Racking

All wines racked at the end of October.

Grape Harvest September 2012

Here are the notes from this weeks grape harvest.  Just the three of us this year, me Graham and Mary.  Again we have been very lucky with the weather, up to mid 20's, peaking at around 28 degrees yesterday.  Dry and sunny.

The weather this summer has been very very dry and hot, and as a result the yield on all grapes was very low.

Pecorino

Picked Saturday 22nd September at 6pm.

A very mixed crop, with lots of fruit brown and overripe, some fruit still green.  I think there is just too many bunches, and next year we should try pruning to leave less fruiting shoots.  All the fruit was very small, bunches were small, and the picking took us a lot longer than previous years even though the yield was low.  Even as we left the worse looking bunches, we picked only 119 Kilos.  Crushed and sulphited at 2grams per 23 Kgs, 3 of us destemmed for 25 minutes then left on skins overnight.  Next day medium press at 9am to give approx. 60 litres of Juice.  3 sachets of Lalvin D47 added.  The juice was tested at 22 Brix, with hydrometer reading at 1.09, PH 3.2, TA at 6.0  We added 15 grams of mixed acid to try and raise the acid to 6.3, as a result of which PH dropped to 3.1.  Yeast nutrient added on Monday.

Sangiovese

Picked Sunday 23rd September at 4pm.

This fruit looked a lot healthier than the Pecorino, good ripe black fruit, although again the berries were very small.  Yield was low, we picked only 76 Kilos.  Crushed and sulphited at 2grams per 23 Kgs, 3 of us destemmed for 10 minutes then left on skins overnight.  Next day medium press at 9am to give approx. 30 litres of Juice.  1 sachet of Lalvin D47 added.  The juice was tested at 23 Brix, with hydrometer reading at 1.09, PH 3.3-3.4, TA at 4.4.  We were shocked at the TA level,. and tested again and again to check it.  I think maybe that the fruit ripening has somehow been impeded by the dry hot weather, whereas acid levels have dropped sharply.

We added 45 grams of Tartaric acid to try and raise the acid to 6.0, as a result of which PH dropped to 3.2.

Montepulciano

Again this fruit on the whole looked very healthy although again the berries were very small.  Yield was low, we picked only 106 Kilos.  Crushed and sulphited at 2grams per 23 Kgs, 3 of us destemmed for 20 minutes then left on skins overnight.  Next day medium press at 10am to give approx. 50 litres of Juice.  2 sachets of Lalvin D47 added.  The juice was tested at 19.5 Brix, with hydrometer reading at 1.082, PH 3.2-3.3, TA at 4.8.  Again we were shocked at the TA level,. and tested again and again to check it.

We added 56 grams of Tartaric acid to try and raise the acid to 6.0, as a result of which PH dropped to 3.1.

On a very positive note, we tasted last years red, the 100% Montepulciano, and were very happy with it.  Bottled 89 bottles.  Also tasted last years Pecorino and it tasted better than expected, this is quite drinkable.  More notes to follow.

Brix Readings

We have now introduced a more formalised measure of Brix readings, the idea being that this will help us track and monitor grape ripeness and help anticipate future year picking dates; The table below will be updated every 7 days;

                                8th   15th   22nd   29th    5th   12th   19th   26th
                                Aug  Aug    Aug    Aug    Sep   Sep   Sep   Sep
Montepulciano          12     12.5     16     17.5  17.5  20.0
Acid %                                                   10
Pecorino                    16     15       20     20.5  20.0  22.0
Acid %                                                     9.0    7.0    7.5
Sangiovese                14     15       18      21     19.5  21
Total Acid %                                            7.5    6.7    5.0
Temperature 'C          36     36       36      21      18   21.0


It is worth noting that the summer thus far in Italy has been very hot and dry, as a result the grapes look very dry, and fruit is still small. But the crop looks healthy and sizeable.

Note;  Brix readings have not been adjusted for Temperature.

PRUNING AND RACKING SPRING 2012

The wines have been racked once 1st week of December 2011. They were racked again on te 16th and 17th March, a small amount of sulphite added to the White and Rose, all wines look great except the experimental malolactic Pecorino which was discarded due to bad flavour.

The vines were pruned; it took me, BrendyH and GrahamF a good 1.5 days, the weather (again!) was very kind to us.

Montepulciano; 8 spurs of 4 buds each per vine
Sangiovese; 2 or 3 canes of 6 buds each per vine
Pecorino; 2 or 3 canes, 8-10 buds each per vine

We also fertilised the Pecorino and Montepulciano.

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 !