Trials and tribulations, well at least trials

I know, it's been another three weeks since I wrote but this time I've been busy, busy trialing in fact.  Trialing blends, trialing for cold stability and protein stability, trialing fining agents, trialing this, that and the other thing.  Actually things are going very well here and I've been making wine.  At least that's how I feel when I get to move it from tank to tank creating my blends and starting to think about filtering!  After some lab work of course to make sure it is ready to filter which leads to trialing when it's not.   I have all the usual suspects, pH, titratable acidity (TA), alcohol, residual sugar (RS), cold stability - don't want the wine throwing crystals if it lives in the fridge for a while, protein stability - don't want the protein coming out in strings if the wine gets a little too warm if someone forgets it in the car, of course none of you would do that, and this year I am checking for botrytis glucans.
If the fruit is affected with botrytis in the vineyard it can manifest in the wine as very long and strong glucan chains which among other problems can lead to filtering hell.  For the geeks, I think what happens is the botrytis feeds on the gluscose in the juice and produces the glucan chains as a by product but don't quote me on that.  Back to the winemaking side, what's even nastier is that it likes to sneak up on you, something like this.  I start filtering with the pressure leaf filter which uses diotomacious earth (DE), the wine basically pass straight through the medium and only a few of the chains get caught maybe slowing the filter down a little.  No big deal I think, user error, I'll be fine.  Then I get to the plate and frame filter, again the wine goes straight through the pads, a few chains might get caught but mostly it all looks good.  Then moments later it hits the membrane filter with its lovely accordion style interior, see picture of a cut open filter, and then little chains get caught and faster that you can say 'uhh, I think there might be a prob . . .' the filter crashes to halt, the bottling line goes down and I have a crew of 5 waiting for me to fix the situation.  So to avoid this situation I check the wines in potentially problem years and if necessary add an enzyme which will break the chains so they go through the filter.   Of course the chains are only broken temporarily so once I add the enzyme we have to bottle within a certain window of time before the chains reform.  And that is your chemistry lesson for the day.

Back to winemaking, last week we finally decided I had created the best pinot gris and seven blends in the lab and it was time to start implementing.   It took about three days and a fair bit of basic math to get the wine moved as all the 2011 Seven blend won't fit in a single tank this year so I have to do my best to create a proportional blend in two tanks and then during filtering I will mix them up creating a uniform wine.  I think the scariest part of blending for me every year is that there is no going back.  If I put something together wrong I can't take it apart.  That always makes me a little nervous and so I spend quite a bit of time laying out my plan of action before I start actually moving anything.  Everything went together without a hitch and now I am running lab work.  Once all the wines pass their tests I'll set up filtering.  Yeah!

We are still working on the rosé, haven't got that quite perfect yet.  After an intense tasting last week, as you can see we work very hard, we came up with some new things to try and we are tasting those this afternoon.  Hopefully I'm almost there.  I'm excited to get this wine in the bottle and out to you with the new label on it.  We are shooting for Memorial Weekend.

I also worked with the neck freezer a little more, my technique still needs some work I ended up wearing a little bit too much sparkling wine but I am hopeful.  Wish I had gotten a picture but you'll just have to wait until we start going into production mode.  Then there will be enough people around to get a few pictures of the process.

On the vineyard side, our Pinot blanc sticks have arrived, they are the pruned canes off a mature vine.  In April someone will be coming in to graft some of the Marechal Foch to Pinot blanc.  The advantage of grafting over replanting is you only lose one season of crop, the flip side is the parent plant will have an effect on the grafted plant but hopefully for us it will just help the Pinot blanc ripen a touch earlier.  After this is done we will have all seven varietals of our Seven blend planted here.

Just a home front update, bathroom floor is tiled, walls are next!  And spring appears to be on the way.

Long time no write!

I know I was on vacation but only for a week but somehow I missed two weeks of writing.  I think I was still in vacation mode when I got home.  Sit back, relax and enjoy the weather.  The weather sounds like it was pretty good while I was away then it cooled off a little when I got back and now is warming back up and predictions are good for the next week.  Sunny and warm.  The grapes are starting to turn color in earnest now and the good weather will help hurry them along I hope.  You'll get to see three weeks of pics which should really allow you to see the changes.  The chardonnay is difficult because the slight color shift is hard to see.  A lot of what we are checking is that the berries are starting to soften.  They will continue to get more yellow but with the changing light conditions it is hard to capture that on film.  (Or should I say on megapixels?)

In the winery we finally decided on our blend for the 2010 Willamette Valley pinot noir, complete with tweaking.  Can you believe this little bit of stuff effects the flavor, or more accurately the body of 900 gallons of wine, enough at least to have us choosing the blend with the additions.  I am adding a little bit of tannin, the brown powder, and a product called Biolees, the white powder.  Both help with mouthfeel, providing structure which balances the acid and emphasizing the fruit character.

This morning I drove up to Anne Amie to help sort some fruit from California for fermentation.  Thomas, the winemaker there, is exchanging fruit with two other wineries to learn about the influence of the winemaker versus the vineyard.  All three winemakers make wine from all three vineyards and then taste the nine wines and attempt to determine which has more influence the winemaker or the vineyard.  It is a fascinating trial to taste and discuss.  So this was the first of that fruit.  Next week the second lot will come in and in about 4 weeks Thomas will send his fruit to the two other winemakers.

Riley and his rawhide cigar

Blending trials in the summer

Finally it feels as though summer has arrived.  Everywhere that is except the winery where I sit, though no longer wearing flannel lined jeans, bundled up in a 2 shirts and a fleece and still needing to go outside periodically to warm up my hands.  But once outside I am reminded that summer is here and the grapes are growing!  Just look out how are Chardonnay plant is doing on the left.  Once they start it is amazing how fast they go.  In the Foch the grapes are already pea sized and fruit set looks good.  Fruit set is how many berries are on each cluster, if there are missing berries or if they are of uniform size.  Now we just need to hope for a perfect summer and fall growing season so everything ripens and stays looking as healthy as it does right now.

Chardonnay	Marechal Foch
Under the Canopy	New Vines

Next week the guys will start removing leaves from around the grapes so that they get more sun and more air.  Sun helps with the ripening, obviously, and the air helps keep mildew and rot at bay.  If the morning dew or a little rain sits on the fruit it can start to mold and cause other problems lowering the quality of the grapes and making my job a little more difficult.  The better the fruit quality is the less I have to meddle and the better the wine is in the end.

We have also seriously started blending trials and I have to admit that they aren't coming together as smoothly as some years.  Barrels that I thought would make a good reserve wine haven't stood out in the blind tastings and the Willamette Valley blend is nearly indistinguishable from the reserves.  Nor is the Willamette better when I take out my reserve barrel ideas, which is a side benefit I always hope to occur.  We are going to try my third idea tomorrow and see if I have gotten closer to the right blends yet.  If not, we will really discuss whether or not to even make a reserve or any single vineyard wines this year.  The Chardonnay and Foch are mostly cooperating and may just take a little tweaking to get them closer to what I consider ideal.  (Read the end of that last sentence tongue in cheek!)  I'll let you know next week if we are getting anywhere.

February is here with blending trials and lots of vineyard work.

Sorry I didn't write last week, I think I was just being lazy and didn't have a lot to share.  We have been tasting white blends, trying to decide on what the 7 will be made up of this year.  It's fun but definitely still work, especially when I don't get it right on the first few tries.  We are tasting iterations 6 through 10  today and hopefully one of those will leap out at us a yell "me, me, me!!!"  It's always helpful when the wine picks itself.  And when that doesn't work one of us beats the odd man out into submission.

In the vineyard the guys are almost done pruning and have started to twist and tie.  This means they very carefully wrap this year's cane around the fruiting wire and tie it in place.  Where the cane joins the head of the vine is a very weak spot, you can just see it on the left in the photo of Sebastian and it must be handled gently so that the cane isn't broken which will cause it to not produce this year.  It's slow work and wet and muddy as the rain has been coming down.  We have had some sun breaks but I am sure they aren't long enough for the guys.

For those of you who live locally please stop by and say hi to the new owners of Crush Wine Bar & Tasting Room in Monmouth: Joshua, JoAnna and Chris.  Crush is located on the corner of Main & Warren across from the park.  They pour from 3-11 pm, phone: 503-838-0399.  Please support them!  I dropped off wine last night so you are sure to be able to drink some Airlie if nothing else appeals!