MCV FARM NEWS - 10/17/08 - Soaking and Marinating

Morning Ya'll,

Well, it has been another busy week of picking here on the farm. We have picked our Merlot, Semillon and Syrah in the past couple of days. I am quite happy with the quality of our fruit. We had very ripe Merlot as our yields were very low in the vineyard. Low yields equals riper fruit. Earlier in the year we had severe rains during flowering which greatly lowered yields. Our yields have been low in Merlot, but quality high. Semillon was picked and allowed to have skin contact prior to being pressed. We wanted to extract some of the precious flavors that are held in the skins. It is exciting and a large relief to have most of the grapes now safely in the winery.

When the red grapes are picked the fruit is de-stemmed and put into stainless steel tanks where they will cold soak for several days. Cold soaking is the equivalent of allowing a steak to marinate. During the cold soak we obtain extraction from the skins of the grapes. Cold soaking will help us assure that we get as much of the tannins as we can from the skins. I typically soak on average about 3-4 days prior to starting the fermentation. This helps assure that we have the softest and richest tannins on the palette.

After several days of cold soaking I will call in the aid of yeast and fermentation will commence. Fermenting reds are handled differently than fermenting whites and I will talk about this more next week. As always please feel free to ask any questions that you may have in the tasting room! Talk with ya'll shortly.


Cheers,
Juan.