Recent content by johngg123

Brix hit 23 yesterday on 2 of my Pinot noir vines here in San Diego. After 1/4 of the crop was lost to yellow jackets I decided to harvest. Here's pics of yellow jacket damage, grapes with stems and without. Froze the de-stemmed grapes while the rest of the vineyard catches up. Cheers, John

I have a couple Pinot Noir vines in San Diego with some early red clusters. Brix measuring at 15. My other pinot vines have all green clusters still. Once brix hits 24-ish on these clusters should I just freeze them until the rest of the vineyard catches up? John

It eventually dried out completely. Unfortunately, the wine didn't turn out that great. Nothing majorly wrong, just not great flavor. Either sub-par grapes (Lodi is not known for cab sav) or something i screwed up along the way (SO2 management or wild yeast contamination.) I'll be doing...

Great idea! I've cut back the red dotted line a little bit and removed a couple blue lines that are farther away from the trunk. I'll let the rest play out and see what it looks like in winter.. Thanks Grapeman! Sent from my iPad using Wine Making

Sure thing, here's some pics to clear things up. During dormant pruning I did cut the trunk just below the wire. In wide-view picture, the red dashed line is this year's new growth alone the wire (the new cordon.) The blue dashes are green shoots coming out of the new green cane. The red...

Grapeman, thanks for the reply. Sorry if I used the wrong terms, but to clarify, last year's cane reached the wire and the problem is that this year there is only one lateral growing from last year's wood. I has grown 8 ft along the wire. Should I cut the lateral back from 8 ft to ~5 ft in order...

Hey everyone, I'm here in Southern California on my second year growing from dormant bench grafts (Cab Sav 101-14) training them to be VSP. Following Jeff Cox's advice, after the first year I pruned off all but the best cane which reached the bottom wire, and left only 5-7 buds for this years...

Thanks everyone! I ended up with 8 gallons of wine, hand-squeezed! :D My homemade press was way too slow and messy (basket too small) so ended up just using a big nylon bag and a pair of hands.

I'm making my first fresh grapes batch. 108 lbs of Lodi Cabernet. About a 10 gallon must. Starting brix 23.. pitched the yeast 7 days ago. Fermentation reached max temp 85 deg. Last 3 days have read 0 brix on the hydrometer. Problem is that everything I read says that "Dry" is -1.5 or -2...

I've racked it a couple times and clearified so there really aren't any lees left. Will rack once more before bottling. Should I wait until smell is gone before bottling? If it is simply an age issue, will bottle aging take care of it or should I bulk age to be sure? Does anyone know what I'm...

And I don't know for sure that it is a yeast smell but it is a similar smell to that of fermenting wine. Kind of like a sour musky bread smell. So the smell is like a residual fermentation smell. Not nearly as intense as during fermentation but similar in character.

Sorry if I wasn't clear but I meant homemade *fermenting* wine .... Not finished product. I've never smelled commercial fermenting wine so I can't relate to that. Anyways, how long does the smell last?

I have the WE eclipse Lodi old vine Zin in a carboy for about 3 months so far. Just took a sample last night and it tasted great! However, it still has a strong yeast smell, something that smells of homemade wine. I've notice commercial champagne has some essence of this but not as strong. How...

lawrstin, Based on some google image searches, I think it probably isn't anthracnose. I'm not seeing anything like that in the vineyard. I'm going to throw out another possibility.. nutrient deficiency? Possibly K or P or B?

Does this look like any sort of problem or identifiable disease? The grapes are zin and pinot noir, in southern california costal region. They are first year grafts on 101-14. I have grapes in other parts of the property which are doing great. Makes me think this is perhaps bad soil or water...