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In October 2007, the founder of OregonWines.com has again begun making Pinot Noir with grapes he hand-picked at an Oregon vineyard. Follow his journey in this blog.
10pm - time to press (October 13, 2009)
It was as good a time as any. The wine was between 1.03 and 1.08 in each of the fermenters. Yes, we could have waited longer, but we figured we had already gotten optimal extraction from the skins, such that a little time for the wine to just bubble by itself couldn't hurt.
And so the process began. I was assisted by my wife Virginia. We took turns, one person holding a carboy with a funnel in the neck, up to the spout on the front of the press, while the other person scooped a quart of wine/must at a time out of the fermenter and placed it in the middle of the press. As the center filled up and the scoops of pomace gave way to more and more juice, it started flowing freely into the carboy. The process was so efficient, in fact, that when it actually came time to pressing the skins, I was tempted to forgo it entirely and just use the free run wine (that which runs free from the press without any pressing). I calculated that the pressing only gained about 1 gallon of wine per each fermenter, or, about 10% of the 32 gallons of wine we ended up with at the end of the evening.
That is probably the greatest surprise for me. Having worked with Pinot Noir a number of years, I was not prepared for the sheer amount of liquid from the Tempranillo and Syrah, or, how few skins there really were in the end, considering how many gallons of wine we came away with.
32 gallons! And here is a picture for proof.
You may notice that the two carboys in the front actually have their airlocks taped down. For some reason, the two 5-gallon carboys do NOT fit the correct rubber stoppers, and I'd rather use some tape to hold them in place than let them go and risk them falling out for any reason.
The next step is to just let it all sit and continue its work. It appears malolactic ferment is still underway (this is to be expected), as well as the fact the wine still has another 12-18 hours left before it depletes any remaining sugars. But for now, the work is done, and the 2 hours we spent cleaning up everything with a high-pressure garden hose is now time well invested in the OregonWines.com 2009 vintage!
Best regards,
David Anderson
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