2020 Wines - Chapter 6 - Chambourcin

It is with some sadness that we're making this batch of wine. We had high hopes for Norton and Chambourcin in the vineyard, but both varietals have been decimated with crown gall and I'm not optimistic that we'll get fruit again next year. We took about 120# of Chambourcin this year and we'll end up with about 9 gallons from it. 

My record-keeping has been terrible with this batch. I wrote everything down but I lost my notes, thus the late post. I do remember the the starting numbers were great. I didn't adjust pH and made minimal adjustment to sugar - or maybe it was the other way around, minimal pH adjustment, no sugar adjustment. Anyway, either way, these grapes came in better than any others I've grown. 71B to work down the malic, and VP41 for the MLB, co-inoculated. I pressed it off into 3 3gallon carboys plus almost another gallon. After a couple of days racked off gross lees and added 7 oak cubes per gallon to finish up. Great color on this wine, hopes are high. 

2020 Wines - Chapter 5 - Vidal

 This year we harvested about 400# of Vidal. We attempted to separate less ripe from more ripe fruit. We ended up with 15.3g from ripe fruit, 4g mixed with Frontenac Gris (giving it a darker color), and 4g of less ripe fruit. We cold settled the wine and one bucket came out dark, I believe that to be due to my failure to get KMS in the bucket. So I segregated that bucket as well, and any thoughts I had of using my 110l Speidel variable capacity tank were tossed aside. In the ripe, gris, less ripe batches, respectively, we got pH 2.88, 2.88, 2.86; pH was adjusted with 2t, 1t, 1.5t of calcium carbonate, respectively, to final pH of 2.97, 2.95, and 2.99. I fermented with QA23 again, along with the usual Booster Blanc and Opti White doses, and bentonite day 3. 

Given the number of buckets and size of batch, we couldn't really drop the temps much and it pretty much ripped through in a week. And again, like last year, got a reductive. I hit it early with a bench-trialed dose of 25ppm. It's cold stabilizing now, one carboy at a time. It will need fining, each carboy is not clearing well. Total is 22 gallons, we'll see if we end up bottling all of it. 

Grey Day Greenhousing

There is more work to do in the greenhouse than one would expect in November. Lisa and I spent the morning cleaning up, dividing, and propagating. 

Allison has developed a house plant problem so we potted up divisions of Alocasia 'California.' We divided Bilbergia 'Domingo Martin' hoping both Adam and Allison would try it. I also took cuttings of the various Hoyas; Allie claims she doesn't like Hoyas but we'll see if we can get her interested. 

We're preparing another shipment of plants to Adam in Florida. We've got the Alocasia, Globba 'Mauve Dancing Girl,' Heloconia 'Dwarf Jamaican,' and others. 

Fence Repair

The greenhouse was built in around 2004 and the fence behind the greenhouse was re-installed shortly thereafter. Lisa and I built it, but we reused some of the posts from the original back fence. In one spot of the fence, four of those posts had rotted at the ground line. The repair made a nice fall project. 

Half-round fence posts are difficult to come by around here. Last time we did fence repair we found them at a Rural King store in Warrenton. Fortunately I had 4 left so we didn't have to make another trip. 

Other than the posts, we reused existing boards. It's not perfect but it's good enough. 

Sunrise in the fall can be pretty nice.

A Greenhouse Record

The normal fall sequence of events is we wait until frost is imminent in early October, scramble to push everything inside and back into the greenhouse. But because a single layer of tempered glass doesn't keep it warm enough for tropical plants through a Missouri winter, an extra layer of poly film is needed. When it gets really cold in November, we painstakingly wrestle with ladders and wrangle the extra poly film over and around all of the plants, usually with plenty of swearing. Often, tall children are employed. 

This year we're trying something different. Nothing has gone back into the greenhouse yet. Arguably some plants should, as we've had lows in the upper 40s a couple of nights now. But this weekend we decided to try getting the poly up early. This has the advantage of allowing better movement of people and ladders. It worked well. In fact, no children were used in the application of the 2020 poly film, and it's up earlier than ever. 

2020 Wines - Chapter 4 - Frontenac

 As with Foch, the Frontenac yield was low this year. We pulled in 87#, less than half of last year. It's another high TA, high pH wine. Crush and destemming yielded 8.8g of must, with TA crazy high at 22, pH 2.80. Double salt technique with 175g calcium carbonate brought pH up over 4.0, not ideal for fermentation. I added back tartaric to get pH to fermentation-compatible 3.38, but will admit that I'm somewhat out of my league with these numbers. As for sugar, 1.084 came to 1.090 with minimal 350g sugar. Used Opti Red and Booster Rouge but as with Foch, no enzymes. 

Pitched yeast 8/16, VP41 co-innoculated 8/17. Pressed off 8/22 to get 6.5g. To it, I added Enartis Tan Uva, 7.6g. This is much higher (triple) than the recommended dose, yet lower than the recommended dose of the unfortunately similarly named Uva Tan from Scott Labs. I just decided to split the difference and see what happens. 

2020 Wines - Chapter 3 - Foch

The 2019 Foch will be drinkable with decent color. We're trying some new techniques described here to preserve the color in 2020. 

Harvest brought in 51#, far less than the ~200# last year. Dancing Man kept some of the critters away, but we still lost 1/3-1/2 of the crop to critter losses. The yield this year was lower as well, probably due to a late frost. I calculated the TA at 17, pH 2.98. Crush and destem yielded over 5g of must. I treated with 50ppm SO2, then used the double salt technique 61g calcium carbonate to get TA to 10, pH 3.8. I added back some tartaric to get the pH to 3.41. 1.076 + 488g sugar to get to 1.090. Opti Red and Booster Rouge but no enzymes. 

I pitched yeast 8/16, VP41 8/17, then pressed 8/22 and immediately added 2.8g Enartis Tan Uva. Wound up with 3.5g plus a bottle for topping. Some oak cubes will help finish MLF.