Now I lay thee down to rest

Things are actually going pretty well right now.

The heaters did their job and the MLF fermentation is complete on everything except perhaps the Merlot. We ran tests on all the barrels about 10 days ago and 12 of them said MLF was finished (all the malo acid had been converted to lactic - see below), except for Merlot. We only have one barrel of Merlot, the reason which is sort of a funny story that illustrates the delicate balance of Kevin's optimism with Bob and Jill's less rosy outlook.

It is a lot of paperwork to establish a winery. First you need Federal approval to produce alcohol (they want their tax money) and State approval as well (they want to be sure that it is produced in a safe environment, and they want their money as well).

So, I probably should have applied a little earlier for the Federal License than I did, and definitely should have applied for the State license before I did. But, I was optimistic that we'd get the licenses before the grapes were ready, while my partners were a little less skeptical.

We got our Federal license on September 15 (woohoo!), but didn't get our State license until October 9th (less woo...). The problem is that the Merlot grapes were ready sometime in late September. I'm smart enough to not tick off the same agency from which we were seeking license, but we weren't sure what to do with 3000lbs of Merlot grapes that we had contracted for when they became ready before the State license came in.

Merlot jelly anyone? I've heard it goes well with the crow that Jill and Bob forced me to eat.

We decided to make half of the wine as "home" wine (meaning that we can never sell it), and put the other half into cold fruit storage until we were licensed. It was about 12 days or so between the time we got the Merlot and we got the license.

When we finally got the license we pulled the fruit out of storage and started to crush it, then learned why cold storage isn't a great idea. About 5-10 percent of the fruit had mold on it, so we threw away that part. (Moldy Merlot jelly anyone?).

The rest of the grapes were ready soon thereafter so everything then got fermented at the same time (although we keep all the different kinds of grapes separate -- we'll blend at the end).

After fermentation completed, we pressed the wine off the skins and put it into barrels, then added the MLF starter (it's really freeze dried bacteria, but I didn't really want to write that). So, after warming it up (see below), the MLF has completed. On everything but the Merlot.

It's always the friggin' Merlot.

Hopefully, by now, the Merlot has completed its MLF and now we can add the Sulfite (preservative), then put the barrels down to rest for the long barrel nap, during which it will hopefully acquire some of the oak taste that gives wine its depth.

We're using a mixture of French Oak and American Oak, and I'll write about that sometime later.

Anyway, pretty much there's not much going on at the winery. The wine will sit, we will clean and organize the winery, then plan how many grapes (and what varietals) we're going to get for 2009.

Rest well, my little vino.