Pruning Update

Grapes looking very tidy, 3 vines at top of Sangiovese row have black spots on leaves, Duncan has taken photos.  Otherwise looking good;

2013 Wines

I tasted the wines from last years harvest today.  All 3 are looking fine, clear, with good clean flavours and aroma.

Summer Pruning

Omi, Isis and I arrived at Orchidea on the 8th May, what a great time of the year to be in Le Marche.  We had 23 degrees and sunshine for 3 or 4 days with signs of summer starting all around.  No signs of fireflies yet though!

The grapes have started growing with plentiful shoots of between 3 to 9 inches growth already, I spent about 4 hours taking out a large number of shoots, and leaving around 6 shoots only evenly placed on each cordon.

On the vines that have not yet converted to Guyot, I tried where possible to make sure I left a few shoots near the crowns that can be converted into next years canes.

The vines have a great deal less shoots than previous years, although almost all shoots are already showing signs of forming grape clusters.  I am excited about our new pruning methods....I can see that we will probably get less yield, but that the grapes should be more consistent and healthy.

Pruning and Wine Update

Myself, Graham, Mary were joined for this Pruning trip by Mike Whitehead.  We arrived at Casa Orchidea on Friday 28th March 2014 to prune the grapes, to take a look at last years wine, and to meet our new helper, winemaker Giuseppe Morelli.

Giuseppe is the young winemaker at Casalis Douhet, and has offered to help us going forward with our winemaking efforts.

We are extremely excited to have Giuseppe on board helping us.  During the weekend we actually got to taste 3 of Giuseppe's wines;  a Passerina, Ribona and a Passito.  All 3 were really excellent, so we now have a benchmark to aim at.

Giuseppe arrived at Casa Orchidea on Saturday morning together with his friend and colleague Francesco, and our friend Claudia.

Francesco is an Agronomist who has worked with several vineyards, and after some discussion we decided to change our method of pruning going forward from cordon cane to Guyot.

We tasted last years wines;  2 Roses and a Pecorino;  all looking good.  The Pecorino was slightly frizzante and Giuseppe explained it was going thru a Malolactic fermentation; we added 4 grams of Potassium Suplhite to try and stop this in its tracks.

Pruning was completed within about a day and a half, and as it was 18 degrees and sunny we took the chance to relax on Sunday afternoon with a Barbecue and some more wine tasting.

Pecorino

Duncan has racked the Pecorino together with Giuseppe

Grape Update 5th October

Added Tartaric Acid to Montepulciano;

Acid measured at 5ppt, to raise Total acid levels to 6.5ppt

Calculation;  1.5 * 18 grams * 47 litres/19 litres

Racked the Pecorino and the Sangiovese, no sulphite added as still fermenting slowly.

Hopefully we now have 3 very nice wines on the go !

Update 4th October

Sangiovese...primary fermentation has finished
Pecorino...primary fermentation still going but slowing

Montepulciano....brix was measured at around 24.5, and we picked with Jon and Jayne Hughes at 4pm, Thursday 3rd October.  We wanted to wait for Pippa & Paul but weather was dry, and we were staring at a forecast saying we were in for 4 days of torrential rain starting on Friday morning so we went ahead.

We picked total of 105 Kgs, then Sulfited 2 grams per 23  Kgs and crushed.  Destemmed about 50% and left in the cold room on the skins overnight.

Next day, Friday 4th October, Paul and Pippa arrived.

At around 3pm, we pressed to make 57 litres of juice;  Lovely dark red colour, big extract for Rose.

Checked readings as follows

Refractomer; 23 Brix
hydrometer reading 1.096
Acid tested at 5 parts per thousand

Plan next day to to uplift the TAcid to 6.5 ppt