Welch's vs. Pato

All the reds so far (Zinfandel and Petite Syrah) have come in at a bit higher sugar level, or brix, than Tadeo would like. If the Brix is too high then you end up with a very alcoholic wine and it is questionable if the yeast will be able to ferment everything completely and in time. So to correct this we have drained a bit of juice from each. This will lower the total brix but increase the concentration of juice to skins so that no flavor or color is lost. We all talked about what do to with it, Roberto saying freeze it and make grape-pops and Bernardo saying mix it with tequila for a tasty beverage. In the end I kept a gallon of it in the fridge to drink, and damn is it better than Welch's grape juice. Rich, sweet, slightly creamy, and tart it is delicious. I also kept a 5 gallon batch to try my hand at rose!

So what about Rose? I had talked to Tadeo about my beer making ventures and he told me that I could use anything here to do with as I liked. He has tried to make Zinfandel rose but says that it just doesn't come out right, that the good stuff comes from Merlot and Grenache. So I passed on the Zin, but the Petite Syrah was tempting. I siphoned off 5 gallons and started my the Neyers-Underground 2008 Pato Ranch Petite Syrah Rose. Because the brix was high and Rose is supposed to be light and refreshing, I diluted the juice to about 25 brix from 26.8. In doing so, I also diluted the Ph. This is not desired, Rose being light and crisp needs a quite low Ph through fermentation and I had diluted it from 3.8 to 4.7. So I added tartaric acid in the order of 1g/litre to bring it back down to about 3.7. Ideally the Brix would be more like 23-24 and the Ph more like 3.3-3.4 but since I am only working with 4 gallons, it would be too much playing around to end up with a reasonable wine. We also have a bunch of barrel plugs that come in new barrels and are made from the same wood. I thought about tossing some of these in as 'chips' but decided against it. For this batch, ill just stick with it as is. There will be several to come as the Merlot, Cabernet, Syrah, and Grenache all come in. I plan on playing with each as a rose. Actually making the calls on this wine and doing the testing is already teaching me a ton about wine making.

On fermentation, Neyers allows all their wines to start ferment naturally with native yeast and then inoculate. This way allows the native yeast to get a foot hold and begin fermentation when the juice is ready and create the individual flavors that each yeast makes and then the ferment is finished by the cultured yeast which can handle the higher alcohol and finish in time for bottling.

Last weekend Marie and I went to Mendocino and toured around. Amazing little place but very small. Both the coast and Red Woods were breathtaking.