Grape Harvest and Winemaking Update

This morning I added yeast nutrient to the Sangiovese, it is already fermenting slowly.

For the past few days, the Montepulciano has been fermenting strongly, weve been punching the cap at least 3 times a day. At 4pm today, after around 70 hours of on the skin fermentation, we pressed the Montepulciano firmly for around 50 litres of juice.

To this we added 4 teaspoons of yeast nutrient and left to warm ferment in the workroom.

Grape Harvest and Winemaking Notes

The Sangiovese are still showing only at 19 Brix, there is far too much fruit, next year we need to cluster thin at 50%.

Rain is forecast for tomorrow, so we thought we would try and experiment,.

At 5pm we picked 101 Kgs of Sangiovese (less than half what we could have picked), crushed and sulphited at 2grams per 23Kgs of grapes, (8 grams in total). We then gave the grapes a quick squeeze by hand, and put them straight into the press, so probably 30 minutes in total from picking to press.

Then we took about 40 litres of 100% free run juice, put into the coldroom and added yeast Lalvin D47. The objective is to make a low alcohol, light white or pink wine, or even a high acid wine that we can blend with the overripe Pecorino.

Grape Harvest and Winemaking Notes

The Pecorino ferment in the workroom is slowing right down, it looks like the fermentation is pretty well finished, whereas the Pecorino in the coldroom is still fermenting very strongly.

We measured the Montepulciano at 24 Brix, the fruit looks excellent, so we decided to pick straightaway.

At around 4pm we picked 117 Kgs of Montepulciano, sulphited at around 2 grams per 23 Kgs of grapes, 10 Grams of sulphite in total. Destemmed around 75% of the stems and then added 100 grams of Oak Chips, and the yeast starter (we are still using Lalvin D47). The fermentation was off !

Pecorino Update

Added yeast nutrients, 3 teaspoons, to each batch of fermenting Pecorino