Choosing when to harvest

[VictorV]

Hi Everyone,

In 2019 I purchased 1/4 ton of Syrah from a local grower. The primary vintner (commercial) of this specific
vineyard chose the harvest time with an emphasis on Acidity and not Brix. Ideally the target Brix for
Syrah is 24.5. At harvest time (Oct 23rd) the numbers were: Brix 29.3, TA 7.48, pH 3.28. The grapes
were just starting to raisin a bit.

I am new to winemaking and am fully aware that there are many ways to approach choosing harvest
time. What's interesting to me is that you can either adjust the TA or the Brix after harvest. TA
does not seem that hard to adjust. Since the Brix was so high though we had to add water to bring
it down to 24.5. That meant we had to water it down quite a bit. Would it have been better to
pick when the Brix was lower but the TA was higher? It seems like the flavor impact of a TA adjustment
is smaller than a huge Brix adjustment (if too high).

In our case we had to add about 12 gallons of water to 60 gallons of must to correct the Brix.
This seems like a lot of water and might result in a wine that's a bit thin.

Victor

 

[cmason1957]

Hi Everyone,
[snip]
What's interesting to me is that you can either adjust the TA or the Brix after harvest. TA
does not seem that hard to adjust. Since the Brix was so high though we had to add water to bring
it down to 24.5. That meant we had to water it down quite a bit. Would it have been better to
pick when the Brix was lower but the TA was higher? It seems like the flavor impact of a TA adjustment
is smaller than a huge Brix adjustment (if too high).

In our case we had to add about 12 gallons of water to 60 gallons of must to correct the Brix.
This seems like a lot of water and might result in a wine that's a bit thin.

Victor

Hi Victor,

I am a little bit puzzled by your statment that you either adjust the TA or the Brix after harvest. You can adjust both. So you added 12 gallons of water, you could have added some tartaric acid to that water, more or less than what your current wine had per liter (or gallon) and impacted both the TA and the Brix. If it were me I think I would have approximated the TA of the must you had and added about 3 or maybe 3.5 lbs of tartaric acid to the water I was adding. Or I might have added some potassium bicarbonate to impact the PH more and moved it closer to 3.6. Just as a side note, I (and this is just me) don't worry as much about TA as I do about the PH. For a red wine I try to get as close as I can to 3.5-3.6 with a good tasting must, for a white more in the 3.2-3.3 starting PH range.

 

[VictorV]

Sorry I was not more clear earlier. You can most certainly adjust both TA and Brix and indeed we did. What I meant was
that if you choose to pick and a time when TA is optimal you can adjust Brix and when Brix is optimal you can adjust
TA. I'm just trying to understand how you would choose to pick at optimal TA or optimal Brix. Since our TA was fairly
decent we ended up making a larger adjustment to the Brix than we did for the TA. I'm wondering if it would have been
a safer bet to not let the Brix get so high and just pick with a sub-optimal TA. The huge Brix adjustment we had to make
seems like it would negatively impact the taste more than if we picked earlier and adjusted the TA.

Victor

 

[NorCal]

If it were me, I would have picked at 26-26.5 and deal with the acidity post ferment, making final tweaking only if needed for taste reasons.

It is easier to adjust acidity than to try to get good flavors.

 

[mainshipfred]

If it were me, I would have picked at 26-26.5 and deal with the acidity post ferment, making final tweaking only if needed for taste reasons.

It is easier to adjust acidity than to try to get good flavors.

Not that I grow grapes but I would tend to agree with @NorCal. Though I do think when to harvest is one of the harder decisions a grower or winemaker has to make.

 

[cmason1957]

Sorry I was not more clear earlier. You can most certainly adjust both TA and Brix and indeed we did. What I meant was
that if you choose to pick and a time when TA is optimal you can adjust Brix and when Brix is optimal you can adjust
TA. I'm just trying to understand how you would choose to pick at optimal TA or optimal Brix. Since our TA was fairly
decent we ended up making a larger adjustment to the Brix than we did for the TA. I'm wondering if it would have been
a safer bet to not let the Brix get so high and just pick with a sub-optimal TA. The huge Brix adjustment we had to make
seems like it would negatively impact the taste more than if we picked earlier and adjusted the TA.

Victor

I understand what you are trying to say now. I am with @NorCal, I think I would have picked when the Brix were much lower than they were and dealt with Ph/Ta at that point. But you wee somewhat at the mercy of the Primary Vintner, it sounds like. I wonder if they are planning a fortified wine or a higher alcohol wine of some sort??

 

[NorCal]

@VictorV , what region are the grapes from? In my region (Northern California , acidity rapidly drops when the brix rise to the 26 point. At 29 brix, we would have pH over 4 and quite a bit of raisins to contend with. I’m surprised by the 3.3 pH number, but it may balance the prunes, date, raisin flavors that might come through in the finished wine. I’d let it roll, use a high alcohol yeast (Avante if you can get it, or 1118) and hopefully it finishes. Make any acid adjustments at the end, only if necessary for taste.

 

[BI81]

Agreed @NorCal I'd be interested to hear where these were grown, when I read 29+ Brix with that level of acid I had to re-read three times to make sure my eyes weren't fooling me!!

 

[BI81]

To answer @VictorV's original question, there's no right answer!!

I'm a big fan of Jim Duane's podcast Inside Winemaking, he interviews many highly regarded commercial winemakers and it's humorous to hear how adamant each is about their philosophy, then to hear another winemaker come say the exact opposite. Some base their picking decision strictly off Brix, some go off of flavor, some chew skins/seeds and go off texture, some go off of acid, then others say you can't tell anything from measurements, or you can't tell anything from chewing the skins/seeds, etc...

I'm not sure that answer was very helpful but that's part of the beauty of winemaking, take the same grapes from the same vineyard and let two winemakers make completely different wines from the same material.