Barreling Down

"Barrel Down" is the term used to mean putting the wine in a barrel.

This morning (Thanksgiving day) I pumped the wine from carboys into my 30-gallon French oak barrel, using my new Buon Vino Super Jet wine pump/filter. In about a year, I’ll use the same machine to filter the wine just before bottling.

Now the wine sits in barrel in my home office for long-term aging. I expect it to age between 6 and 12 months – it all depends on how much oak the wine wants, which I’ll determine by tasting regularly. You should smell my office – it’s like a barrel room at a winery!

~Dave Sienknecht

Paper Chromatography

A method to determine whether certain acids are present in the wine is called Paper Chromatography. What at first seemed like black magic to me, is really a cool chemistry technique that I used to determine whether MLF (malolactic fermentation) was complete.

I won't go into the fine details of how to do it. It involves putting a tiny droplet of wine and acids on special paper, soaking up some special solution, and seeing which chemicals separate out. Here is a link to a youtube video (props to Jason Morgan) that I found useful; it depicts exactly what I did. Maybe next year I'll be a better blogger and record videos!

Anyway, the picture on the right shows my results: a chromatogram that shows MLF is complete! No malic acid remains, but lactic acid and tartaric acid do. I know - it's hard to see and you really don't care anyway. But it means I can rack the wine from the glass containers into the oak barrel for long-term aging. I'll do that in the next week.

Cheers!
Dave Sienknecht

Good Gas

Some wine makers use an inert gas (not chemically reactive) to fill the headspace of containers. This helps to reduce oxygen exposure during aging, which reduces the chances of microbial spoilage.

The choices are CO2, Nitrogen and Argon. I'm using Argon, for reasons which I won't go into here... okay - in short, it's heavier than air so it creates a nice blanket on top of the wine surface and it won't mix into the solution as CO2 can.

In the photo on the left, I'm filling the headspace of my Cabernet carboys, where the wine is currently going through MLF. Malolactic fermentation is the conversion of malic acid, which is tart (like in an apple) to lactic acid, which is softer and... kind of milky or buttery in texture.

Today I also tested my Rosé wine, as fermentation appears to have come to a near stand-still. It's actually a light pink color, which isn't well represented in the photo on the right. Anyway, it measures dry so today or tomorrow I will rack it to a new carboy and (a day later) add some stuff (SO2 and Lysozyme) to prevent MLF. Rosé doesn't go through MLF because it should be crisp and refreshing - not round and tongue-coating. If this were Chardonnay, then it would be a preferential choice of the wine maker whether to prevent or promote MLF.

<< two hours pass >>

Blog update...

Okay, I racked the wine to fresh carboys and had a little left over. On the left is a somewhat-better representation of the color. It tastes good - very floral. We'll see what time does for it.

~Dave Sienknecht

Pressing Wine

Last Saturday (Oct-29) was press-day! The wine was measuring dry, which was great because it allowed me to press on the weekend. Commercial wineries sometimes let the must sit after fermenting (called extended maceration), to promote additional extraction of color and flavor goodies. But at home, that's an invitation for wild bacteria to join the party. So it's best to press as soon as the wine is dry (the sugar is all gone).

Above are a couple photos of the press I rented for the day. It's not a manual press you usually associate with home winemakers; it's a bladder press, which has a water bladder in the middle. A water hose is hooked up. After filling the press with juice and skins, you open a water valve. The bladder fills up and presses the skins. Easy and efficient! The pressed wine gets progressively darker as the pressure rises. The wine tasted great! It needs age and oak influence, but it's off to a good start.

Now the wine sits in large glass containers called carboys. The next day I racked the wine (siphoned it from one carboy to another) to get it off the sludge that collected at the bottom. I added MLF bacteria and nutrients to ensure malolactic fermentation goes smoothly. After a month, more or less, I'll move it to the barrel for long-term aging.

~Dave Sienknecht