![]() |
Sunday, October 10, 1999 Low 52, High 96 In the last few days, Brendan and I have filled 29 barrels of almost exclusively Zinfandel. This week we will fill another 28 barrels. With the Sauvignon Blanc and the Syrah and Barbera, over half of the total barrels of wine we plan to produce this year will be filled. This past Friday, Brendan and I stemmed the Cabernet Franc and let it soak overnight. Yesterday in the morning we moved those five bins outside to make room to stack the full barrels. After an hr or so the sweet must started to attract a swarm of 100's of bees. After stacking and after Brendan left I moved the bins out of the sun to the crush pad just outside the winery. I got brave enough to bucket out some must in order to equal out the amount in each bin. The bees didn't seem to matter --they were obviously more interested in the sugar. I then added the yeast to start fermentation by pouring it on top of the juice, but not mixing up yet---I like to let the cells multiply first. In the evening after dinner, I went out to move the bins inside. The bees had gone home to bed. I carried out my usual ritual of mixing up the top of the must in order to incorporate the yeast a little more. And probably you have guessed! I received a greeting from a bee or many bees who had not listened to their friends. I got stung and it hurt! I have been stung before so I wasn't too worried until I started itching and swelling up. Well the family wanted to call 911, but I braved it out and resisted. By this time my hand had swollen up by one third. I could still close it so I went to bed. I was relieved when I got up about 3pm and my hand looked the same. I figured I would most likely live, so I went back to sleep. This evening I kneaded pizza dough and during the day I punched down the caps on the fermenting wine--I even had many opportunities to bang my hand on the table during the Raiders game. I was happy to see that all these exercises helped relieve the pain and swelling. My life must go on!! Monday, October 11, 1999 46 low this morning; 89 high today We've been holding the Pinot Noir at 45 degrees for 5 days now and for some reason, it has started to ferment. We have not added any yeast and I didn't believe that it would be fermenting at this low of a temperature. It is obviously feeding on its own natural yeast which must be pretty hearty! Thus, we've decided to encourage it to ferment by transferring the stemmed grapes into a one-ton fermenter tomorrow morning. Tomorrow we will receive our Aca Modot Cabernet and all of our Petite Sirah. This will fill out some of the puzzle to determine what wines we will produce this year. We've made a definite decision to purchase some Petite Sirah grapes and also some Cabernet from our neighbors. This year because of the small crop from our estate vineyard, I feel it will be necessary to drop the estate classification on some of our wines. We will also be producing a Cabernet Franc, predominantly from the JoAnn and Phil Jones' vineyard next door. After we harvest the Cabernet from our sandy loam next week, we will have the final piece of the puzzle and will offer our 1999 futures once again. Tuesday, October 12, 1999 Low 41; high 98 It's taken all year but today set the record for the biggest point range between high and low temperatures - 57 degrees! As I've said before, this is obviously the reason why there are only a few areas in the world that can produce grapes for high quality wine. The vines and of course the fruit need to rest during the night so that the juice can hold the acid that is needed to produce premium wines. This was one of those very busy days and in a way Brendan and I are somewhat nostalgic in that there will be only one more extremely busy day for us during this harvest season and that is tomorrow. Today we harvested our Cabernet from the Aca Modot area, a ton of Teldeschi Cabernet, and our Cabernet Franc from the Aca Modot area. All three areas came in at between 24 and 25 brix, perfect sugar for a change. Again, my revised estimates that were already down from normal, were still higher than what was actually brought in. In other words, we harvested less crop than we ever expected. We have always had a low yielding crop from the Aca Modot area. The highest I can remember was around 3-3/4 tons to the acre. This year, we harvested less than 2 tons to the acre. Tomorrow, we will harvest our Malbec and then our two clones of Petite Sirah. We are also thinking about harvesting our Cabernet from the sandy loam but will need another sugar test to confirm that it is ready. We've also contracted for a ton and a half of Cabernet from the Phil Jones' vineyard. The predicted harvest date for that area is next week. That will leave us with only a half a ton to a ton of Carignan from the new area which we budded over last year. Also, I must not forget that we may still take in some late harvest Sauvignon Blanc as well. Wednesday and Thursday October 13 and 14th, 1999 Low yesterday 46; high yesterday 96 Low today 50 Brendan and I have spent the busiest two days of the harvest. Tomorrow In will feel better, but tonight I can hardly maintain. The family has other responsibilities so I am on my own. All the fruit is in except for maybe a ton of carignan and 1.5 tons of neighbors' cab. It is going to take a day or two to evaluate the status on the petite sirah and cabernet grapes from our estate vineyard. The tonnage was low as expected. I am hoping to post the 99 futures offering in the next few days. We will offer these futures at the winery this weekend. I have made a tentative revision on the varietal percentages and case possibilities and will post those also. We are probably produce about 3000 cases for 1999. Our latest problem today was a fermentation that had slowed down far
enough that we felt that we had to mix it with a ton of cabernet that John
Teldeschi was so nice enough to sell to me. The problem vineyard of zinfandel
has been the same for three years now---:: The Lane zinfandel. Here is
a note I posted about it last year:
Thursday, October 29, 1998
|
Dave
Home | Read | Diary | Public Forum | Tell Us What You Think of Our Diary! | Last Week | Next Week
|