2012 Chilean Carmenere

[sebring96hbg]

Your confidence should be increased with fresh chemicals and PH buffers for calibration. I don't have any faith in a chart that tells you how long MLF should last based on PH. That said you should invest in some Potassium Acid Phthalate from Piwine.com It will come with a Tech Sheet to guide you in standardizing your NAOH. The nice part of this is two fold. Using it tells you your your NaOH is at its proper strength and second it also allows you to develop a multiplier factor so you can use a weakened solution and still enable you to get a true TA reading. Contrary to your testing, TA results using a weakened solution would indicate a higher TA as it takes more to reach the end point. Which is opposite than what you are reporting. I believe the bump up in TA is a result of the loss of buffering that Potassium in the grape has on TA testing prior to fermentation.

MartyYule,

Thanks. I have been researching posts on old NaOH. I agree getting that reagent is the next step. That's the only way I will know the normality as NaOH weakens over time.

And thanks for pointing out the potassium affect, I spent some time reading up on that.

I will test MLF again in 4 weeks.

 

[kwb1963]

Sebring, thanks for keeping such a careful log of your progress here on the forum. Reading your posts and the responses from other members is very helpful. I may have missed it in your posts, but where do you buy your winemaking supplies?

Ken

 

[sebring96hbg]

Sebring, thanks for keeping such a careful log of your progress here on the forum. Reading your posts and the responses from other members is very helpful. I may have missed it in your posts, but where do you buy your winemaking supplies?

Ken

Ken,

I have purchased some locally at Scotzins and online at Grape and Granary (D254 yeast, MLB and Opti Malo Plus), Midwest Supplies and Presque Isle.

A fun project I worked on recently involved getting gondola paint from Presque Isle to rehab the basin of a Marchisio #35 press I scored for cheap on Craigslist.

Joe

 

[Chateau Joe]

We finally got our frozen Chilean juice this past Thursday. I got a carmenere, malbec and a pinot noir. This was my first pinot noir from Chile and I could not get over how much darker the pinot juice is compared to the California pails of pinot that I normally get. I am very excited.

I had an atomic fermentation. All 3 carboys blew through the air locks. the first night.

 

[mvcrews]

Do you guys know what regions your Chilean juice is coming from? I did a harvest there in there in 2008 and got to see fruit from a bunch of different regions and am curious what is making its way up north. Sounds awesome though.

 

[MalvinaScordaad]

The new AVA this year for Fresh Grapes ( not sure about Juice ) is from M&M in Hartford is Santa Cruz. Bio Bio valley worked out great last year especially the Malbec but this year I understand it was not a good year there.

 

[Chateau Joe]

Mine came from the Bio Bio. They had a very late harvest this year.

 

[carmine]

The new AVA this year for Fresh Grapes ( not sure about Juice ) is from M&M in Hartford is Santa Cruz. Bio Bio valley worked out great last year especially the Malbec but this year I understand it was not a good year there.

We just picked up a load of Malbec from M&M this morning from the santa Cruz fantastic grapes from Chile

 

[mvcrews]

How was it from the Bio Bio.. sometimes late is really good sometimes it's really bad...?

I didn't get to see any fruit from bio bio while i was down there but I was very curious. It looks like a pretty unique growing area.

Santa Cruz was about an hour north from where I worked at gillmore (visit their website if you love flash animation) in the Lancomilla Valle. Those areas are very nice for viticulture and very similar to California. I was surprised how old some of the vines were down there. They had a lot of cab and carmenere grafted on 100 year old rootstock. My favorite was actually the ancient carignane planted by the spanish missionaries. A lot of dry farming too.