2018 Cab Blends

[stickman]

I checked the sulfite level again in the 2018 Moon Mountain Cab, it's at 20.7 ppm free; I had expected that some of the last addition would bind up. I went ahead and bumped it up an additional 10 ppm today in preparation for moving it to the bottling rack and bottling, yea like I said before "soon". I'm trying to keep the sulfite level in a reasonable range, it tastes good now and I don't want to wait 5yrs to start drinking it.

I pre-ordered 500# of must maybe 6 weeks ago, it was before the fires occurred in Sonoma. For obvious reasons, most of the must will be from the 2019 season, with a few pails from 2020. I'll probably receive it some time in November, and I'll start a new thread when that plan firms up. It's just another 60% Cab, 20% Merlot, 20% Malbec, blend which has been working well.

 

[stickman]

Finally moved the 2018 Moon Mountain Cab to the bottling rack, after it comes up to room temperature I'll do some final SO2 testing and tasting before bottling, tannins have dropped down so the wine is drinkable now, but will be nice after some bottle time. During the transfer I moved the hose from vessel to vessel to blend the carboy aged wine with the tank aged. Corks are on order and I still need to get a couple cases of new bottles.

The 2020 must will be picked up the first week of the new year, I figured it would be best to get through the holidays before starting the new wine.

 

[mainshipfred]

What corks did you order. I'm down to about 175 and will need to order soon. I have been using the Scott Labs lower grade but was thinking about getting Nomacorc's.

 

[stickman]

I've been getting the Scott Lab UF grade by the 1,000, they are very good quality and Scott Lab has a very tight TCA inspection program. I also think Nomacorcs are good quality at a reasonable price, they have a number of different specifications to select from, I've been looking at them, but it's just another thing I've decided not to change just yet. I think this wine making thing is a combination of science, art, and a little bit of superstition.

 

[CDrew]

I’ve been drinking a bit of my 2018 bottled with normacorc s and so far not one failure or failure to seal. They are a good product in my opinion. Worthy of a test bottling.

 

[Ajmassa]

January?! Well I could think of no better way to start off the new year then with a Brehms ferment. Good luck to you sir

The Moon Mt cab color looks absolutely amazing. As always!
Like you I also try to blend vessels prior to bottling for bottle consistency but isn’t always easy when vessels are all different sizes. I’ll often do it the night before or that day if I can’t keep full vessels. I should probably make more ofe an effort to allow some time between like your doing.
So did you make a Moon/Red carboy blend? Would be interesting to see how the cabs compared to each other as well as a blend. And also-what type of staves did you go with? Same type for both cabs?

Finally moved the 2018 Moon Mountain Cab to the bottling rack, after it comes up to room temperature I'll do some final SO2 testing and tasting before bottling, tannins have dropped down so the wine is drinkable now, but will be nice after some bottle time. During the transfer I moved the hose from vessel to vessel to blend the carboy aged wine with the tank aged. Corks are on order and I still need to get a couple cases of new bottles.

The 2020 must will be picked up the first week of the new year, I figured it would be best to get through the holidays before starting the new wine.

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[stickman]

I didn't do a Moon/Red carboy blend, though I probably used a bottle or two for the occasional top up after sampling the tank. Used two American oak med+ convection toast staves, and two French oak med+ infrared toast, it was the same oak for both cabs.

 

[stickman]

Finally closing this one out after two years. We bottled the 2018 Cab blend and got 14 cases overall as expected, only 10ppm so2 was added for the bottling process. The wine has huge body and the fruit and tannin are in reasonable balance, I'm sure it will take at least a year in bottle to see what we really have. A few other things are on the to do list, the 2019 Cab is at the one year mark and needs to be racked soon, and the 2020 Cab blend looks like it finished ML so I'll probably start a chromatogram for that today.