soup, courtesy of Eating Well. We also finally got the bathroom walls tiled this past weekend. Now to grout them and put the sink and toilet in. The pedestal for the sink is just sitting there because I wanted to see where the basin hit on the wall. I'm really pleased with how it came out and can't wait for it to be done.
On the home front the bathroom is done! Yeah! I just have to nail up a little bit of trim that I was repainting. I'm very happy with how it came out and it is so nice to have it done. Now to gear ourselves up for the master bath. Ugh!
