Winemakers' Daily Notebook for 2009 Production

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Sat 26 September 2009 - Austin - 11:30am

Picked up air freighted macro bin from UPS Air Freight (thanks, Duane, Sara, Alberto and the entire UPS Supply Chain team). Overnight air freight from harvest pick at our vineyard in Sonoma yesterday (25 Sept) - thanks Becky and Linda from Madrone Vineyard management.

Grape clusters look wonderful - full whole mature fruit.

102 gallons of Must.

4pm.

Cold soak process...Added 60ppm of SO2. Added 10g of enzyme (Zyme-O-Color) from American Tartartic Products to aid in extraction of fruit and tannins (breaking down cell wall of skins) - added to water then poured and mixed into Must. Added 4 dry ice blocks to Must. Covered with macro bin lid.

Tues 29 September 2009- Austin - 5pm

After 3 days of cold soak. Ambient room temperature 67 degrees (raised to 72 - hold). Must is 28 Brix and 56 degrees F. Added 239g of Pasteur Red yeast. Rehydrated first in 100% temperature water (2.5L). Added small amounts of must to water yeast mixture, let temperature settle, then repeated. Added to must. For certainty (worried about low temperature of must due to cold soak - NEXT YEAR should raise room temperature for one day to raise must temperature first), I added another 100g of yeast, doing the repeat addition of must to yeast water mixture until frothing and at 65 degrees. Added 160g of Superfood by sprinkling directly on Must.

Wed, 30 Sept 09 - 9am

Small cap formed already. Punch down. Ambient 70 degrees. Set thermo for room to 72 degrees. Must temperature is 62 degrees (still cold!). Spinkled 3 packages of Vinaflora on must. Sprinkled 40 grams MicroEssentials into must - then remembered (Richard!) needed to be mixed first with warm water - did so with another 40g and added to must.

5pm

Punch down. Ambient 71.5 degrees. Must 27 Brix and 66 degrees.

Thurs, 1 Oct 09 - 9am

Punchdown.

7pm

21 brix. 77 degrees must. 71 degrees ambient temperature. Added 180g super food to must.

Friday, 2 Oct 09 - 5pm

Punch down in morning. Evening punchdown. Brix is 15.5 and must temperature is 82 degrees. Ambient is 71.5.

Saturday, 3 Oct - 5pm

Must is 10.5 brix, 84 degrees. Added 180g superfood. Ambient room temperature is 71.5.

Sunday, 4 Oct - 4pm

Punchdown in morning. Afternoon punchdown with Dave and Daniel from The Grove. 6.5 Bix and 82 degree must.

Monday, 5 Oct - 7pm

Punchdown in morning. Punchdown in afternoon. 3.7 Brix with detail hydrometer, 80 degree must. Added 50g superfood (just in case, since extra yeast was added). Ambient temperature in room is 72 degrees.

Tuesday, 6 Oct

Punchdown. 1.75 Brix and must temperature is 80 degrees.

Thursday, 8 Oct - 8am

Punchdown. Brix is -0.5 -- wine is probably dry. Will check with clinitest tonight. Must termperature is 76 degrees, so dropping. Added layer of CO2 from cannister on top to help protect wine. Will schedule pressing for Saturday.

5pm

Punchdown. Used Clinitest for residual sugar - 0.6%.

Friday, 9 Oct - 6pm

Punchdown.

Saturday, 10 Oct - 9am

Punchdown. Must temperature is 72 degrees - SAME as ambient. Clinitest is 0.4% residual sugar. Will press today at 2:30pm. Pressed 63 gallons wine (initial PFC measurement was 35+37 gallons). Filled 60 gallon barrel (on left) plus half of "Pepsi" container. Added 30ppm of SO2.

Saturday, 31 Oct

Racked wine from 60 gallon barrel to PFC. Cleaned barrel and re-filled.

Saturday, 7 Nov -3pm

Added 50ppm to 60 gallon barrel.

Results from lab analysis:

09 Cabernet Sauvignon:       Beautiful purple red cassis color. Nose is concentrated with ripe plum and cassis aromas but also some chocolate and coffee aromas. Mouth is beautiful, luscious with a lot of wonderful aromas that lingers for a long time. The tannins are silky and nice with a nice sweet finish.

This is a very nice wine.