It’s approaching the middle of November, and most of our juice is finally here. The barrels were stored inside for about two days to allow the juice to acclimate and warm up enough for the yeast to be effective. In that short time, our Riesling barrel decided to start a natural fermentation cycle. Not exactly an ideal situation, but not necessarily bad either. It was time to get the yeast we wanted in there.
We chose to use Lalvin DV10. DV10 is fairly natural yeast that works adequately for reds and whites without adding much of a flavor profile. This allows us to get more of a natural taste of the wine without the added flavors from our yeast. So in goes our yeast, and by the next day BOY did our basement stink. I told Matt we CANNOT have our home smelling like this. The CO2 levels were a concern being trapped in the house, so yet again, it was time for Matt to think of a quick solution.
Matt designed a simple system using SCH40 PVC pipe that allowed us to tie in multiple lines of flex tubing. These tubes would be connected to a modified buttress cap on the barrel. The CO2 and fermentation gases would simply go through the tubing, into the pipe, and out of the house. Problem solved my home smelled good again and CO2 wasn’t trapped in our home.
Primary fermentation would last about 4 days. From there the barrels would rest for about one week inside, and then put outside for about another week. The low outside temperatures allow a more rapid fallout of the wine. If the wine stays warm, the yeast float around longer and cause sediment stir and haze. Eventually the yeast will go dormant, but we move them into the cold so the yeast is shocked and forced into a dormant state much faster. This causes the yeast to fall to the bottom, along with the sediment.
From there we will rack transfer through a 5 micron cartridge filter into an Astropouch drum liner. A 5 micron filter will catch major sediment so the wine can age without some of the heavier sediment, such as pulp, that can add an off flavor if it sits too long. Astropouch is a brand of shipping liners. These bags are used to ship and store bulk liquids with barriers for maintaining oxygen and light. They are sterile and provide a clean and flavorless means of aging. The wines will settle in these bags for an additional 2-3 weeks, where they will be adjusted, additionally filtered, and bottled.
