Bottling Adamo 2007

The barrel racks got here on Friday, so we were able to bottle on Saturday.

We bottled the Adamo 2007 (sangiovese and cabernet franc blend) and then we moved the Jorro-Ma 2008 (syrah) and half the Evidente 2008 (pinot noir) into their French Oak barrels.
What we're left with is four secondary fermentation drums containing the sangiovese and pinot noir that goes into the Trovato 2008.
You may like to enjoy some video of bottling, corking and capping that is on our facebook space. On this blog we offer the following pictures of the winery and some activity.
On Wednesday we shall be finishing off the bottling of Adamo 2007 and finally transferring Trovato 2008 from secondary fermentation into ageing.
Also, thanks to those who were at Whole Foods, Lane Avenue, on Saturday afternoon. Michael was released from winery hard labour to do the tasting there. We know it was a success as he had to send Katrina back up to the winery to get more wine to sell.

Here you can see us preparing a French Oak barrel. We re-use our barrels as they're way more expensive than American Oak and old European wineries re-use them too. We clean, gas them, when not in use, then re-hydrate them to swell them up again before cleaning before re-use. Barrels leak like sieves if they've dried out so re-hydrating is necessary unless you want to lose a lot of wine.

Below you see our growing wall of wine. In the foreground are the prepped French Oak barrels that will receive the secondary fermentation from out of the blue fermentation drums.

This is our bottle filling machine. Wine is pumped into the reservoir at top, then wine is dispensed into bottles via the 4 spouts you see at the front. The bottles rest on the shelf below the spouts whilst filling. From here, the bottles are passed to the corker (no pictures of corker here, but a video of this is on facebook).

After the cork is inserted into the bottle, the bottle then has a tin foil cap placed on top of it and the bottle is inserted, neck first, into the capping machine. See video on facebook.

The wall of wine grows again.

However, we still have some wine left in secondary fermenters that will be used to top-up the barrels over the course of the next 12 to 18 months (these are the demijons at back, sealed with olive oil). The blue fermenters will be emptied by next Saturday.

Barrels, Tastings & Opportunities

Last week we tried out our new bottle filler. It did a barrel in about a third of the time, maybe less - so 3 hours do do @277 bottles down to 1 hour. It honestly took longer to set it up and clean it, although with familiarity that aspect of it will improve.

The French Oak barrels are ordered and are on their way; scheduled for arrival next Wednesday. We will rehydrate them so they swell and don't leak, and turn then periodically until we're ready to move wine into them from secondary fermentation.

Next Tuesday we will have a visit from a prospective retailer who is putting together a wine shop independent of a distributor and therefore free to take whatever she tastes and believes to be good and unique. Personally, I feel it would benefit to know which outlets are "Free Houses" and can select what they want.

Next Thursday we're at Jungle Jim's emporium in Cincinnatti where we get a shot at having them carry our wine. This is due to the Doctor who attended La Tavola's first wine pairing dinner earlier in the month. We love customers like this. Thanks, Doc!

Next friday we're at the Clintonville Co-Op. Eugene - tell us what you want and we'll bring some reserved just for you!

Inventory Update
JorroMa (syrah) is almost gone.
Pinot Noir (un-named as yet) is going to be so good it will not form part of any tastings unless bottle price is paid as it's an extremely small production - and it's very good. It will also first go on release to those on the mailing list for first chance to buy. It will be first come, first served. Availability around May or June this year for this fresh 2007 pinot noir.

We Stomped - Again

GET WINE

Friends

Thanks to all those of you who turned up on 10/11 and to those that helped out. We hope you stayed for food later on in the day and enjoyed the now traditional bonfire.

(above - the start - all clean - rollers prepped to take bins of grape to wooden tippers that feed the crusher's hopper with grapes)

The day did not go as smoothly as we had hoped as we had machinery issues with many a tear down. This was particularly annoying since we had replaced the main bearing on the destemmer's axel only a couple of night's earlier and hoped for clear running.

Also, some grape varietals just turned to a jam in the collector and refused to go through the pump to the fermentation vats, so there was a lot of reverting to Plan B which meant crushing into open top tubs that were then carried to the fermentation vats.

As if this wasn't frustrating enough, on Wednesday 15th we decided the Merlot was just like concrete so we reverted to Plan C which is foot stomping. We stomped by feet 2,160lbs of Merlot that night to free up the juice and produce a must capable of fermentation.

We're not called Via Vecchia (the old way) for nothing!

Needless to say, none of us found time and energy to take photos, although we hope to get some from Kay and Dan who were filming us again for The Documentary. Actually, I think Carrie posted some, but I lost the link... can you please provide again, thanks?
All in all 13,500lbs of grapes were crushed that day.
We did Sangiovese, Pinot Noir, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah.

Again, thanks to those that persevered with us on the day... Special mentions to;

Holly, you are an excellent stand in for Joe S;
Carrie, your enthusiasm amazes;
Nick & Joan, your apron appreciated your return visit;
Mr & Mrs H, what can we say, STARS!

But Mike H, you mean to say Colorado's got something better to offer?

And for those requesting it, here's Cynthia's Pasta Recipe. The veg and basil was picked from the garden that day.

Cynthia writes,
"I didn't get to all the guests on Saturday, and many people like the
sauce. So if you'd like to email them a thank-you with the recipe or
post it on the blog that might be fun.

Crush 2008 Fabulous Pasta Sauces

Fry 2 diced onions and 6 cloves crushed garlic in a good quantity of
olive oil. Then add 5-6 quarts of quartered fresh tomatoes, a bunch of
flat-leaf parsley, and an eighth cup of finely chopped basil, and a
teaspoon of finely ground rosemary. Simmer with 1/2 bottle of wine for
3 hours, and salt to taste.

Heat your serving plate in the oven. Then layer pasta, sauce, and
grated Parmesan cheese in about 3 or 4 layers for your average
platter. Makes about 4 platters.

For sausage sauce:
Cook 3 packages of nitrite-free hot sausages (Kroger is best), cool
and cut into rounds. Fry chopped mushrooms in olive oil, add diced
sausages and simmer until mushrooms are floppy. Add basic sauce and
simmer. Serve over penne layered as above onto a hot platter.

Yum!"

Thanks again. Next piece of work is transfer to secondary fermentation,

Full Moon Racking

Well, we're truly in the midst of secondary fermentation. This weekend saw the final racking of the wine. Last weekend was the full moon, dead on, so we transferred the bulk of the wine at this auspicious time. A lot of our process is dictated by moon phases and other un-scientific methods, but it means we can make wine without the treatments, so who're we to question millenia of practice.
This weekend we finished the wine in the demijons. The demijons manage our silty wine, enabling it to clear with time separate from the free run wine. Here's a picture of us racking from the demijons by siphoning. The demijon on the floor in the iron cage is thought to be around 100 years old (see previous post).

Our process, in part, relies on the lees in the wine to provide natural anti-oxidation/protection against air. It's the rationale behind the "sur lees" method of winemaking. Here's a view fo the lees that have settled out against the sides of a demijon that has just been racked. Lunar-esque n'est pas?


Now those same lees have fantastic astringent qualities too and make great face packs, as demonstrated by Via Vecchia's own Apron Boy (aka Paolo at right of pic) and Rob' Clone (aka Marty at left of pic).
Also note that Zen Tree Soaps uses these lees of ours in its face pack product.


And speaking of Zen Tree Soaps, here they are at the North Market in Columbus. The upright and longitudinal wooden display stands are made out of an old wine barrel of ours (Marty ran them up) and on them you would see, if you were there, soaps using grapes skins from our Pinot Noir and Syrah, sugar scrubs using grape seeds from our grapes and the face pack using our wine's lees.
This is a nice venture for us

Bursting Wine grapes.

We took delivery of the following grapes from California.
SanGiovese
Pinot Noir
Cabernet Sauvignon
Merlot
Syrah
[here we are with some of our grapes]


These grapes are then transferred to our stainless steel crusher and destemmer. We handle the cases of grapes across roller conveyors and sorting tables, and eventually they end up on a rig that tips them into our crusher.
Sorting. By this we mean we go through each case of grapes to remove all leaves, dried out grapes, green grapes and moldy grapes. This year's grape was very clean, even by our picky standards and although there was more leaf than expected, there were virtually no bad grapes.
[here's Mr.H on sorting duty. Stirling work as always]


Crushing. This is done by our crusher. Actually, it should be called bursting instead, since the rollers through which the grape passes are set such that they burst the grape and do not crush it flat. All we need is for the juice to become loose so that nature can start the fermentation.

Our crusher also has a destemmer which removes the stalks from the must that ends up in our fermentation drums. This year was different in that the usual handful of stalk did not make its way into the fermenter.

[here's Mike at the rig with the stainless steel crusher in the middle. The black sorting bins go in the platform to Mike's left. thius platform is then raised to tip the grape into the crusher. Notice juice and grape in the rig. Mike has his hands in the crusher's hopper - do not try this at home]

Next post will talk about the food we served up.

Labels (again) with more Crush Prep, MamaPalooza #2

Label Update.

We have settled on a front label for the SanGiovese, SanGiovese/Pinot Noir, Syrah and Cabernet Franc. The last corrections went off to Kim today to take care of.

We also got our rear label through. My own initial impressions were good. The four different takes of the rear label that Kim worked up for us will be discussed at tomorrow's winery meeting. Personally speaking, I hope we can have a definitive vote for one of them, in the same way we did for the photo for the rear label. If we do we can then proceed to get the labels reviewed and approved by the FEDs, and then Ohio Liquor Control Board.

Crush Prep.

Last week saw a re-think of the crush equipment set up. We had initially designed and built a chute system, but on further consideration this was actually the right solution to the wrong problem and so one redesign later, we're doing something different ... keep watching for a post and pictures on how this new development shakes out.

MamaPalooza #2

Remember we went to MamaPalooza a while back? Well, we're invited again. Those on the mailing list will get an invite too as we can invite others. There will be a pie competition too - those of you getting invites please look out for invite for website containing the details.

I guess we'll have to take more wine?

Alcohol Levels

Here's the latest on the wine's alcohol content. Now, remember, we don't chaptalise; we don't add sugar to the crushed grape and juice to give us the alcohol we want; we let the wine get on with it.

Of course, it's not THAT easy. There's a fine balance between the timing of the transfer from primary to secondary fermentation so that you a), don't kill fermentation and b), don't let the wine oversteep in its skins. A fine balance that doesn't prejudice the naturally occurring yeast's abilty to eat the sugar that's naturally present and convert it to alcohol.

So, given no sulfiting and no sugar, relying on experience and intuition, this is what our grape gave us:

a) Bordeaux Blend - 11.5% to 12%.

b) SanGiovese - 11%

c) SanGiovese/Pinot Noir - 11%

d) Shiraz - 12.5%

e) Cab franc - 13%

This is the high end, if not the pinnacle, of what you could hope for without artificially adjusting the fermenting wine.

This is wine alcohol levels (let's ignore the Cab Franc) that you can comfortably drink with a meal at lunchtime and return to work sober on. On a hot day, what better than a wine with a cool lunch that won't knock you for six.

The Cab franc. Remember we reported it had kicked up again? Well this is what it was doing; creating an (I would say) impossible 13% for a wine with no artificially added sugar. Go figure. We don't run a laboratory so we'll live with it.

Topping Up

There are many who claim to have fun with what they do, and yet... and yet you look at what they post to their web sites and blogs and they all look so serious and well, not having fun. I know we have been accused of just having fun, but frankly, since when does having fun lessen the importance or credibility of what you do? And that's not rhetorical, you can answer and debate that one with us if you like.

So anyway, today's fun was topping up the barrels. We also had the pleasure of Mike coming over to visit and help. We haven't seen enough of him lately and it was good to have him joining in the fun - or should I say, work.

We topped up from our reserves in the demijons. All hand pouring no less, with lots of sampling. We have some video of that, but can't post it here as some of us got a bit colorful in our comments.
The Cabernet Franc had kicked up again! We won't interfere with that though and we'll let it burn itself out. We do not want high alcohol wine but that Franc may well push it for us, so we may actually withhold it from sale this year and blend it with something next year.
We also tried a 50% Cabernet Franc and 50% Syrah mix - too early too tell what it would be really like, but it was pretty much alright, good even, anyway, we drank it.

So now to pictures.

This is our hand crafted process in action. Careful pouring to top up the barrel. Please note that there you see direct evidence of our natural filtration process - note the sediment at the bottom of the gall jug? well that has settled out and will not go into the barrel. The same happens in the barrel. When we siphon the wine out of the barrel the sediment will be left behind. In the meantime it's a lesser form of a sur lees method of winemaking. The lees are reputed to be natural antioxidants too, and is why we are able not to rely on sulfiting.


This is our board room. Very serious, as if!

This is us under the watchful eye of Bacchus. A gift from Katrina, who Michael (white shirt) proposed to.


Finally, we got the 2005 Winery Year DVD out - we have two versions 1, the fast cut/lively music version and 2, the sepia toned/Italian folk song soundtrack. As those of you who have seen these productions of prior years, I hope you'll agree they're just full of fun. But then, we do have fun, as I said.

Wine Transfer Notes

[Two of the "Old Boys". These demijons came from Grondola in the Tuscan Appenines. They're at least 55 years old if we give it a break, 'cos if it travelled with Paolo's family in the first migration to England, in the 1920s, then they're older]

Some basic info on the wines we've been transferring over the past couple of weeks.

Please note that the Natural Sulfite Level ("NSL") is that which occurs in our wine naturally. We measured it last weekend. What we measure here are the Free Sulfites that are able to deal with oxygen in the wine and keep it locked up out of the liquid, preventing it turning the wine or feeding any residual yeasts/sugars. You'll remember that we have not added anything to this wine at all.

"ppm" is "parts per million.

The Organic Standard for Wine is 120ppm free sulfites ("Org")

The Federal Standard for Wines is 350ppm free sulfites ("Fed")

The Californian Standard for Red Wine is 175ppm / White Wine is 225ppm ("CA")

"Bordeaux Blend" comprises Cabernet Sauvignon, cabernet Franc and Merlot.

Varietal or Blend ------------- NSL --------pH------------Final ppm

-------------------------------------------------------------------- (Org = 120ppm)

San Giovese ----------------------- 31ppm -----3.8--------------80ppm
San Giovese/Pinot Noir Blend - 33ppm -------3.8--------------80ppm
Shiraz ------------------------------ 37ppm -----4.0 - 4.2-------60ppm
Bordeaux Blend ------------------ 40ppm -----3.8 - 4.0-------60ppm
Cab Franc ------------------------- 35ppm ------3.8 - 4.0------60ppm

For wine to be drunk between now and September, the NSL sulfite levels are fine. Since we'll be ageing these wines, and then they'll sit in bottles, these levels are too low and there are not enough free sulfites to deal with the controlled oxidation as they sit in barrels and any residual yeasts/sugars that may want to get something started.

Yeast can survive in up to 15% by volume alcohol. Maybe why we see a lot of those higher alcohol wines is that it's hoped they'll deal with residual yeasts so sulfiting can be reduced, but you need very high acid to deal with high alcohol so lord knows what's thrown in to knock the acidic taste back.

For us, this is a difficult time. We do not want to lose the wine. We do not want to use even, in our minds, the excessive Org standard for sulfiting. We are fortunate to have good Acid. So we make a judgement call. This year we decided to add minimum sulfite still way below the lowest Org Standard and below the recommended sulfite levels for the given ppm, pH and volume. If the San Giovese and Pinot had ended up in French Oak barrels then we would have stuck to 60ppm, as it is, we're using new (to us) technology and don't know how the wine will age in it so we erred on caution but still well below Org Standards.

As far as our chemical intervention goes, this is it the beginning and end of it.

[Two of our Bordeaux Blend French oak Barrels. They're handsome aren't they]

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Barrels, Drama & We're On The Air WSCS 90.9FM

[here's Anton (left) and me (Paolo) with French Oak loaded up]
The French Oak arrived on Tuesday - and so did the snows. Mid afternoon Anton and I did a sanity check - do we just get them because we're excited and will do it under any conditions, no matter how bad, or do we wait. We decided to get them but not take the trailer and risk it sliding all over the place pulling the back end of the pickup all over the place.
In the end we loaded 6 barrels on the pickup and secured them with straps. They were held in place by a stand on the end. The remaining barrel and two stands when in the Explorer.
Marty was at the winery to help unload.

[above - here we all are with our pet cellar rat in middle - left to right, Michael, Marty, Cellar Rat, Paolo, Anton]
Drama.
Since the flextanks won't be here for the weekend there's no rush to do the Bordeaux so all we did on Wednesday was the Shiraz. Everything was going fine but then Marty said that the barrel we were filling was creaking. Was it the wood responding to slightly warmer wine? Was it the barrel settling on its rack as it got heavier? Creaking? So I turned the pump off and went to go see. Just as I arrived Marty pulled the hose out of the barrel and the wine exploded out of the bung hole!
What had happened was that as we were filling there was no air escaping and so the barrel was creaking as the pressure built up inside. You'd think the hose would have popped out of the bung hole. So a good thing we didn't keep on as we may have burst the barrel itself. Has that happened before?
We couldn't start the pump after that until after we disconnected all hoses and stripped the impeller housing down and then took a look at the drive pulley. We got it going again.
After we filled 2 barrels (@158gallons or 790 bottles) we then decanted the Shiraz in the demijons. This will be used to top up the Shiraz barrels.
On Saturday we'll do the Bordeaux blend, and next week the Sangiovese Pinot Noir.

Friday we're On Air at WSCS 90.9FM New Hampshire - I think they broadcast on the web too. We'll be talking at 2.45pm EST on the Kitchen-sink program. Soap-box time! We must behave.

And this is John who came by to lend a hand. He's siphoning the Shiraz in the demijon.