2019 Cab

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So far I haven't had any problems, after about 8 years I did have to replace the 2" bung o-rings, bought a package of 25 from McMaster for $10. So far, I haven't had to replace the 6" cap gasket, the oldest one is 10yrs, I use petrol-gel on threads and o-rings.
 
I have two of the 15G ones. Lids are quite heavy duty with a good soft (replaceable) silicon gasket inside. The Lid takes about 2 revs to fully tighten and seal. Your SO2 levels will drop like a similar sized barrel (micro-ox) but there is no evaporation at all.
 
Well the pump was out and dirty after racking the 2020 wine, so I figured it would be best to rack this 2019 Cab before cleaning everything. Transferred to a clean tank, discarded the oak, added 30ppm so2, and I may move this up to the bottling rack in a few months. The American oak definitely has this wine slathered with vanilla aromatics, very nice, but much different than my normal routine French oak, this will be interesting.

Racking 2019 Cab.JPG
 
Finally getting close to bottling this 2019 Cab. Checked the SO2 today in preparation for transferring to demijohns on the bottling rack. The SO2 tested at 21ppm free, pH is 3.80, I'll probably add 25ppm SO2 during the transfer to the bottling rack. Taste is pleasant, drinkable right now, but will probably need a year or two once bottled. This is a 100% Cab, but I ended up using a 2014 Malbec for top up.

500lbs of 2021 frozen must is ordered and paid for, planning to do a 60% Merlot 40% Cab all from Sonoma Mtn, hopefully it's not all smoked out, we'll see.

SO2 Test.JPG

2019 Cab.JPG
 
I finally transferred the 2019 Cab up to the bottling rack and added 30ppm SO2. The carboy has been held separate the entire time as an unoaked version, and it's interesting to see and taste the difference. This unoaked version has more lees impact and comes across with flavor and aromatics as a slightly younger wine, very nice but different. There's no mystery with the tank aged oaked version, darker and greater richness with more sweet oak vanilla in the taste and nose. Hopefully we'll bottle this in the next couple of weeks.

I have to extend a thanks to @cmason1957 for the reminder (in a different post) about potential TCA in the wine making area.
A couple of days ago while preparing for the transfer, I was organizing the area and cleaning the demijohns and smelled something like TCA on the exterior of the glass, the demijohn basket also smelled like TCA, however this isn't the first time as I previously removed the shredded paper padding from between the glass and basket thinking that was the source. There were no odors inside the demijohn, only on the exterior which was easy to wash off, I also washed the baskets, but given I was going to be handling wine I felt it was best to remove them from the area. The plywood board I have on the rack had a stain from a previous wine spill that occurred a couple of years ago, at the time I sprayed sulfite solution and wiped with paper towels, but the wood is unfinished so the stain remained. I found this stain was also releasing a TCA like odor only noticeable if you were 12 inches away, so I deep cleaned the board with oxyclean followed by sulfite solution and baked dry in the sun, and this has reduced the odor to non detectable with my nose. I've never used any chlorinated cleaning products, but my tap water is chlorinated so I suspect that's a contributing factor. In my case, all internal surfaces of tanks and carboys have always been rinsed with chlorine free RO water, but obviously the years of wine spills and splatters on raw surfaces coupled with tap water is of greater concern.
The intent here was just to provide an additional caution about the potential for TCA in the winery, especially to those that have difficult to clean unsealed surfaces, including floors, walls, and any wood and cardboard etc. I guess I'll have to paint the concrete. Thanks again to @cmason1957 for the timely reminder.

Now on a happier note, some photos.

Taste.JPG

Tank.JPG

Demijohn.JPG

Demijohns.JPG
 
Finally closing out this one. The wine has been on the bottling rack for 7 weeks, so I re-checked the pH and sulfite, got 3.78 pH and 36ppm free SO2. I decided to add an additional 10ppm sulfite and bottled a total of 14 cases yesterday without any issues. It's always a good feeling to get the wine safely into the bottle, I included a case of splits this time, my share of the cases are shown below.

I'm looking forward to taking delivery on the 2021 frozen must and starting the new vintage in January.

Bottled 2019.JPG
 
Finally closing out this one. The wine has been on the bottling rack for 7 weeks, so I re-checked the pH and sulfite, got 3.78 pH and 36ppm free SO2. I decided to add an additional 10ppm sulfite and bottled a total of 14 cases yesterday without any issues. It's always a good feeling to get the wine safely into the bottle, I included a case of splits this time, my share of the cases are shown below.

I'm looking forward to taking delivery on the 2021 frozen must and starting the new vintage in January.

View attachment 81862
Nice that’s a good amount of wine. Also you nailed the ph.
 

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