2022 Syrah

The Syrah grapes were small and a bit dehydrated, and many of them did not break in the crusher, so we went old school and macerated the grapes with our feet. Here is my wife crushing grapes.  

I have never made a Syrah varietal, tho I made a Syrah blend in 2009. I just made a Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot last year, so it seemed like a good time to try Syrah. 

Syrah Wine Recipe

72 lb        Syrah grapes (Lodi Gold from Delta Packing; Lodi CA)
2 g            yeast energizer    
4 g            pectic enzyme
1 pk        Lalvin 4b
After six days of fermentation add:
1 t        Chestnut wood tannin (Vintner's Best; LD Carlson) (t means teaspoon)

Ferment to near dryness, then press. 
After one week added:

3.5 T 4007 Malolactic Blend from Wyeastlab 

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The density was 1.108 before formation. The refractive index gives 26.2 deg Brix. This is destined to make a 14.8 to 15% alcohol, which is a lot. 

The idea of the tannin add is to prevent grape proteins from pulling out all the grape tannins by putting in other tannin. Also the chestnut wood tannin is fairly desirable in terms of flavor complexity being similar to tannins extracted from charred wood. 

October 22, 2022:  pH = 3.4; 0.8% total acid as tartaric. This is a little high, so I will probably add some alkali to get about 0.6%. 

2022 Zinfandel

Zinfandel has been some of my favorite homemade wines. I did not make one last year, so I wanted to try another one. 

Grapes after crushing

These grapes seemed pretty good. I worked hard at pre-stemming the grapes. Other years I would crush the crapes and then manually remove the stems from the must. This year m wife and I manually removed stems on half, and then used milk-crate as a screen to do the other half. 

Recipe

 144 pound        Zinfandel grapes Valley Beauty/Delta Packing Loci California
6 g                     pectic enzyme    
5 g                    yeast energizer
2 packs            Lalvin EC1118

After one week add:

5.5 T 4007 Malolactic Blend from Wyeastlab

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The density was 1.102 which should make 13.2% alcohol. The refractive index gave 23.5 deg Brix which should make 12.3% alcohol. Not sure why the discrepancy. 

I looked it up in Pambianchi's new book, and both methods gave higher alcohol content of about 13. Maybe the new book's tables are better than his old book.  I decided not to add more sugar. I hope I don't regret that. 

The fermentation started quickly. 

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October 22, 2022: pH = 3.3; TA = 0.7% as tartaric. This is probably fine.  I have no plan to adjust. 

French Colombard

I have never made a French Colombard, but there is always the first time. My impression is the juice is pretty flavorful, so the wine should be as well. 

Recipe

 72 pounds    grapes
2 g                yeast energizer
2 g                pectic enzyme
1 pack            Lalvin QA23

The density of the juice was 1.096 which should make 12% alcohol. The refractive index gave 21.5 degrees Brix, which should make 12.6% alcohol. This seems good to me. 

The fermentation started quickly. 

October 22, 2022: pH is low at 2.9. The total acid or TA is 0.87% tartaric acid. Between the low pH and the high TA; it probably smart to bring this down.