so….

           As the harvest finishes the ferments follow close behind.  general speaking the ferment is a 7 - 10 day process beginning with the bin being filled all the way to the emptying of it. the eyes of the winery staff follow the sugar amounts as they slowly get “eaten” by yeast as the alcoholic fermentation progresses.  there are many different ways to measure sugar, and every one does it different, some people do it the same.  when using a sampling program like ours, every day you chart out the ferment, following the density and the temperature. so, once every morning you march through the fermentor rooms taking samples for each ferment.  most days are just little changes, it can be a bit blan, sometimes it can be exciting if the ferment is fast and drops significantly over night.  But the basic reasons this program is in place is to detect faulty ferment as soon as they begin. ferments can be thought of as living things, because they are indeed a lot of living things, lots and lots.  So all together one would call it safe to say that the fermentor of size is as living as any other living thing.  so…  like living things, the fermentor or ferment is pron to diseases, illness, infection and everything else.   when a ferment falls ill, it can do a few different things. some worse than others.  hopefully its just some stinky odur that can be fixed by some simple splashing.  but sometimes it not that simple. the ferment can slow or can stop. that means your pretty little graph that you have been making might have a big flat ugly blemish on it*.  nobody likes a density graph that’s not going down.

stuck fermentation.

           sitting on a stuck ferment of some fruit your neighbor pawned off one you in a picking bin that you got in the basement under your house, that’s a hassle.  sitting on a stuck three tone ferment of you good cab, that’s a little more than a hassle.  Now, sitting one a five tone stuck ferment of top notch Cote Rotie is flat out unacceptable.

            everyone has there own ideas on how to combat a fussy ferment, i think its safe to say that there is no one right way, but there are definitely a lot or wrong ways.

           when you have a tank that is still with its sugar and an acceptable level of alcohol for fermentation. all your trying to do is restart the ferment, push it along so to speak.  keep in mind that in this situation, the ferment is all indigenous yeast, all natural.  there are a number of was to go about it, one idea is to press early. in this “stuck ferment”, the sugar is almost all  gone. so it might be safe to say that you could send it to barrel to finish off slow. but that risks the chance of secondary kicking in, if ML starts when you still have sugar it can get messy fast.  so in sted, we go whit the old “kick start”.

        you need some things first. most important you need a ferment that is compatible with your stucky and fermenting well and strong, you need a small mixing tank too.  what you do is; get a variable volume tank that can hold about 10th the size of the stuck ferment. mix up 2 parts good ferment and 1 part bad ferment in your little tank.  add about 5 - 10 density points of sugar in and mix well.  check your density to be sure of correct amount application.  you can use some nitrogen too if you like.  give this concoction a little time to start moving.  if the mix starts to  drop in density then you have done the hardest part. now keep adding juice from either good or bad ferments until you have around a 10% volume of the total volume of the stuck ferment.  you can apply some heat to help out too.  mix it in and see what happens. hopefully the small accelerated volume of happy yeast will be enough to push the tank over, if not… then your making dessert wine.

take a look at the video to see it done in a layed back fashion.

reanimating

What I want to talk about today is white wine “phenolics”. Especially with Viognier it can get very phenolic, because Viognier is harvested late to achieve optimal flavour. Viognier that is harvested too young can taste green flavours, so generally viogniers always have a alcohol of 14 plus percent.

With the fruit ripeness of viognier comes that phenolics that I dont like. It leaves a bitterness in your mouth when viognier is consumed young. With bottle age it softens, almost like Tannins, but who wants to wait for Viognier to soften when you can drink it NOW. So what i think they do over here at Cuilleron is to press the Viognier sort of “whole bunch” and not destemmed or crushed.  Although it would have been softer to gently throw grapes into the press, we throw whole bunch Viognier, Marsanne and Rousanne into an auger that pumps into the press, when you have as much as us, you dont have time for the fine print. Watch the video and you will see what I am talking about.

If the grapes were to be destemmed and crushed it would have  more phenolics which get extacted out of stems and skins. so they do it “whole bunch” the convenient auger way to prevent lacertion of the skins and stems.

Condrieu is a more fruity and less phenolic Viognier than what i am use to.

Louis Koch
South African Intern at Cave Yves Cuilleron
kochsterjnr@icss.co.za

Harvest is here!

Pumping over is the name of the game, whit over 20 tanks fermenting at any given time, not to mention the wight’s in barrels.  if you look closely at the picture above, you might notice the second lid back is being pushed off its seat.  this is a good visual representation of how it going here, we are bursting at the seams.  The work is great and the food is even better.

during some excellent tours i have had the privilege to listen to some very experienced winemakers divuldge pertinent information regarding terrior and the means to preserve it.  In an effort to bring these lessons to the californa wine maker, i am trying to compare the different procedures and determine the most practical fashion, style or procedure for your fermentation. so it starts with the crush witch brings me to the topic of cold soaking, something i see very often in californa winery’s.

 So we all know the term “cold soaking”.  What does it mean? To cold soak is to allow your fruit to sit by its self in a similar fashion to fermentation, but there is no inoculation, this is all pre- fermentation. The fruit sits in a bin, tank, or any container; just like it would as if it were to be fermented. the idea behind this is to allowe the juice to gain a longer duration of   “skin contact time”.   As we all know the skin is the primary source of color, and many other factors as well.   The skin of the berry can account for 5% - 12%  of total weight of the fruit. The skin consists of an epidermis with 6 - 10  layers of thick walled cells. The skin is covered with a wax like layer known as the Cutin, sometimes referred to as the Bloom.  The cutin can account for 1% - 2% of total weight, it consists of mainly oleanolic acid (79%),  long chain alcohols with traces of esters, fatty acids, aldehyeles and paraffins. What does it all mean? By soaking the fruit, you are allowing it to saturate it self with the constituents of “color” and “flavor” with no alcohol pressent ; thus producing a darker more extracted juice in the end, theoretically.  Now, addition of dry ice during the crush is very common in California, the idea behind this is to prevent the indigenous yeast from beging fermentation by maintaining a temperature below minimum fermentation temperature.  basically you add dry ice to keep the fruit too cold to ferment.  dry ice also off gases, so in a sense it is protecting the fruit by repelling oxygen. once you have “cold soaked” long enough, the dry ice is gone and you can inoculate your fruit. Sometimes the use of a large refrigerators or thermal jacketing on tanks can be used too. Typical California.

What about the Rhone? How do they do it?

Well they do a few ways.  But to address california’s “Cold soaking” method; indigenous yeast is terrior.  Terrior is the focus. indigenous yeast takes more time to “kick off” than cultured yeasts.  More time equates to soaking. not cold soaking, there is no dry ice involved not even a thermal jacketed tank.  in this fashion cooling the bin would be counterproductive, the bin is trying to build its own heat slowly. The extra time involved with the indigenous yeast maceration accounts for soaking witch basically equates to color stabilization.  Along whit this there is no alcohol present, allowing the fruit to “break down” or “pre-blend” itself in a natural environment.  So it would seem that this method of indigenous yeast is a bit more simple, cost effective and less time consuming.  there is no need for temperature regulation or hassling with expensive equipment. you dont have to buy dry ice and make sure you get it before you crush, you dont have to figure out how to distribute it equally among the fruit (something i have never seen done right), and you dont have small freezing chunks in the bin burning your fruit. we all know what happens to your hand when you hold dry ice, it burns, does it do the same to the fruit? i wonder? what does that do to the final product?

basically it comes down to terrior: throwing scoops of dry ice in the crusher, or, simply letting the bin do what it wants, slow and steady. maybe using a micro oxygenator to assist and accelerate maceration(if needed). i Dont know if one is better than the other, as of now; pre-cooling seems to be more of a emergency measure rather than a standard procedure.  But until we get to the bottom of all this, if there is a bottom, we are keeping an open mind in hope of a better bottle.

So as i swirl around in a unfocused rant i am dumped on the door step of the next question that seems to be the answer to the first, whatever that was.

 What is the difference between the indigenous yeast in California and the indigenous yeast in France.   Whow…  good question. and guess what……. i am working on an answer. If there is someone out there who can help, please do. 

Parallele “45″. 2005.

Cote Du Rhone 13.5 Alc. by Vol.  Paul Jaboulet Aine.

This was a million bottle production, and i am impressed with the presence of complexity in this wine. This would fool some blind tasters, i recommend just to try it and see.  Soft light and right, another easy drinker, dont pass this one up. it is worth every penny.

7 euro

Guigal, Cote Du Rhone. 2003

13.0 Alc. by vol. Showing a tad of age with a peachy rust tint on the edges. Smell is right, and ripe.  There seems to be more Grn. in the blend but i could be wrong. This wine opens up nicely to a easy drinker that can handle a thirsty crowd, and for the price its another great buy.

6.5 euro

Cote Du Rhone.

Les Cranilles.  2005   Cuilleron, Gaillard, Villard.

13.5 alc. by vol. color is light , tannins are light as well, smooth with a colorful pallet.  Was a little sharp at first but in time opened nicely.  This bottle held up for 24 hr. and lived every second to the last sip.  A excellent buy for the price point, 7 euro.

50% syrah - 50% Grnacha.

               Going Underground With Guigal!                                                      

         So last week I managed to creep a peep in a dungeon of ” oaky stinky moldy madness“. Whatever that means to you?  The Guigal facilities are, I would say; equivalent to the N.A.S.A. space center.  Just a few numbers of the top of my head: 10000 bottles an HOUR bottling machine.  You might want to sit down.  4000 or “so” barrels all underground in what seems to be a maze of tunnels, oh ya perfect humidity and all that jazz too.

The structure it’s self is seismically constructed and has footings reaching about 7 meters into the ground.  yea, yea, you’ll see it all in the video coming up, oh, IF, we can find a video camera that is not a cell phone with a 20second clipper on it, i am shure “some…………..thing” will pop up.    

So besides drooling over a mountain of stainless steel “Everything’s“, we did actually taste some wines as-well.

 2006 Condrieu,

100% viogneir.    13.15 alc. by vol.

aged in 1/3 new oak and 2/3 stainless

100% ML.

the weight was outstanding, the finish better and the acidity insane.

2006 Condrieu “La Dorine”

100% viogneir  13.15 alc. by vol.

aged in 100% neutral oak.

100% ML.

same story, great mouth feel and outstanding weight, totally pleasant and almost chewey with a glossy finish.

HERMITAGE “Ex Voto”

aged 3 years!

95% marsan

5% rousan

I can’t even begin to explain the sensation in my mouth, this wine is totally unbelievable.  it is like no wine, red or wight i have ever tasted before. This one your on your own.

2003 Cote Rotie

Brune Aet Blonde

13% alc.

36 month age in neutral oak

4% viogneir.

have dranken the Voto prior to this i did not take any notes but im sure it was good

2003 Cote Rotie

Chateau D Ampuis

13% alc.  38 months in new oak

excellent.  stinky syrah nose, but great taste not as much weight but it goes down so easy.

1998 cote rotie

La Turque

13% alc.

42 months in 100% new oak

you can taste every second of the age, balance and class, the wine was intelligent and illusive but bold in its own way.

  So what a day. The next visit is going to be great!

Cheers.

A little history for the the region. I don’t like to pretend that i know something i don’t, unless i have to.  Sense there is an abundant amount of information online regarding the history and other useful regional information, I think it’s a better idea to just let the people who have done the work take the credit. 

It’s a “win win” situation. Here are some usful links for Condrieu history and local “Good to knows“.

This is the tourism office, self explainatory

http://www.tourisme.fr/tourist-office/condrieu.htm 

Another good info site, not that great, but useful.

http://www.terroir-france.com/region/rhone_condrieu.htm 

This is the best sight for some good hard solid facts. Have at it…

http://www.adonkeyandgoat.com/texier/wines/nr/condrieu.htm