Pinot Noir is pressed...

Last night the Pinot Noir was down to 3.5 brix, so I scheduled this morning to press the grapes. Not owning a press, I did it the same way I did the last batch--by hand with a press bag and a funnel. (See previous blog post for sample pics. I couldn't shoot pics by myself this morning.) I ended up with 8.5 gallons of wine. There were quite a few whole berries in there. Once you press them, you get a fair amount of sugar back into the wine, so the fermentation picks up again in the carboy. So right now I have a 6 gallon carboy, (2) one gallon jugs and (1) 1/2 gallon jug, all with airlocks in the necks. They are still fermenting. I will let them sit and ferment to total dryness over the next 3 weeks. The Malbec was down to 10 brix last night (remember, it was chaptalized) so I expect it will be ready to press in 2 days.

In other developments, the 10 additional Marquette vines showed up yesterday, so the kids helped me plant them yesterday. Today I put them all in grow tubes. Tomorrow I'll post some pics of the developing vineyard!

-Jacques