ZABIBU

We are approaching this years harvest of Pinot Noir and we should be there with the sugars in two weeks or so. There were rain clouds threatening today again which I am not too happy about. Because we have some pinching at this late stage in the fruit (I showed pictures of this in an earlier post) if we do get rain now then the pinched fruit might go bad and would then introduce ‘nasties’ into the wine. Normally these pinched grapes would just dry up. So hope I am hoping it does not rain until the fruit is in. In addition we can get some splitting of the fruit if a big rain hits us now. If that were to happen then I would be doing a Pinot Blanc in a few days, but lets keep fingers crossed.

Just wanted to share last years numbers for the Pinot Noir here so that there is some comparison for anyone who is interested. I will also begin to give you some weekly temperatures too, although I could do with getting a new thermometer to measure the lowest temperatures. Maybe soon. It might also be interesting to post some of the figures for earlier wines too in future posts.

So for the Pinot Noir last year- 2005;

Pruned on 7th of October 2005. Buds burst on 24th October 2005

Harvest Date 25th February 2005. Destemmed and crushed same day. Added42ppm to must on 25thFebruary 2005.

Yeast added on 26th February 2005

No November rain so the vines were extremely stressed this year

462 vines of Pinot Noir

200 Lts Juice converted to 150 lts of wine

Brix at Harvest 24: Sugar 43 oz/gallon

pH at harvest 3.3

pH through the press 3.5

TA at harvest 1.21

Primary fermentation started on 27th February and ended on 1st March.

Added Malolactic culture on 14th March 2006

Pinot 2005 in the open fermentation tanks