Wednesday, we pressed our clone 37 from Saralee's vinyeard and 115 from Las Brisas Carneros region. This was our first press of the year and we had to relearn how to operate our bladder press. Everything went pretty smooth. The color of the Pinot Noirs this year is a beautiful purple color, not like last year where we really struggled with color. After pressing, we pump the juice over into the tanks and we let the wine settle for a couple of days before putting them into the barrels. At this time the fermentation is complete, there is less than 1/2 % sugar left.
Friday, we had the remaining grapes from Saralee's Pinot Noir vineyard come in, along with the Viognier. Once again, we had anticipated 7 tons and got in 5 tons of the 115 clone Pinot Noir. The grapes looked great and came in around 9am. The Pinot Noir was at 25 brix and the Viognier was at 28 brix! We had volunteers to come in and help us out with the sorting, and we were done by noon, but still had to press the Viognier. We realized later that when pressing the Viognier it takes longer (for Pinot we run the program for 20 minutes and with Viognier we have to run it for 90 minutes) and we had to do the 2 tons in 2 batches, so we were here until 8pm. Next time, we will sort the Viognier first, press and then crush the rest of the Pinot Noir (Rick, our volunteer pointed this out to us, thanks!)!!!
Saturday, we started at 11am so we could sleep in a bit (my suggestion). We had to rack off the Viognier that we had settling in the tank after pressing it. We started the yeast in the Viognier after we moved the juice into 3 tanks. Then we put the 37 and the 115 clones into appropriate barrels (that we had pressed on Wednesday). It was a long week!
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