What's going on in your winery today..

[Her Lushness]

7.30 for 8.00?

Ok, I may be out, but the main loot's in the garage, so help yourself ...

[spritzer]

I racked my raspberry and rhubarb...
Its not as good as last years

[wisp]

Ok, I may be out, but the main loot's in the garage, so help yourself ...

[NorthernWiner]

Yes.. the winery...

Tonight I am pressing.

[spritzer]

This morning (Thursday 7am)
I came home to the Rhubarb and raspberry spitting all over the kitchen
Moved some to a little milk bottle topper upper...
Cleaned that up, and went to bed (nightshift)


This morning (Friday 1am) (football)
I came home to the Rhubarb and rasberry spitting all over teh kitchen
Moved some to anohter little milk bottle topper upper...
Cleaned up... did some t'internet surfing to make sure no more eruptions
Bed

[lockwood1956]

Today.. picked up 4 X 120litre screw top fermenters

Picked up 3 X 60litre buckets full to the brim with Muscat Grapes 2X black and 1 X white

prepared yeast starter

off to crush/destem and press the whites

crush destem reds and pitch yeast

Pitch MLF culture into the Merlot and Ciliegiolo
life is good

[goldseal]

Picked up 3 X 60litre buckets full to the brim with Muscat Grapes 2X black and 1 X white

Where did they come from then?

[lockwood1956]

One of the guys Im in partnership with on the Seyval offered me them, a sort of "thank you" for setting the Seyval deal up

yum scrum

SG 1.080 on the white and 1.090 on the red

Axcid testing/adjusting in the AM before setting off to judge at Chesterfield

[NorthernWiner]

Racked Tempranillo, Barbera, Petite Sirah, and Frontenac into DJ's. Inoculated everything with ML culture. Now comes the wait...

Also started a new project today: Apple Icewine. I purchased 6 gallons of unpasteurized juice at the orchard this morning. A very nice mixture of tart and sweet apples.

It's now sitting in the freezer. The best part was having to make room in the top of each plastic jug to allow for expansion in the freezer.

APPLEICE.jpg

[Mel]

Apple Icewine sounds interesting . Done 50 gallons cider and some mulberry wine

[goldseal]

Massive clearout yesterday and today - big reorganisation of the winery (aka garage), and the bottle store (aka shed).

Worryingly, the shed was packed with bottles, but somehow I seem to have only enough to bottle 2 Better Bottles and a couple of DJs.

Lots of SG checks this morning. All the Ciliegiolo seems to have stopped at 0.997 (which I'm nnot worried about because this seems to be the norm), and the Merlot at 0.998 (anyone else?).

Continued to sugar-feed the ports (1 gal ciliegiolo and 1 gal Black cherry kit). Interestingly, the Ciliegiolo port was at 0.995, lower than the standard Cilie, which seems a bit weird to me. Any answers?

I might have my first proper stuck fermentation (apple at 1.032) . Maybe a chance to play with a restart . Oddly enough, the DJ next to it has the same must, the same yeast, and is at 0.996. Funny old game.

[hedgerow]

transfered 3 gallons of plum from bucket into DJ's, checked the 9 gallon and 11 gallon barrels of apple wine, the 9 gallon barrel has a leaky wooden tap which was changed, racked my sugar beet ready to be bottled, and staerted another apple off in a dj , this is so i know whats happening inside the stainless steel and alli barrels, no x ray equipment avalible at the allotment

[lockwood1956]

Went to winery at old house, and dismantled all the wineracks and transported them here, alonmg with the bottles therein.....had much more wine left there than I remembered...

about 50 bottles 2005 Sangiovese
20 bottles 2004 fruit cocktail.....hmmm...not sure this will be ok
about 24 bottles 2006 Blackberry/black cherry
15 bottles 2005 Strawberry
7 bottles bilberry melomel
6 bottles 2007 Trebbiano (Yuck)
8 bottles 2006 nero d'avola/merlot/grenache
4 bottles 2006 Cabernet sauvignon
about 12 bottles 2007 Montepulciano
10 bottles 2006 Grenache
10 (ish) bottles Vineco Amarone
10 bottles Beaverdale Barolo


and various bits and bobs



punched the cap three times on the Muscat Bleu grapes, fermenting away nicely, fantastic colour and aroma

[goldseal]

Finished an bottled my Coffee Rum Liqueur kit. It was a freebie and I wasn't expecting much, but it is surprisingly good

Bottled 1 gal rhubarb (Juice fermentation, sweetened with elderflower syrup)

Bottled Wine No.1 rosé

Racked Ciliegiolo rosé

[goldseal]

Racked + degassed my Fruit Merlot (Grapefest 2nd run). Straightforward.

Ditto Montepulciano (kit + ciliewhatsit skins). Not so straightforward:

a) H2S smell
b) the tap on the fermenter I was racking into came loose, rapidly depositing 2 litres of wine on the kitchen floor

I'm quite used to H2S problems now - lots of splashing (well, I was degassing at the same time), and a bit of copper pipe. Hopefully that's the end of it.