For the love of wine

Tuesday we bottled our 2007 Pinot from the famous Carneros vineyard – Las Brisas.

This will be the fifth year we are producing Pinot from this vineyard and I can honestly say that we are getting better and better wine every year. My personal observations: dark ruby red, light vanilla nose with hints of spice aided by 13 months in a 1 year old French St. Martin barrel, medium toast (no toasted heads). There is just a touch of French oak so as not to overpower the Carneros footprint. The wine exhibits dark cherries and any other red berries you can think of; it’s great acid back-bone will make this wine last for at least the next five years.

In my opinion, 2007 is by far the best bottled Las Brisas and 2008, which is in the barrels,  is shaping up to be a fantastic year as well.

Wine stats: Brix at Harvest 24.75, final PH 3.43 TA .61 Alc. 13.8%

We bottled with the help of our friend Paul. We wanted to highlight the differences between bottling our ‘Estate’ wines in our own cellar vs. bottling at the winery we use for our commercial label.

When we bottle our 2008, it  will be our first commercial bottling, which will take place at the end of 2009. We will post pictures and describe the process here as well, so you can compare and contrast.

Here’s the process in a nut shell. We use new bottles so all we have to do is give them a quick rinse and place on the bottle tree to drain  We fill the bottles using our trusted Enolmatic Bottle filler under vacuum and Argon gas and we cork using our Italian floor corker. That’s it.  

Kathryn at the Enolmatic and Uzi at the Corker

The Bottle filler hose connects to the Barrel and sucks wine out of the barrel to the bottle by creating a vacuum in the bottle that is being filled at the moment. The tip of the filler that goes into the bottle neck has two small openings, one sucks air out and the other lets wine in. The other nice thing about this bottle filler is that it has an automatic shutoff when the wine in bottle reaches the level you indicate. Overflow goes to the overflow reservoir, which we happily consumed with lunch!

Below you see Kathryn working the ‘Machine’.

Kathryn Working the Enolmatic

Another hose from an Argon gas tank to the Barrel trickles Argon gas, which is heavier than air and therefore sinks and creates a protective layer over the wine. This minimizes air contact with the wine preventing oxidation. Air is the enemy at this point.

Next comes the corking, pretty simple, place cork in hole, place bottle underneath and lower the handle to squeeze and push cork into bottle. With a little adjustment in the beginning, you get a perfectly leveled cork every time!

Voila!

We bottled a 150 bottles in a leisurely pace of 1.5 hours. Obviously a manageable quantity for 3 people. But will be real work if you have to do a couple thousand bottles, for that we will need to move on to the real bottling line. Stay Tuned.

The "Crew" - Kathryn and Paul - breaking for Lunch

A month or so ago, I wrote about where and how we started making wine.  

basement before

As you can see from the pictures in the Crawl Space post, full grown adults just could not stand up in there. Our hobby required the help of shorter members of our family.  After three years of this nonsense, Uzi hatched a plan. 

In a crafty way, Uzi suggested we remodel the bathroom–make wife happy–and while we’re at it, expand the basement for additional “storage”–make husband happy.  Before I had even said yes, he began drawing up plans for a full-blown wine making operation downstairs.  He studied optimal floor plans for wineries, he devised lists of winery requirements (such as a floor drain, stainless steel double sink for washing, hot and cold water hoses for barrel rinsing) and he reminded me of what a beautiful bathroom we would soon have.

Before we could stop ourselves, we had hired our tried and true design/build team, Levitch Associates.  

The plan to expand the basement/crawl space involved a major excavation dig below our house all by hand. The workers dug like gophers.  They filled up and hauled away dumpster after dumpster of dirt. 

men digging

dirt pile

Our house was shored up with a couple of 2×4s in the giant void of space above which we walked, we ate, we slept, we lived.  

excavation efforts

I expressed my uncertainty of the strength and integrity of what looked like toothpicks holding up our house.  Just look at that photo, wouldn’t you?  But my husband convinced me they knew what they were doing.  If only someone had listened to me…

to be continued…

A recent development in wine bottle closure that I almost hope takes hold is the screw cap.

Life is easy

I have to admit, I am as old fashioned as the next guy, when it comes to wine in any case.  I love hearing a cork being pulled out, it’s the sound of happiness for me. When I hear it in a restaurant I usually exclaim ‘Mazal Tov!’  I also love to play this little game with my wife, without her knowledge.  This is how it goes:  She is quietly reading in the living room at the end of the day.  I secretly pull out a bottle a wine, insert the corkscrew, turn it, turn it and then quickly pull out the cork to make as loud a popping sound as possible.  I can almost feel her ears perk up to that familiar sound as she wonders what bottle I just opened.  Inevitably, she stops what she is doing and saunters into the kitchen.  Ah, the games we play.

So, with all these fun and games, why do “I love screw tops”? This one is for you, Daddy Winebucks. One evening last week we are sitting around the kitchen island, our usual hangout.  Kathryn is busy at the stove, I am reading, Hannah is playing with her bunny and Ben also has his head buried in a book. By the way, before you get all Steinem on me, we usually take turns around the stove and Ben often makes pancakes for Mommy on his days off from school.  So, Kathryn says, “Honey, can you get me a glass of wine?”  Before I have a chance to respond, Ben opens the fridge and takes out a bottle of white wine.  He proceeds to screw open the cap, fill up a wine glass, hand it to my wife and then he says, “Is this ok, Mommy?”  My wife is flabbergasted…and pleased. Now Ben is a smart and dexterous guy, but he is only seven and he cannot do that with a bottle that requires a cork screw.

This beats the romantic sound of a cork popping out any day!

chromotography test

This weekend we performed the chromotagraphy tests on our Las Brisas Pinot Noir and Pinot Noir rose. I am happy to report that the Malo-lactic, or ‘Malo’ conversion is complete–right on schedule.  Just like in the previous five years, by the time the first week of November rolls around, the little bugs have done their job. Basically wine contains a few different kinds of acids, Tartaric is one and Malic another.  There are others but not in high enough quantities to be noticed.  During malo conversion (also referred to as Secondary Fermentation) Malolactic bacteria eat away at the Malic acid and covert it to Lactic acid and Carbon Dioxide.  Being about half as strong as Malic acid, Lactic acid is softer on the pallet. The total effect is reduction in total acidity and a rounder softer, mouth feel. For a real technical description see here.  In my opinion it has been overdone in many California Chardonnays and I do not like it in that varietal.  However, many red wines benefit and are enhanced by it, so we pursue it with our Pinot.  In addition to the reduction of acid, it stabilizes wine and should be done before bottling. If you bottle before Malo conversion is complete, it might be triggered spontaneously when the weather warms up.  This will put the bugs in motion, only this time while they are enclosed in a bottle. You will end up with ugly deposits, aromas and fizz that could potentially push out corks. 

Which gets me back to Chromatography, how do you know when ‘malo’ is done? At the winery we take a sample and send to the lab.  A day later we get an email that tells us the Malic acid content in grams per liter.  If it is under a certain number, i.e. .09 grams per liter, it is done! Easy.

At home, we get to play Mad Scientist and do our own fun, chromotography test.  Ben and I just did one this weekend and the image you see here shows the results.  

We dot a special paper with wine samples and reference acids (Tartaric and Malic in this case.)  Then we put the paper in a special ‘developer’ liquid for 8 hours and watch the liquid travel up the paper. As it travels up it carries with it the different acids to different levels.

Tartaric is at the bottom third, Malic is in the middle and Lactic is at the top. The acids from the wine sample travels up the paper as well.  The test is to observe and see if the wine sample has a spot at the same level as the Malic spot. If it does, Malic conversion did not take place; if the spot is faint, it is only part way done. If there is no spot, Malo is done!  

ooh, pretty

Look at the image again.  There are six columns.  The spot in the far left column is the Tartaric reference; the second is the Malic reference; the third, fourth and fifth columns are the Pinot Noir samples from three different vessels; the last is our Pinot Noir rose. This means that Malo is done for the three Pinot reds–note there are no yellow spots at the same level as the Malic reference dot (mid way thru the paper hights). The Rose however, did not go thru Malo.  This is a good thing because we like Rose more acidic, that’s what makes it more refreshing served chilled on a hot afternoon.

If there are winemaker scientists out there wondering what the light dot above the Tartaric and the light dot below the Malic references are, well, my guess is that it is a bit of contamination from the reference solutions while I was preparing the tests. Unless someone else has a different explanation.  I did not see these in previous years.  In any case, whether malo conversion took place or not, it makes a nice piece of psychedelic, abstract art to hang on the cellar walls. 

Kathryn, my lovely wife, sometimes gives me a hard time about the pile of books I have collected over the years that sit by my bed side.  She thinks that rather than buy these books, I should better utilize the libraries we fund so generously here in Berkeley (a topic for another entry) and she decries the sheer numbers of wine books we have.  I need your help.  Am I being unreasonable in my obsessions?  Collecting and reading so many wine books?  Or is this a realistic number of wine books a reasonable wine lover and winemaker would have?

 Adventure on the Wine Route, by Kermit Lynch. This is a tale of Kermit’s travels throughout the wine regions of France in search of the best wine to import. Kermit Lynch, besides being our favorite local wine merchant for the last 25 years, is formidable figure in the wine world.  He is also one of the few Americans to receive France’s highest honor:  the Légion d’honneur. This was in recognition of his influence in bringing about some changes for the better in French wine making. He is also one of the first importers to start shipping wine in refrigerated containers.  Some of his stories are funny and some are sad (buying wine in Burgundy was no picnic 20 years ago.) Once we got turned on to Chevillon’s Nuits St Georges, there was no turning back. A must read.

 Romanee Conti by Richard Olney

What can I say that hasn’t been already said about DRC or Olney?  Just read Olney’s book and you’ll understand what all the fuss is about. Olney’s description of the Vendanges alone is well worth the book’s price. The description of the Pinot Noir grapes, the vineyards and the wine making methodologies of the most celebrated domain of Burgundy are pure poetry; the description of the food procession during the harvest, mouthwatering.

The Botanist and the Vintner by Christy Campbell

About how a Texan, T.V. Munson, saved the French wine industry, no really! In 1869 France, as well as most of Europe was devastated by the Phyloxra bug.  You see this habit of saving France started way earlier than you think. The book reads as good as any mystery novel.

 Knowing and Making Wine, by Emile Peynaud.   A very technical book that is at times a bit dated, but never the less a superb, thorough enology manual by one of the most renowned wine educator in France.  A classic.

I could go on….

Winery Technology and Operations by Yair Margalit

The House of Mondavi by Julia Flynn Siler

The Heartbreak Grape by Marq De Villiers

Techniques in Home Winemaking by Daniel Pambianchi

The Way to Make Wine Nicely written by our neighbor and fellow winemaker Sheridan Warwick

Vineyard Simple How To Build And Maintain Your Own Small Vineyard by Tom Powers

The Grape Grower by Lon Rombough

Pacific Pinot Noir by John Winthrop Haeger

What’s your vote?  Overboard or reasonable?  Any titles I have forgotten that you recommend?  Please feel free to comment.