Author: Chris

Wine updates

Sam and I drew samples, tasted, and tested the pH on all 9 of the 2008 wines tonight. I’m happy to report that I’m very happy. The Chenin Blanc and Rose’ are stable, clear, tasty, and have good acidity. The Zin, Cab, Petit Sirah, and Barbera are all delicious and fault-free. The Merlot is an interesting case…we think it has smoke taint.

Remember all those fires during the summer? Well, things were particularly bad in Napa and Sonoma. Our Merlot came from northern Sonoma (Kenwood). The taste of this wine is spectacular for how young it is. The smell is sort of like a forest fire.

The question is: do we try to eliminate that smell, or is this a uniquely 2008 sort of a thing that people will come to love and will pay a premium for in 2010? We’re going to run this question (and the wine) by a couple people who have been in the business much longer and see what they think. Stay tuned!

Galactic Grapefruit Coming Soon!

winelabel
We’re completing our focus group testing and getting the label ready to be printed. We expect that Galactic Grapefruit Wine will be available for purchase in time for Thanksgiving.

This weekend, Jeff took a bottle to Philadelphia, and I shared a bottle with Molly, John, and Maya here in Sacramento. Grapefruit Wine has now been enjoyed by people on both coasts as well as by someone who has been to space!

Sonoma Home Winemaker Pouring


Yesterday, Margaret and I poured Bad Astronauts wine at the Sonoma Home Winemakers Celebration. We met a lot of people, including a couple who were going to astronaut Rusty Schweickart‘s house for dinner and wanted a bottle of Bad Astronauts Galactic Grapefruit wine to bring him! We gave them one, of course! I hope they post something here about how he liked it and whether he’d be willing to be the good astronaut spokesperson for Bad Astronauts wine!

We also met a guy who’s dad worked for mission control in Houston and who described himself as a “Space Baby”. He very much enjoyed our wine.

This was our first public Bad Astronauts pouring, and it was a huge success. Everyone who tasted our wines loved them, the Galactic Grapefruit was a hit with the crowd, and we raised some money for Sonoma High School while having a lot of fun!

Bad Astronauts Merlot

Here’s the merlot status so far:

I drove to northern Sonoma county (Kenwood) Monday morning to get the grapes. I got to downtown Sonoma at about 6:00, had some coffee there, and then drove up highway 12 for another 20 minutes or so to the vineyard.

Morrison Vineyard is the most beautiful place in the world. Ian Morrison, the owner of the vineyard, grows only Merlot, and he does it very well. He’s also a very nice man.

After chatting with Ian for a while, I walked the vineyard. The grapes were ripe and delicious. The yield per vine was definitely much lower towards the top of the hill, and I think I preferred the taste of the grapes at the bottom of the hill.

The picking crew started picking at about 8:00, and I had my grapes loaded into the truck by 9:00. I drove back to Sacramento, and arrived back at the winery at around 11.

Initial numbers:

24.5 – 25 brix (depending on testing method)
pH 3.66

After crush (thanks Priscila, Sam, Jim, Zach, and Dave for your help!) I added enzymes and potassium metabisulphite.

Tuesday, I threw 20lbs of dry ice on the grapes.

Wednesday, Margaret and Priscila put 20 more lbs on.

Wednesday night, the must temperature was 50 degrees. I added superfood, followed by yeast, and 800g of tartaric acid. My goal is to get the pH down to about 3.4.

Thursday, I added 2 lbs of untoasted oak chips (in a nylon straining bag).

Friday morning, fermentation was underway, but slow. I added my phase 2 superfood and DAP addition.

Everything’s looking great, and I’m very excited about this wine.

pH, TA, and Malolactic info

Red wine pH should be between 3.4 and 3.6. TA should be around 7 g/L. Malolactic Fermentation (which converts malic acid into lactic and makes red wines smoother and more awesome) has the following effects on acidity (according to this site: http://brsquared.org/wine/Articles/MLF/MLF.htm):

* a pH increase of between 0.1 and 0.45 units (more typically 0.1-0.25)
* a chemical deacidification usually reducing titratable acidity by about 1-4.6 g/l (as tartaric)

So, our wine currently has the following stats:

pH 3.5
TA 8.5 g/L

After ML, it could potentially have the following stats:

pH 3.6 – 3.75
TA 3.9 – 7.5

I’m not ok with the risk of the pH being over 3.6, which makes me think I should adjust pH to 3.4. However, I’m also not ok with a TA over 7, which makes me think I shouldn’t adjust.

After some more reading, it sounds like what we’ve got is a higher concentration of Malic (a weaker acid) than of Tartaric (a stronger acid). This explains why the pH (which measures the effect or strength of the acid in the wine) is high (less acid strength) and the TA is high (more acid).

So, if I adjust with Tartaric acid, I think it will decrease the pH and increase the TA, but the Malolactic fermentation will have a larger effect because we have a relatively high concentration of Malic.

If you’re a chemist, please let me know if I’m on the right track here!

If you’re not familiar with TA and pH, here’s some reading.

Zin!

We picked up our Zinfandel grapes from Fair Play Farms in El Dorado County this morning. Fair Play Farms is where Perry Creek gets their grapes for their premium high altitude (2401) wines. They taste great, and the numbers are pretty much right where I want them to be. A crowd of people showed up at the winery to help crush them, and we had it knocked out in just a couple hours. Thanks everyone! Once everything was crushed and the equipment cleaned up, I pulled off 6 gallons of juice to make into a Zin Rosé.

The sugar fluctuated from between 23 and 25 brix. I’ll take another reading tomorrow before adding yeast and see if it’s settled on something.

pH was at 3.5. This is maybe slightly less acid than I want. However, TA was .85%, which indicates slightly more acid than I want…so what do I do? My current thinking is to do some research tonight and test again tomorrow before making any adjustments at all.

Come have some fun and drink some wine!

The Bad Astronauts Winery, in cooperation with the Sacramento Institute of Fun (of which I’m a co-founder) will be holding a wine appreciation class this Friday evening at Revolution Wines. Teaching the class will be Corti Bros’ Wine Merchant Donal Smith. The fee for this fun and wine-tacular event is just $40. Contact me for more information.

This is the first public Bad Astronauts event, and we’re limiting participation to around 30 people. We still have about 8 spots left, so if you’re interested or if you have questions, give me a holler!

Merlot Update

Here’s the latest from our Merlot vineyard:

It’s been a strange week weather-wise. After triple digit temps last week we now have cold, damp fog that lingers. Brix is at 23 plus or minus and I’m guessing harvest in about two weeks.