New Opportunity For Experiments

ProVina delivered five WinePods to my winery. The plan is for me to do comparison fermentations to test hypotheses and validate protocols.

First up will be a comparison fermentation using our Annadel Estate Pinot Noir. I'm starting of easy – dipping must from my production T-bins to fill three Pods: one will be the control, the second will undergo an extended cold soak, and the third will be a submerged-cap ferment.

The control will have a "normal" temperature profile and number of punchdowns. The submerged-cap will have the same temperature profile, but I will use the press to hold the skins below the level of the fermenting juice.

Years ago Tom Mackie (now at St. Francis Winery) did his master's at UC Davis on submerged cap ferments. Bottom line: if this were a great method to ferment everyone would be doing it. It's not – it has a tendency to produce reduced (sulfide) characters and different phenolic extraction profiles compared to wines made traditionally. I want to validate that I can make a palatable wine anyway – some WinePod users need the option of fermenting without having to be there on a regular schedule for punchdowns.

I'm interested in the extended cold soak as well. In my opinion "cold soak" of Pinot is a faddish practice based on misinterpretation of the ordinary progression of ferments in red Burgundies. In Burgundy most fruit comes in cold at harvest – typically in the 40's F. Traditional practice is to wait for the ferment to start on its own. This often takes up to a week or more, hence the fruit gets a "cold soak" before fermentation starts.

I know of wineries that expend a huge amount of effort and refrigeration tonnage to chill Pinot musts for weeks before initiating fermentation. Does this really make a better wine? If so, is it enough better to justify the expense and risk? This single Pod ferment won't provide a definitive answer, but it will add to my growing body of observation.

I want to thank Greg Snell and the rest of the good people at ProVina for entrusting me with this many Pods – and trusting that I will make good use of them.

No Movement Of Chard Malo

Last Friday Vinquiry analyzed the latest sample of the Sangiacomo Chardonnay: 1.32 g/L. This suggests 1) astonishingly good reproducibility of the lab analysis, and 2) that the malo has not moved at all in two weeks. The alternative interpretation – that the analysis is crap and the ferment is moving by some unknon amount – is untenable.

So today I plan to bomb the wine with a huge over-inoculation of bacteria. It's either that, or sulfur the wine and sterile-filter it to bottle when the time comes – which is not the goal I had in mind.

Chardonnay Malo Moving Slowly

The Sangiacomo Chardonnay in the Pod is smelling and tasting wonderful, but the malolactic fermentation is moving too slowly for my comfort.

I picked up a 2.5 gram pack of the Enoferm Alpha ML culture from Vinquiry, prepped it and pitched it into the Chardonnay on 8/06/2008. I have maintained the Pod temperature at 70° F.

Several days ago (8/18) I sampled the Chardonnay for malic analysis, which returned 1.33 g/L, a drop of only 0.18 g/L (±) in almost two weeks.

The alcohol is not sky-high (14.6%-14.7%) and the temperature is conducive. I can't imagine the pH is under 3.4 but I guess I should measure it to be sure. Anyway, I was hoping to be ready to add SO₂ this week. Patience…

Chardonnay Ready For Malolactic

This morning the Pod was reading -3° Brix at 70° F on the Chardonnay. I pulled a sample and took it to Vinquiry for analysis. Results:

Alcohol	14.67	% (v/v)
Malic Acid	1.51	g/L
Glucose+Fructose	ND

This confirms that the wine is bone-dry and ready for inoculation with malolactic. If I have any culture in my stash I will add it tomorrow.

I was talking with Greg Snell today and he asked if I had learned anything important so far regarding fermenting Chardonnay in the Pod. What I have learned about this specific juice is DO NOT TRY TO FERMENT IT UNINOCULATED.

I have had a pre-fermentation juice sample in my refrigerator since July 12 and it is not showing even the barest hint of the onset of fermentation. This is the most stable juice I have encountered in over 20 years. I have no explanation for it.

Chardonnay At Or Near Dryness

Last Wednesday the Chardonnay ferment was showing 8° Brix, and Thursday down to 5° Brix. I was out of town Friday through Sunday on a family trip – something I could not have done if this were a RED ferment! – and came in this morning to find the Pod reading -1° Brix.

Smells great. Still making some CO₂. I raised the setpoint to 70° F in anticipation of adding the malolactic inoculum in a day or so, after I confirm that the sugar is gone.

Chardonnay DAP Addition

Yesterday morning the Chardonnay in the Pod was reading 17° Brix at 65° F and showing a nice 2-inch head of foam. I added 30 grams of DAP (0.53 g/L) to supplement the purported low nutrient status of the juice as delivered.

The aroma of the ferment was fine before the addition, but turned even sweeter immediately after. The foam also dissipated. At noon today the readings were 11° Brix at 65° F.

Slow Start To Chard Ferment

I just thought this was a cool picture...
The yeast is starting to produce some gas, and the bubbles are rising so straight in the Pod that the features of the press basket (not needed for white but necessary to positively locate the Brix sensor) are outlined. I'm easily amused.

Chardonnay: Second Inoculation

Yesterday I prepped 16 grams (28 g/hL) of Uvaferm 43 from the WinePod Consumables Kit to add to the Chardonnay juice. After five days, the CY3079 had not started the ferment.

In a commercial setting I would have checked yeast viability under the microscope and perhaps waited a little longer if the cells looked good. This was standard operating procedure when I was at Sonoma-Cutrer. But not many of us WinePodders have a quality microscope and methylene blue available. I don't even have a microscope at the winery, since commercially I only make reds (where problems with start of fermentation are – almost – never encountered).

Anyway, the CY3079 I used was from an opened pack nearly 10 months old and stored at 65° F. It may have lost viability, and I made a mistake by not proofing it with some sugar before I pitched.

The Uvaferm was certainly fresher. I prepped it without GoFerm as I had already added the maximum recommended dose with the CY inoculum.

I did proof this yeast prep with juice on the off chance that the juice itself contained something inhibitory. I can't say the Uvaferm boiled over, but it did foam – a little. I'm hoping to see a start to fermentation by this morning.

Racking Red Wines

Yesterday I racked two of the red wines and added SO₂ to a third.

2007 Rancho Sarco Cabernet
The Rancho Sarco Cab went to a 20 L medium-toast Vernou French oak barrel and a 5 gallon carboy back on February 11. Since then I have topped it and maintained the SO₂ more or less regularly.

The wine tastes and smells great: varietal, with a jammy edge and oak that is present but not overwhelming. It might be that this Cab could spend more time in barrel, but it is showing well now and I would like to get it in the bottle soon so Provina can show samples to interested parties. I racked it from barrel and carboy to a clean SS keg, and then to two clean 5 gallon carboys fit with fermentation locks. I hope to bottle it before the end of the month.

2007 Napa River Ranch Cabernet
The Napa River Ranch Cab went to a 20 L medium-plus-toast Vernou French oak barrel and a 5 gallon carboy back on March 11.

This wine has for several months shown a very closed-in aroma, with a bit of reduction – not sulfide, but a kind of post-fermentaion funk that is hard to describe but easy to recognize with experience. Back when I first put it to barrel I noted that it had not settled clear in the Pod. At the time I suggested that this was because I had not added any Lallzyme at the beginning of the ferment.

I believe that the undeveloped aroma is also a consequence of leaving out the enzyme. The Lallzyme preparations are predominantly cellulases and hemicellulases, but like all commercial enzme preparations there is some side-activity. Lallzyme shows a small glycosidase activity, which slightly – but noticibly – speeds the release of aromatic compounds.

Regardless of whether or not leaving out the enzyme was a good idea, the wine needed the racking I gave it yesterday. I also felt it would benefit from a bump in SO₂.

I racked the wine from barrel and carboy to a SS keg, onto 2.5 grams of Efferbaktol granules dissolved in 50 mL of water – this gives about a 25 ppm addition of SO₂.

A quick note on additions of sulfur dioxide: the wine always has some potential to bind some fraction of the added SO₂. As a rule of thumb, I expect to actually see the free SO₂ bump by about half of the calculated addition.

After stirring the wine in keg and settling a few minutes, I racked it to a 5 gallon carboy and the 20 L medium-toast barrel I had racked the Rancho Sarco Cab out of. I just like the aroma of the medium-toast barrel more than that of the medium-plus-toast barrel.

After the rack and add the aroma of the wine improved. The Napa River Ranch Cab is less jammy than the Rancho Sarco, and more fruity. It is lighter and leaner, with a marked "Rutherford dust" character.

2007 Roberts Road Pinot Noir
In my commercial winemaking I put Pinot Noir to barrel after the barest minimum of settling, and then never rack it until bottling. I'm hoping to get away with the same approach with the WinePod Pinot.

I pressed this Roberts Road Pinot and moved the wine to a 30 L medium-plus-toast Vernou French oak barrel and 3 gallon carboy on March 26. Recall the wine had some residual sugar at this point, and was re-inoculated in barrel on April 7. I confirmed that the wine was dry on May 2 and inoculated for ML on May 15.

I confirmed that the malolactic fermentation was complete (0.07 g/L) on July 8, and yesterday I added 7.5 g Efferbaktol granules (75 ppm SO₂) distributed proportionally between the 30 L barrel and the 3 gallon carboy.

BTW - no evidence of fermentation in the Sangiocomo Chardonnay yet.

Off And Running With The Chard

This evening I sanitized the Pod and transferred the Chard juice from the pails. The juice was very clear and well-settled, and showed no evidence of fermentation.

I poured from the pails pretty carefully, leaving behind most of the settled lees. The lees smelled and tasted OK, but since I have not handled this juice from the crusher, and am not sure how much reductive or oxidative potential they have, I decided to leave most of them behind.

Fifteen gallons of juice fills the Pod pretty well – I didn't put a tape measure on it but it looks like there is 5"-6" of headspace. We will see later if this is a problem.

Excessively clarified juice does not ferment well – clear juice fermentations frequently make more sulfide and have a greater tendency to stick than turbid juices. Yeast perform better when they have some suspended solids to glom on to.

I have dealt successfully with overly-clarifed juice in the commercial setting by adding back Bentonite, colloidal silica and yeast hulls, singly or together. I decided to keep this ferment simple, so I added just yeast hulls at a rate of 3 lb./1000 gal, 20 grams total.

According to the Brehm website, no SO₂ was added at crushing or pressing, so I added 40 ppm, using 7 grams of Efferbaktol granules. Also, the juice tasted a bit flat so I added 0.3 g/L of tartaric acid (17 grams).

At this point the juice read 23.7° Brix – the Pod readings were 24° Brix at 62° F. I turned on temparature control with both setpoints at 65° F.

With everything ready to go, I suspended 17 grams of GoFerm (30 g/hL) in 200 mL of water at 104° F. I rehydrated 17 g of CY3079 yeast for 20 minutes in this suspension befoe pitching it into the juice.

I chose CY3079 because it was selected to perform well in barrel ferments – first and foremost, the fermentation does not foam. This is important, because there is not a lot of headspace in the Pod.

CY3079 doesn't produce much SO₂ during fermentation (some yeast do) and is friendlier to malolactic bacteria than some other white wine yeasts. This selection also develops a more pronounced "leesy" character in the wine during aging than nearly any other yeast selection.

The down-side is that CY3079 is prone to sticking, so I plan to feed this fermentation (the Brehm website listing for this juice notes that it is low in available nitrogen – YAN). This yeast also does not produce a "fruity" wine.

So now I wait. I will feed at 20° and 12° Brix, and inoculate for malolactic at dryness. Not much else to do with a white ferment.

2007 Carneros Chardonnay

That's right – Chardonnay, from the 37-year-old vines on the Sangiacomo's Home Ranch. I'm excited to see if I can produce a high-quality white wine in the Pod.

We sourced 15 gallons of frozen juice from Peter Brehm. I received the pails on Thursday. They were partially thawed yesterday when I transported them to the winery.

When I cut the stretch wrap off the pails I could see some sediment through the sides. I decided to let the juice settle a little before I rack it into the Pod.

Today or tomorrow I will rack the juice off the lees into the Pod, add SO₂, water and a little acid, and inoculate. I tentatively plan to conduct the ferment at 65° through malolactic, and then rack into barrels for aging.

Pre-Emptive Minimalism

This is a follow-up to my last post on Hands-On Winemaking. Last September I put up a post on my Westwood blog where I attempted to define my personal winegrowing philosophy as "Pre-Emptive Minimalism".

In a nutshell, following this approach means to 1) do nothing I don't have to, and 2)to do nothing that forces me to do extra work later. In the context of the last post I would call this "Interventionist Minimalism" in contrast to minimal intervention.

Hands-On Winemaking

My friend Greg Snell recently posted to his blog about "non-interventionist" winemaking and the WinePod. I will take this opportunity to weigh in on the subject.

What on earth does someone mean when they talk about "non-interventionist winemaking"? Where did this term come from? I'm not the first person to ask these questions. Check out Eric Asimov's piece in the NY times from October 2006. I think it may be that the term first arose in the film "Mondovino" which, for dramatic effect, built its narrative around the differences between the "...old world and new, simple peasants and billionaires, and between the local and artisanal styles of wine production and the multinational and mass-produced ones."

Award-winning New Zealand winemaker and writer Drew Tuckwell put it as succinctly as such a vague and useless concept might possibly be clarified: "Non interventionist winemaking is not easy to explain. There are no defined or common rules. It is essentially a very natural form of winemaking ... where, in general terms, winemakers resist the use of modern technology and simply allow the wines to express the terroir of the vineyard." (1) Emphasis mine.

My sainted Dallas-bred grandmother had a term for this kind of marketing-speak: "horse-puckey".

The craft of winemaking is the transformation of grapes with alchemist skill. For centuries the French have applied the terms "elevage" and "affinage" to the winemaking process. The winemaker facilitates the birth of the wine, and then raises it and refines it into something which, if not always transcendent and sublime, is at least palatable. I believe the most apt analogy for winemaking is child-rearing. I for one don't believe that child rearing can be at all non-interventionist. And neither can winemaking be.

I shall step on a slightly taller soapbox to proclaim: I believe that ALL wines – artisanal and mass-produced alike – are valid expressions of the grape, and of the winemaker's craft. There is no way to define a cutoff between these arbitrary classifications; wines are produced along a technological contiuum.

On the other hand, all wines are not created equal. There are distinctions between the aromas and tastes of wines made by hand and those produced by machine that are no more arbitrary or subtle than the differences between, say, Redwood Hill Farm crottin and processed American cheese spread, or Boont Amber Ale and Bud. But there is no doubt that the makers of the crottin and the ale are interventionist to a fault in crafting their products. So are ALL winemakers worthy of the title.

For contrast, let me paint a scenario of the least-interventionist winemaking I can imagine. Find some grapes – they must be wild, or escapees from cultivation, un-pruned and otherwise un-farmed. Pay no attention to the mildew, bird damage and rot. Taste them to see if they are ripe, and try to forget that professionals with decades of experience sometimes misjudge ripeness by taste. Pick them anyway.

Put these natural wonders in a garbage pail in the garage – don't worry if the pail is clean or not, or how hot or cold the space is. Intervene to the extent of crushing the grapes by foot. Step away at this point, intervention complete – the grapes will ferment. But at least go so far as to cover the pail before turning out the lights. Come back in a month or so, lift the pail and make a small hole in the bottom for the liquid to drain out. Intervene again to push on the mass inside the pail to press as much liquid out as possible. Collect, taste and savor.

I can say from personal experience that the results will not be palatable.

I can also say that there is not a capital-poor winemaker worth the title that has not wished for a centrifuge (for clarification), a spinning cone (for alcohol reduction), or for ion-exchange (to remove volatile acidity) at some point in their career. In my opinion, any winemaker that can say they are "non-interventionist" with a straight face, or at least without a little lurch of self-loathing in the pit of the stomach, is a charlatan or worse – delusional.

Given the choice between a garbage pail and the WinePod, I'll take the Pod thanks. I can make better wine in the WinePod. Doesn't make me a mass-producer – the wines are still hand-made. Just don't call me "non-interventionist".

Catching Up With The Roberts Road Pinot

The Sangiacomo Roberts Road Pinot lot finally completed alcoholic fermentation after the re-inoculation on 4/7.

	glu+fru	malic
03/28/08	3.94	1.33	g/L
04/03/08	3.05	----	g/L
04/14/08	1.18	1.22	g/L
05/02/08	0.20	1.09	g/L

My personal cutoff for "doneness" on alcoholic fermentation is 1.00 g/L, though I prefer to see on the order of 1/10th that number before I inoculate for malolactic – which is sort of what I did.

On 5/15/08 I inoculated the Pinot in barrel and carboy with 2.5 grams of Enoferm Alpha malolactic culture, prepared according to directions.

Finishing Off The Syrah Fermentation

May was a very busy month for me and I was not able to devote the time I wanted to maintaining this blog. It is time to catch up and so this is likely to be a long post.

I pressed off the Annadel Syrah on 5/1/08 after a full 30 days of maceration at elevated temperature (73° F) – if there was a question in anyone's mind, it was my intention to see how far I could push this protocol.

Jumping ahead a little, in my opinion the wine turned out very well, analytically and organoleptically. So since I didn't "break it" with a full month of maceration I can't say that I have pushed the procedure to its absolute limit. But what I learned is that I can be more sanguine about recommending longer maceration in the Pod – at least up to this now-defined point, and with these grapes.

I pressed the Syrah as I have the other lots: first with automatic pressing on the "heavy" setting (present on this Pod beta unit – likely not on shipping units) until done, then on manual every minute, then every 2 minutes, then every 5 minutes, until the press shuts off immediately on startup. Also as before, I racked the wine from the Pod into buckets, cleaned the Pod, and racked the wine back in. The yield was about 11 gallons. I set the temperature of the Pod to 65° F.

I pulled a sample for the lab; results of the analysis:

pH	3.94
Malic Acid	0.13	g/L
Volatile Acidity	0.38	g/L

My personal threshold for malolactic "doneness" is 0.30 g/L so this wine is done enough. The V.A. has crept up a tiny bit since the end of alcoholic fermentation (from 0.26 g/L – almost within analytical error) supporting that the long extension of maceration didn't oxidize the wine appreciably. From a philosophical standpoint the pH is higher than I want it to be, though the wine does not taste fat, soapy, or bitter.

On 5/4/08 I set the temperature of the Pod to 60° F. The next day I stirred in 20 grams of tartaric acid (0.5 g/L) and 5 grams of Efferbaktol granules (about 48 ppm of SO₂).

The Syrah settled in the Pod at 60° F for nearly two weeks. On 5/16/08 I racked the wine to glass carboys (7, 2 and 1 gallon) with the extra going into two 750 mL bottles. Total yield of clear wine after racking was 10.4 gallons.

In my commercial wine production I have found that Syrah benefits from spending some time in tank after the first racking, before going to barrels. It is my intention to leave this WinePod Syrah in glass for a while before I put it into wood.

Another thing I wanted to do with this Syrah ferment was collect seeds to illustrate the changes that occur during extended maceration.

Click on the image above for larger 800 px image

I collected the seeds on the left from inside berries on the day I filled the Pod. They are uniformly brown – and I assure you they are crunchy – as expected for properly-ripened fruit.

The seeds in the middle were pulled from inside berries at the end of the yeast fermentation. Notice that they are darker and redder, but not uniformly colored.

The seeds on the right were removed from berries in the press cake after taking it out of the Pod. Notice how they have turned darker, and though not all of them are exactly the same dark shade the color is uniform on each. These are the visual qualities I look for in the seeds on completion of extended maceration.

Syrah - All Is Well

Extended maceration continues at 73° F on the Annadel Syrah. The Pod is reading -5° Brix suggesting that the sensor is stuck to the bottom of the tank. Malolactic fermentation is producing enough carbon dioxide at this time to keep the cap floating. Yesterday I popped two more gas cartridges under the Pod lid anyway – one of them was unmarked and turned out to be CO₂.

Syrah Cap Back Up

Yesterday when I checked the Syrah I found that the malolactic ferment was producing enough gas to bring the cap back up. I gave the must a mix (#14) and then shot some nitrogen into the headspace using two of the gas cartridges supplied with the Pod.

These cartridges each supply 1.8 g of N₂. Dredging up some freshman general chemistry from memory, this comes to about 1.44 liters of gas (at STP) per cartridge.

I have not made an exact measurement but I'm guessing the headspace is more like 4-5 gallons, meaning it would take about 12 cartridges to purge this volume with nitrogen.

If the cap falls again before the tannins have softened I will probably fit the variable-capacity lid to the Pod.

Inoculated 2007 Syrah for Malolactic

Following my temperature plan I dropped the lower setpoint on the ferment to 73° F by Saturday the 12th (punch #11). The must reading was -3° Brix.

At punch #12 on Monday the 14th I observed the second must reading at -3° Brix, so I pulled a sample for analysis and recovered some seeds which I will use in my photographic comparison after I press this lot off.

Results of the analysis of the Syrah sample:

Alcohol	14.72	% (v/v)
pH	3.79
Titratable Acidity	6.56	g/L
Malic Acid	1.56	g/L
Glucose+Fructose	0.05	g/L
Volatile Acidity	0.26	g/L

This confirms that the wine is bone-dry.

Since the wine is dry, today I prepared 2.5 g of Enoferm Alpha malolactic culture according to directions and inoculated the must at punch #13. It is still my plan to extend the maceration until April 30th – the wine is tasting quite tannic at the moment – but the cap has already lost much of its buoyancy. It may regain some if the malolactic fermentation produces a little CO₂ (in my experience sometimes it does, sometimes not) but with this ferment I am thinking I will be sparging the headspace with inert gas before I get to pressing.

Syrah Ferment Peak

Yesterday evening the must readings were 15° Brix at 81° F. At punch #7 I added another 15 g of DAP dissolved in 150 mL warm water and increased the lower setpoint to 86° F.

This morning the Pod was showing 6° Brix at 85° F. I made the third and final 15 g DAP addition at the punchdown. I plan to start dropping the temperature at this evening's punch.

Knock on wood – this fermentation is textbook (so far). Total DAP addition was the maximum allowable 1 g/L, and the must has smelled really good all along, with only hints of sulfide.

I want to note that this ferment has not once threatened to overflow the Pod. The Lallzyme products are a mix of cellulases and hemicellulases (with very low glycosidase side activity – important to maintain the color and aromatic potential of a red wine) which hydrolyze the grape cell walls and do a good job of breaking down the cap.

At this time I am planning to bring the temperature down to 73° F by Saturday the 12th. This is the temperature where I expect to maintain this lot through extended maceration. Sometime in the week of the 14th I will test for residual sugar – when it is below the 1 g/L threshold I will inoculate for malolactic. I hope to press on the 30th.

Annadel Syrah Ferment Taking Off

After inoculating the must Monday morning, the cap was barely up Tuesday morning – not solid, sort of half-hearted. It was a little firmer at the afternoon punchdown (punch #5). I raised the setpoints at each visit – the lower from 69° to 72° F, and from 72° to 78° F in the afternoon.

Note that I have settled on a span of 3°F for determining the upper setpoint – I will only be reporting the lower setpoint going forward. The must read 24° Brix at both punchdowns.

This morning the cap was solid and the Pod was reporting 20° Brix at 77° F. I dissolved/suspended 8 g Fermaid K (19 g/hL or 1.6#/M – note that the maximum addition rate for this product is 2#/M) and 15 g DAP (0.33 g/L) in about 200 mL warm water and added this at the punch. This is the first of three planned DAP additions. Upped the setpoint to 80° F.

Though I peaked the Pinot fermentation at 92° F my plan for the Syrah is to peak this ferment at 86° F as I did for the two Cabernet lots.