Day 8 – 03/10/2011

Another beautiful day in wine country. Sometimes, I wonder if it will ever get dark and cloudy. The temperature is expected to fall to 10 to 12 degree celcius this week. I can already feel a slight chill compared to the previous week.

Salomon Winery Kogl Vineyard healthy riesling grapes

The morning started with a few bins of grapes coming. There were also the Riesling grapes from the famous Kögl vineyard just came in. Some of these grapes were picked as botrytis was starting to develop on the grapes. There was nothing wrong with the grapes. They were just very purplish and desiccated. Compared to the green grapes, they tasted very sweet due to the concentration of sugars in them. Some tasted sour but the majority was fine. This parcel of botrytised grapes are at a potential alcohol of 14% and are extremely high for the wines that Salomon wishes to make. They will be fermented and stored away in a tank for potential blending.

Salomon Winery botrytis affected Kogl riesling grapes

We started going to each tank to smell the fermenting must. Checks on alcohol temperature were being done to see if the ferment is getting along well. If the temperature was too high, the temperature of the tank will be lowered. When the must started to smell onion-like, diammonium phosphate would be added which would give nitrogen to the yeast to prevent them from producing anymore hydrogen sulphide.

The juice are being filtered and racked. Tanks were cleaned adding caustic soda to the pump. A sort of tank spray is inserted into the bigger tanks so that the water would be sprayed inside the tank. This beats climbing into the tank and cleaning it form the inside. Sulphur isn’t used this time as it is a sterilising agent that will stop any must from fermenting if transferred into the tank.

Salomon Winery - the big tank washout