Here's what's been going on at the winery lately: All of the chardonnay that was picked a couple of weeks ago is fermenting in its barrel or tank, as the case may be, and most of it is now "dry" meaning fermentations are finished and there is no more sugar for the yeast to eat. Bye-bye yeast. Thanks for all your hard work.
The pinot noir has all come in and is fermenting, and the primitivo (a relative of zinfandel) was right behind it on Monday. That's Santiago shoveling the grapes into the hopper and Rafa picking leaves. A picture of saignee, or bleeding the juice out of the tank during crushing, to reduce the sugar and concentrate the flavors, colors and tannins of the final wine. Yeast foaming in buckets, Jan minding the yeast foaming in buckets. Bubbly pinot noir fermenting spontaneously with the natural yeast that clings to the grapes in the field. Sugar test-- the wine's getting dryer! And finally, a picture of the native grapevine, a relative of the rootstock that we use so that the fragile European vines don't get eaten by the phylloxera root louse. As you can see, the berries are small and it's not much of a producer.
No comments:
Post a Comment