Every End is a New Beginning ~ Proverb
I'm dragging my feet heading over to The Wine Barn. Our specific gravity hit 1.00 and our brix is zero, so it's time to press the wine. After spending so much intimate time with the wine this week, I'm always left feeling like I'm putting a six-year old on a school bus of bullies or sending an ill-prepared teen off to college. It seemed as if it took forever for the grapes to ripen this year, but their fermentation was fast -- much faster than the Zin's, which was 4.5 brix higher. We kept the barn temperature consistent at approximately 70, nevertheless, it's done with fermentation. So after a week of four to five punchdowns a day and night, it's time to end the infancy of this wine and move it on to secondary fermentation, what's known as MLF, malolactic fermentation, in which the malic acid is converted to lactic acid, which will take the edge off the wine and make it softer, more palatable. This phase will be completed in carboys. When this pha...