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Monday, December 30, 2013

2014 Vintage Plan, Continuing to get stuff done

2014 Vintage plan is to try and make less wine. We have been making too much and am not getting through it even by giving away samples. The plan is to only make two possibly three whites Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and if we can get it Traminer. Going to try a much longer skin contact time with some of the Chardonnay – about 48 hours just to see what happens. Mount Mary do this and make some superb wine but of course they have a different climate. With the Sauvignon Blanc it'll be no skin contact this time. Just a pressing and slow cold ferment just to get a fresh floral Summer wine. The Traminer will just cold soak overnight, press and slow cold ferment.

The reds plan is Pinot, Shiraz, Tannat, Tempranillo and Chambourcin and maybe Cabernet Sauvignon if it is available. The only experiment this time will be to cold macerate for 3 days where normally it only gets chilled down to 10 C overnight. If the fruit is good quality about 10-20% whole bunches will be included and usually about 10% of the juice is bled off to increase the skin to juice ratio and the extracted juice used for Rose. The fermentation temperatures will be higher 27-32 C and once it gets down to about one third sugar I'll put on an airlock and leave it to get a minimum of 22 days with skin contact. Finally press and add 3gms/l of French Oak chips and 3gms/l of American Oak chips and see what happens. We haven't been racking in recent years just bottling in November /December but its time to get back to racking this vintage and see what effect it has on the flavour.
 
But back to reality at HHF. The lawns received some attention ahead of the predicated hot weather for the coming week. A batch of Lowenbrau beer was bottled and a batch of Guinness kicked off. Weeding continued and we even managed a few laps in the pool. Being a fast day we started dinner early as we were starving. Just a selection of cheeses with sliced zucchini and sliced Tropical Apple followed by a grilled Eggplant and Tomato stack with left over vitello tonnato sauce and finally the pizza using the sour dough base. We made two pizzas using as many ingredients out of the garden as possible and some anchovies on one and sardines on another. They looked like pizza stacks. Oh and a glass or two of 2011 HHF Shiraz.
 
Grilled Eggplant and Tomato stack
 
 
 
Not much left
 

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