Progress on my Wine Grapes Direct Wines

July 19, 2020

It’s been a year since I last gave an update about My Quest for Top-Quality Fruit for Making Superlative Wines.

In April 2019, I started the following three wines from frozen must (20-L/5.25-gal pails) from the 2018 harvest sourced from Wine Grapes Direct:

• Sonoma Chardonnay, Russian River Valley AVA, Olivet Lane Vineyard
• Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, Calistoga AVA
• Oregon Pinot Noir, Willamette Valley, Chehalem Mountains AVA

Here’s a quick update on where the wines are at.

2018 Sonoma Chardonnay, Russian River Valley AVA, Olivet Lane Vineyard

Just yesterday (July 18, 2020) I bottled this superb wine – just the style of wine I had set out to make. I was looking for a fuller-bodied, barrel-aged-style Chardonnay but without investing in a new barrel.

I aged the wine for 6 months with a Burgundy Toast, Allier French Oak WineStix and on the lees with stirring once a week the first 3 months followed by another 7 months of aging with a new WineStix. I did a bentonite fining and cold stabilization by placing the carboy in the fridge at 1–2°C (34–36°F) for 2 months. Potassium has dropped from 1726 mg/L to 869 mg/L – a sure sign that cold stabilization worked. I still performed cold stability tests using three methods to compare results: freezer test, conductivity test, and Concentration Product (CP) measurement. All three tests/methods proved that the wine is completely tartrate stable.

The wine was already exceptionally clear measuring 0.77 NTU after the bentonite treatment, but I chose to filter at 1.2 microns to give it extra brilliance; it measured 0.56 NTU after filtration. Whites should be bottled with a “clarity” (what’s called turbidity in winemaking-speak) below 1.0.

The final numbers at bottling are:

TA (g/L) = 4.53

pH = 3.50

%ABV = 12.65

RS (g/L) = 0.68

The wine has exceptional balance – acidity (TA), residual sugar (RS) and tannins are in perfect harmony. I did add 1 mL/L gum arabic (as a 30% solution) to give the wine extra mouthfeel. At slightly below room temperature – how such a Chardonnay is best enjoyed – the wine displays complex citrusy aromas with subtle oak notes and smooth flavors reminiscent of some Chablis I have enjoyed in my travels to Burgundy and some of the top Chardonnays from Sonoma. It will certainly get more delicious with some aging. We’ll see how it evolves in 18–24 months. It sure is promising.

This Russian River Valley Chardonnay surely delivered on its promise, well, at least expectations given its US$250 cost for a pail. That works out to just under $10 per bottle. It’s well worth the price. Ok! Ok! My cost is a bit higher given the 2+ liters (half a gallon) I used for tasting and testing. Quality control is important.

Simply a delicious wine. My only regret is that I didn’t make more.

2018 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, Calistoga AVA

This Napa Cab has been aging for about 15 months now with a Burgundy Toast, Allier French Oak WineStix. It is still very closed in. It is also displaying some green-pepper aromas that I’m hoping continued oak aging will mask as they distract from the overall aroma profile. I am expecting this wine to take time to open up and show its full potential although I’m concerned about long-term ageablity given its high pH (3.87). But working with and aging high-pH wines is nothing foreign to me.

The wine still has high acidity (7.92 g/L) and tons of potassium, suggesting that a cold stabilization treatment can reduce TA. My concern here is that its relatively lower color intensity might drop further after a cold treatment (tartrates absorb and drop color pigments). The good news, as I reported in my June 25, 2019 update, is that the red color had gained in brilliance and the yellow/brown component had dropped significantly, the net result being that hue is in a favorable range with the wine displaying better color. Hue is a measure of how wine is aging by comparing the amount of yellow/brown color to red.

So we’ll revisit this wine in a few months to see how it is evolving.

2018 Oregon Pinot Noir, Willamette Valley, Chehalem Mountains AVA

This Pinot is starting to open up very slowly, very, very slowly – finally! It is characteristically an Oregonian Pinot displaying berry fruit, round and soft mouthfeel and good balance with the oak just starting to shine through after 15 months.

Here too TA is high at 7.09 g/L with a bit of a challenging pH of 3.60 but with much less potassium than the Napa Cab. The color is consistent and as expected for a Pinot, i.e., it is light in style, so I probably won’t put the wine through cold stabilization so as not to drop color further. I also feel that the 3.26 g/L of RS balances out the acidity adequately for my palate.

This Pinot might be delivering on expectations after all. It just needs more aging to further develop into something bigger. I had become very fond of Oregon Pinots during my travels to the region, and I’m hoping to recreate the same style that I have become to appreciate and enjoy.