We continued our experiment with native yeast fermentation on one out of the three fermenters. Tomorrow I will add yeast food to the others and innoculate with Rhone yeast.
Only the mourvedre and counoise are still on the vines.
We tasted the syrah must. It's almost dry but still shows signs of active fermentation. It is tart, sharp, and a little harsh. That worries us, but it might be a blessing if the mourvedre comes in very ripe.
4 comments:
Michael and Co-le-man,
How many gallons are you hoping to yield with the garnacha?
Bruno
The grenache alone should give us about 10 gallons, the syrah about 12, the mourvedre maybe 20 or 30, I think.
bruno -when it gets cold i'm opening up my cave and you will taste our 07 with us. right?
from the rhone - http://lagramiere.typepad.com/
"The biggest problem is that the grapes just aren't ripe yet! They are starting to sweeten up, but the skins are still very tannic and bitter when you chew them up. The seeds have all turned to brown and when you crunch them up in your mouth they now taste nutty, which is a good sign. Our grenache came in at 13 potential alcohol yesterday, which means we still have at least a degree to go. Pretty much everyone agrees that grenache isn't ripe below 14, despite the fact that we'd like to make a lower alcohol wine, it wouldn't taste very good if the grapes aren't ripe! We should be able to bring the syrah in a bit lower to balance it out this year."
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