A Superpower Palate For Grapes

I've never had the experience of tasting "chocolate" in wine, which is to say the society of grands chevaliers du vin from Burgundy are not aggressively recruiting me to join their group, quel domage. However, my superpower palate for tasting grapes may qualify me for the next edition of X-Men (in which I prevent the "terrioristas" from injecting salt into Napa Valley's water table and save the grapes). Our beloved instructor and mentor Lum Eisenman once told us in class that with about 20 or so years of experience we would be able to walk among rows of vines and determine by tasting individual grapes if the vineyard was ready for harvest or not. (Been there, done that, most notably during a pick three years ago when I was sampling Brunello berries from the vine and was astonished that the brix were low, which was confirmed once we took measurements back in the lab). Two years ago when we purchased grapes from Val de Guadeloupe, Mexico, when I munched on some grapes my first reaction was, "These are salty."  Our mentor Pete Anderson remarked, "Some people are able to taste the brine, others aren't.  You've got that sense". Not only could I taste the salt in the grapes, I can taste it in finished wine from those grapes (even when professional winemakers using those same grapes claim they were able to cold soak the salt out of them -- not so, in my opinion).

Under the full harvest moon this evening Bluey and I picked a random sample of 50 Aglianico grapes, squeezed them in a baggie and poured the juice into a shot glass and sipped. Not quite ready for picking, I guessed, and the refractometer confirmed that with a reading of 23 brix (a measure of sugar).  We're shooting for higher. But I could feel the acid on the tongue and tickling my glands and thought that it's just a little high, but still a nice acid and will make for a good puckery wine.

My benchmark for acid in wine is the Cabernet produced by Chateau Montelena.  Mind you I don't buy this wine, but I enjoy winning it in bets from Celestial Sandra and Coyote Karen, and this wine is the best I've had in recent memory which, despite being 10+ years in age is still has robust fruit, and, to borrow a phrase from wine connoisseur Bill Clinton, "It's the acid, stupid!"

I went into the winery and sampled the Tempranillo now in its third day of cold soak. The fruit is delicious, but it lacked the puckeriness of that Aglianico juice I had tasted a few minutes before.  The Tempranillo checked in at 25+ brix with a high pH just below 4 and an acid level below .45 .  I was considering blending some high acid wine that we held back from the year before, but at the end of the day decided to do a modest addition of tartaric acid to raise the acidity to approximately .60  .  I added the acid, stirred, then tasted. You didn't need to be an X-Men to notice the difference, and improvement, immediately.

Taste varies widely from person to person, and there are no objective standards. What I like, you may not, and vice versa. What has been your experience tasting grapes (or wine) and what are you able to detect?

Good Chemistry, Questionable Grapes

Mike,

I much prefer Coyote Karen as a lab partner, but how could I refuse your request to run an acid test on the Petit Sirah we picked this morning especially after you crushed it and Gatored it over to our place? Thank you.

I apologize for the delay in getting back to you with the lab results. I just returned to the house with Bluey in tow. He had been out chasing she-coyotes in heat, again. (I guess I would do the same if I were him -- after all, aren't all men dogs?) I should have known something was up last week as he began making low moans that grew into howls. I thought he was lamenting the loss of his friend Carlyle, the neighbor's cat, who went missing after an evening outside attending the Coyote's Ball. Instead, it was either an 8-year itch or a mid-life crisis, because for all the years of his life he's never, ever been one to roam. Well, that's what a hot bitch in a fur coat can do to a dog (and a man).

After the harvest I had planned to bring Bluey to the Three Priests for the Blessing of the Animals (if not outright confession for his recent transgressions) as the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals, is upon us. As I was getting ready to leave, the Queen showed up short of breath yelling "Karl Rove" had returned from the dead. (She can't pronounce C-a-r-l-y-l-e; the word comes out sounding like the Republican political strategist, which reminds me of our old friend Joe the Wino -- where is he? Out campaigning with the Tea Party?) Now a cat who dances with coyotes, disappears for a week and was proclaimed a goner but returns is a sight to be seen. He's our neighbor's cat and good vineyard friend. They asked us to look after him but it was like looking after a ghost because he was not to be seen, only a trail of dried blood drops from the cathouse to the woods as Carlyle had been injured just after they left. I went up to the house and sure enough he was asleep under the deck (had he been there the whole week and simply ignored our calls when changing his water and leaving fresh food?) I approached him carefully (perhaps he had rabies?) but he seemed well enough, if a bit beat up and tired. I put him inside the neighbor's house, feed him and comforted him. It was too late to drive to the church service, so (with apologies to the Three Priests for missing yet another church service) we just gave thanks where we were for the bountiful harvest and all the animals in our lives, especially the cats and dogs that survived while playing around with coyotes.

I headed back down the mountain to do your lab work, started a barbecue of sausages (somehow we had forgotten to eat today despite all the work) and then went out and took a sample of Grenache berries to measure their ripeness and to provide a control for the tests. The grill was smokey when I came back and the sausages were darker than a black cat. So much for eating.

I had 3 samples to test. The sample of Petit Sirah (PS) you gave me. The Grenache from our vineyard (as a control), and a sample of PS I took from our share of today's harvest. That sure was one of the most interesting harvests we've seen over the years, a perfect storm of powdery mildew, Pierce's disease and a blasted heat wave that taken together ravaged the grapes resulting in the lowest amount of juice we've ever seen. The mildew had decimated a good percentage of the vineyard, reducing what should have been plump grapes to dried out shells, without flavor nor sugar. And, what were plump berries just a week ago were shriveled by the surprise heat wave this week. Decimated by Pierce's disease and a fraction of its former self, it's become something of a family tradition to travel to Valley Center, the next hill over, each year for this harvest of the Scotchman's grapes and this year did not disappoint. In another chapter of the miracle of Don's vineyard, somehow, grape must was produced again this year in abundant quantity which should yield a barrel or two of distinguished wine. Yet, this 2010 vintage, with all of those skins, is going to present a challenge. Here's my strategy: cold soak for 4 days to extract as much fruit flavors and "soft tannins" as possible. Then, ferment for 3 - 4 days (without extending the fermentation beyond that). Then, pressing lightly (which is our normal custom) to produce a well balanced finished product to be blended to perfection with another grape, perhaps Petit Verdot to make another round of "Petit-Petit."

We were both pleasantly surprised to see that the brix (i.e., sugars) were in good shape ... close to 23.5 and likely to increase nicely with cold soaking because of all the raisins (not to mention skins) which should result in a bold Petit Sirah). And the pH was under control. But as I left, you pulled me aside and whispered that you were getting a reading of .9 on the acid, and would I mind checking it at our place because surely the acid could not be that high? Perhaps your test chemicals were out of date?

I have good news and good news and good news. There's nothing wrong with your testing procedure, nor your chemicals. Of the sample you gave me, I also measured TA (tartaric acid) of .91 with my equipment and my methodology. And, it should be noted that I measured .97 on not such a random sample from "our grapes" from the same vineyard. (For the record, I tested the acid of our Grenache, which was low as expected given the long hang time of this year's harvest.) Although you're concerned that the level of acid of PS is too high, let me share with you some wisdom about brix and acid from a master, my old mentor Angelo Pellegrini (bless his heart) who wrote almost 30 years ago in his book "Lean Years, Happy Years" :

"It has been established by years of experience that ... the sugar and acidity in the must will be adequate if the range is between 20 and 24 percent by volume of the one and .6 and 1 percent of the other. These are the minimum and the optimum.... I have found that when the sugar percentage is 23-plus and the total acidity near .8, the result will be a wine that will elicit the highest praise. Of such a wine we would say that the total acidity and the sugar in the must were in nearly perfect balance."

We are not too far from that my friend, and, with the luxury (and skill) of blending, we can achieve it.

So let us drink to the memory of Angelo, to the celebration of the harvest, to the nubile maidens (those who joined us and to those who dream of joining us some day) who crush the grapes, and to the cats and dogs and coyotes, and to good wine and good friends and our induction into the Order of Wise Old Peasants. Cheers!

Test Results:

Your Petit Sirah Sample: 23 brix; pH = 3.45; TA= .91
Our Petit Sirah Sample: 23.5 brix; pH = 3.54 TA = .97
Our Grenache Sample: 24 brix; pH = 3.55; TA=.56

Brix measured with refractometer.

Editor's Note: We welcome low acid on the Grenache because we have plenty of high acid wine with which to blend. Stay tuned for the Grenache harvest next week and the waiting of Petit Verdot.

Pictures: From top to bottom: 1) Bluey's Call of the Wild 2) Carlyle (aka, Karl Rove) 3) Petit Sirah vineyard in Valley Center, CA 4) Example of Powdery Mildew damage

Good Chemistry

Chemical analysis can help you make a better decision about the optimum time to pick your grapes. Good chemistry is important to good winemaking. It's also helpful in a lab partner. I haven't had this much fun since Kendal P., bless her heart, was my lab partner in 8th grade science and I received my worst grade ever as she was a serious distraction. This time I kept all hands on deck and my eyes on the pipettes and the beakers and the LCD display and came away with some useful information.

I took a 100-plus random sample of berries from different parts of the clusters from each row of the Tempranillo block yesterday evening, hand crushed them in a baggie and measured the sugar: 22 brix. I purchased a Milwaukee pH meter and an acid measuring kit and not sure how to use them Coyote Karen volunteered to show me how so I went to her kitchen lab with my specimen. The reason she is called "Coyote" Karen is her vineyard is host to the crafty critters and they and men alike howl at her beauty. She is something of a scientist and I watched intently as she she showed me how to calibrate the pH meter then measure my sample. The reading came in at 3.63.

Next, she showed me how to test the acid. You do this by seeing how many cc's of indicator solution you drip into 50 cc of distilled water combined with 10 cc of grape must and 3 or 4 drops (we used 4 drops) of another solution until you reach 8.2 on the pH meter (or until the liquid becomes dark). Because it's not exactly certain when the liquid becomes dark, use of the pH meter is a bit more scientific. Being a scientist Coyote Karen has all kinds of beakers and pipettes and measuring devices and a machine that vibrates when you put a beaker on it and you put a little magnet at the bottom of the beaker and the magnet spins around creating a whirlpool to keep the mixture mixed and she puts her mouth over the pipette and pulls the poisonous indicator fluid (10 cc's) up the pipette and she doesn't waste a drop and I'm thinking if anyone in the neighborhood goes to their car and finds the gas siphoned then she's the #1 suspect. She tests some finished wine that has way too much acid in it and the wine doesn't taste good but it's not a total waste because she'll hang on to it and some time in the future she may blend it with a wine that is way too low in acid.

Being a good teacher she then insists I try (there is no better way to learn than by doing) and my butterfinger hands pick up the glass pipette and I start sucking up the poisonous liquid and as it rises up the pipette my saliva starts going down the tube and resting on top of the liquid and she starts laughing and making fun of me and I swear I wasn't drooling over her although the chemistry is good. She tells me to multiply the 10.5 cc of solution I dropped into the beaker to raise the pH to 8.2 by a factor of .15 and the resulting acid level of 1.57 doesn't sound good to me at all and I read the directions and the directions say to use a correction factor of .075 and she says that's because I used 10 cc of grape juice instead of 5 cc and despite the fact I would have ruined my wine based on the information she gave me the chemistry is good. The acid recalculation is .785, which, I am told, is a good level.

In summary: The brix are 22; the pH is 3.63 and the acid is .787 and she says those are good numbers. So, here's the decision to be made. Should I cut the water and try to get the brix up to 24 next Sunday in which case the acid is likely to drop a little and I'll have good numbers for making a good wine?

Or, should I water the vines a little tomorrow and plan on harvest in 2 weeks? Two weeks from now I could get the brix up to about 25 (keeping it from reaching 26 or 27 by adding a little water) and the grapes will be full of sugar and riper and the seeds will be darker brown and crunchy but the acid will drop maybe a little too much. You can always do a little acid adjustment (most winemakers do by adding tartaric acid) and if the brix get too high you can always add water to the must (many winemakers do). If the brix get too high then the wine may have too much alcohol and it may "burn". Waiting two weeks would allow me to make a "bigger wine". On the other hand if I wait two more weeks the birds may get more of the grapes and I'll be left with less, and, I'm dealing with younger vines (only their 3rd leaf) so perhaps I shouldn't get my hopes up about making a big red wine.

To pick or not to pick? Experienced winemakers, vineyardistos and vineyardistas, what should I do?