First Time Winemaking - Shiraz

[Muggus]

It's possible to keep the foliage fairly healthy if you spray regular with the right sprays, and can get on the wet paddocks. It makes it worse if your neighbours have lots of mildew. I'm lucky I don't have a lot of vineyards nearby, the worst thing is when people give up on their vineyard and just leave it to spread disease spores around.

Seems to be the theme for this vintage.
Alot of people just gave up late Spring, and just left their vines to the mercy of fungal outbreak.
Few of the more considerate (and possibly ones with money to spend) pruned before harvest to get rid of all of the infected material...there's always next year right!

 

[hughyg]

It's possible to keep the foliage fairly healthy if you spray regular with the right sprays, and can get on the wet paddocks. It makes it worse if your neighbours have lots of mildew. I'm lucky I don't have a lot of vineyards nearby, the worst thing is when people give up on their vineyard and just leave it to spread disease spores around.

I dont think it makes any difference how much you spray in the type of weather they are having. I think we you are getting 50mm a day nothing will work, well apart from just giving up a drinking a beer!!!

 

[Greg.L]

I dont think it makes any difference how much you spray in the type of weather they are having. I think we you are getting 50mm a day nothing will work, well apart from just giving up a drinking a beer!!!

Well as muggus says, there is always next year. You have to keep spraying or you will lose next year's crop as well. There are systemic sprays that work to kill infections in the leaves eg ridomil. If you don't keep the leaves on as long as possible there won't be any starch reserves for the next year's crop.
I don't have experience of those sort of conditions, but if everyone gives up it only makes things worse. Sometimes you can't even get the tractors out if the ground is too soft, that's when it gets bad.

 

[Muggus]

Well as muggus says, there is always next year. You have to keep spraying or you will lose next year's crop as well. There are systemic sprays that work to kill infections in the leaves eg ridomil. If you don't keep the leaves on as long as possible there won't be any starch reserves for the next year's crop.
I don't have experience of those sort of conditions, but if everyone gives up it only makes things worse. Sometimes you can't even get the tractors out if the ground is too soft, that's when it gets bad.

Ridomil is great and all, but bugger it can be hard to get ahold of it you've got downy outbreaks all over the country.
From what i've seen, phosphorous acid products (like Agri-Fos) are a good alternative product if you're not growing grapes deemed for certain export market wines. Reasonably affordable, highly systemic, multisite, will kill of downy infections in plant matter. Think the withdrawl period is really low for it too.
But yeah, if you can't get your tractor on the field, what chance have you got!

 

[DJR]

Err... doesn't SA look good.

If i can get some from there - i'd be real happy. Doesn't even have to be Shiraz - happy with other varieties if i can get them

 

[DJR]

OK, getting back to this now

Went out to Cowra on the weekend and picked some Cabernet, got about 25-30kg of fruit (a few bunches of shiraz as well) after hand picking, didn't look too bad and was about 12-13 Baume in the end. Two of us took about an hour and a half to pick. Packed them into thick freezer bags in broccoli boxes with ice, then hand destemmed them on Sunday into SS pots to ferment in. the berries are whole but should split open as the ferment goes anyway.

There was a little Botrytis which i picked around, and discarded a few berries as i was hand destemming. Took a while, 25kg took me about 3-4 hours to destem, left about 5-10% whole bunches if the bunch looked good. Cost was a case of beer and a couple of homebrews for the fruit

Inoculated one with about 15 kg of fruit with VR21 and the other with 10kg with BDX. Bit of DAP in both, not much, bit of pectinase and a tiny bit of sulfite. Have Wyeast MLF bacteria from Pat fresh from the US (cheapest MLF option there is for home winemakers by a huge margin - $14 for a pack, no need to make a starter) ready to go, which i'll add in when i transfer/rack to glass.

I am finding out how much a cheap press is as it'll make my job easier, but i will probably just end up straining.

Looking like pretty good extraction so far, it is full on watching it turn from Rose colour juice to a thick crimson colour.

some pics, you can see the condition of the cabernet fruit:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/11363253...772622105130705

 

[Muggus]

Went out to Cowra on the weekend and picked some Cabernet, got about 25-30kg of fruit (a few bunches of shiraz as well) after hand picking, didn't look too bad and was about 12-13 Baume in the end. Two of us took about an hour and a half to pick.

Take your time why dont ya...


Haha but yeah it sounds like you had great fun mate! How'd the Cabernet look when you picked it? Did it still have a bit of herbaceous character to it?

Actually bottling my Hunter "shiraz" this arvo.
Threw the Burgundian Wine making book at it, so it looks and tastes like a Pinot, but yeah...the fruit was pretty shitty in general...not Botrytis effected, just under ripe and poor colour...as one would expect from a shitty wet Hunter vintage.
So rather than create some sort of insipid Pinot-like Shiraz, i'm going Methode Champenoise on its ass, and may wind up back sweetening it once its ready to disgorge.

 

[Greg.L]

Take your time why dont ya...

Yeah, normally when I'm picking we pick a few 400kg bins very hour. 2 hours for 25 kg sounds a lot easier.

The fruit from Cowra should be ok this year, enough sun and heat to ripen it. Not so good at my place, my cab is still below 10be, maybe it will get to 11 or 12 if I'm lucky. Those vines at Cowra look fairly healthy.

Greg

 

[DJR]

Take your time why dont ya...


Haha but yeah it sounds like you had great fun mate! How'd the Cabernet look when you picked it? Did it still have a bit of herbaceous character to it?

Actually bottling my Hunter "shiraz" this arvo.
Threw the Burgundian Wine making book at it, so it looks and tastes like a Pinot, but yeah...the fruit was pretty shitty in general...not Botrytis effected, just under ripe and poor colour...as one would expect from a shitty wet Hunter vintage.
So rather than create some sort of insipid Pinot-like Shiraz, i'm going Methode Champenoise on its ass, and may wind up back sweetening it once its ready to disgorge.

Yeah, would have been faster with more experience up the sleeve and if the fruit was in slightly better condition so it was pretty selective and slow... next year i think I will watch someone else do it so i get a better idea of how to do it faster


Your experiment sounds pretty interesting, lots of stem?

I hope it's not full of pyrazine/capsicum, i can taste that a mile off (hello Yarra Valley cabernet!). They picked last week at around 12.5 so i there will have been a bit more ripening. That being said it might well be a little underripe as i probably picked the underripe clusters being my first pick, but they have had good sun and temps since the heavy rains.

Have plunged the cap about 3 times now and it's starting to look a lot more like red, this extraction thing is cool

 

[Muggus]

Your experiment sounds pretty interesting, lots of stem?

Yeah, 100% stems. 2 weeks of carbonic maceration. Gives it a real lifted somewhat confectionary raspberry character (suprising considering how under ripe the majority of the fruit is), and the stalks add a spicy woody character, almost a bit like oak. Pretty interesting. At worst, I'll have myself some sparkling sweet tart fuel.

I hope it's not full of pyrazine/capsicum, i can taste that a mile off (hello Yarra Valley cabernet!). They picked last week at around 12.5 so i there will have been a bit more ripening. That being said it might well be a little underripe as i probably picked the underripe clusters being my first pick, but they have had good sun and temps since the heavy rains.

Have plunged the cap about 3 times now and it's starting to look a lot more like red, this extraction thing is cool

Yeah, not a fan of those pyrazine characters at all; really sensative to it, possibly why I have a disliking to most Sav Blancs...
You might get away without it though; sugar ripeness is not always the best indication of phenological ripeness. I've come across Cabernets at 11% without a trace of pyrazines, and ones at 15%alc and they just reeked (more than a couple of which the fruit came from Orange interestingly enough!).

 

[DJR]

Pressed off the skins the other day, well, when i say pressed, i don't have a press Just used folded cheesecloth and lots of grunt work to make it happen. Ended up with about 13L, into a plastic fermenter, waited for gross lees to settle out and then racked into 3x5L demijohns, had to top up one with 2L of cask Cabernet and inoculated with Wyeast MLF.

Is aging now in the demijohns with some mini french oak staves and a few american oak chips for good measure. Tasting like wine now rather than grape juice, but still a bit of a way to go, still has a fair whack of acid that should mellow out with the MLF. Getting a cheap pH meter just for good measure so i can make sure the pH is right, but i haven't had issues so far so I can only hope it's all in spec (some say lazy others might say "minimal intervention" )

I am just going to leave it now in the laundry covered up with a towel, keep it topped up with commercial Cab and every few days rock the demijohn to keep the MLF going. Probably about July i guess to do the final rack, sulfite addition and bottle.

I am surprised at how crimson-coloured it is when taking small samples, I guess a lot of the colours need to polymerize etc before it goes the really deep red colour.

There was a pretty clear difference in aroma/taste between the two primary ferment batches, the one done with the VR21 yeast smelt quite sweet/glycerol with a good fruity background, where the BDX was more complex, less fruity and more "rough"

 

[pokolbinguy]

just be careful topping with cask wine. Cask wine will have a high SO2 content and the malo bugs might not like the additions.

 

[drsmurto]

Had a Hunter Shiraz last week that had on the back label the phrase - a fruit driven shiraz with very subtle oak. Granted it was a 2007 but it smelt and tasting like i was chewing on an oak barrel, easily the worst hunter shiraz i have had.

About as unbalanced as wine gets.

At least it was riddled with brett.

 

[Muggus]

Had a Hunter Shiraz last week that had on the back label the phrase - a fruit driven shiraz with very subtle oak. Granted it was a 2007 but it smelt and tasting like i was chewing on an oak barrel, easily the worst hunter shiraz i have had.

About as unbalanced as wine gets.

At least it was riddled with brett.

What winery was it from?

 

[drsmurto]

What winery was it from?

Can't recall, wines like that aren't worth remembering.

 

[jyo]

How did this turn out, DJR?

I've just recently rediscovered Shiraz and, ofcourse, the brewer in me wants to make some wine now.