I had previously mentioned that I had bought a French Oak Barrel from worldcooperage.com. They emailed me that it would take 8 weeks to produce and cost $200 to ship. I told them no thanks. Guess I am a little behind the 8 ball on that one. I spoke with Frank Hobson and a few others locally, they all buy used barrels from CA wineries. I am just not down with that. Seems like there is a lot of possibility of Brett and other bacteria in those barrels unless they are properly treated. Plus, I couldn’t find anybody willing to sell me just one 59 gall (225L) barrel. I even checked ebay, they had a few but they were 4-6 years old. Frank says they pay $50-$75 per barrel. Guess a bunch of wineries go in together.

I started calling and calling and calling, but nothing! Finally I called a home winemaking operation at beer-wine.com. They had a 60 gallon recooped barrel for $250 and $125 shipping. Ships from Massachusets. Recooped seems ok if you do your research. I was going to order from them, but then I got a call back from the east coast distributor of Kelvin Cooperage in Kentucky. They are in New Jesery. They sold me a brand new American Oak Barrel for $375.00 with a medium toast, and they have it in stock and will ship it for a 9/16 delivery. They also think they can ship it via UPS, but I am not sure how that would work.

Here is there contact info:

Gino Pinto, Inc.
373 S. White Horse Pike
Hammonton, NJ 08037
Tel: (609) 561-8199
Fax: (609) 561-3429

e-mail: makewine@comcast.net
www.ginopinto.com

One thing I learned from them is that they also ship clusters and fruit from Cali. They ship in 36lb refrigerated containers or 900lb bins. more importantly they said they can ship me Pinotage from Vino Con Brio. That’s pretty neat. I might buy 75lbs when I get back and try to make some Pinotage wine in my basement. My pinotage won’t be ready till next year.

I am going to grab some berries and do some testing now. I found this equation, qhich might help me with determining the ripeness of my grapes:

A historical index of ripeness suggests that optimal sugar / acidity balance is achieved if the product of the Brix value times the square of the pH is in the range of 220 to 260. For example, a 22† Brix juice at pH 3.2 would yield a value of 225.3. Late harvest fruit at a higher pH (24† Brix at pH 3.6, for example) would yield a value (311) outside of this range.

Well, my grapes made some decent progress, but they did they make enough progress to warrant picking on Friday? According to the scale above, the Cabernet Franc will be ripe. The Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon will be very close. I’ll have to consult with the winemaker, but I’d prefer to harvest I think…

Here are the numbers:

Cabernet Sauvignon – House, 3.33 pH, 19 brix = 210
Cabernet Franc – House, 3.48pH, 19.1 brix – 231
Merlot – Field, 3.19pH, 20 brix = 203
Cabernet Sauvignon – Field, 3.24pH, 19.8 brix = 207
Cabernet Franc – Field, 3.38pH, 20 brix = 228

Per my agreement with the winemaker, I have to provide one 59 gallon wine barrel to age my wine. I’m not sure where I have to store the barrel, but for now, I will worry about that later! Anyways, he advised me to purchase American Oak because it’s significantly cheaper. But as many of you are aware, I pretty much have a distaste for Americans, even though I am one.

I figure I spent gobs of money on this endeavor already, I might as well give my wine th ebest possible opportunity to actually be drinkable. Thus far, I think it’s turning out ok.

(1) I arguably have the most experienced, most authentic, most talented wine maker in the area making my wine.
(2) My grapes are young, they are stressed and berry sizes are smaller, the brix / acid profile is looking ok
(3) I have a brand new french oak, medium toasted barrel to age the wine in

Sure my grapes will be a field blend of Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and a touch of Barbera and Carmenere thrown in for goofd measure. But it’s going to be fun to see how it plays out in the end!

Gosh I am so close! We are targeting picking on August 24th!

Here are the readings from today using 30 berry sample from each varietal.

Cabernet Sauvignon (by house): 3.29pH at 18 brix
Cabernet Franc (by house): 3.36pH at 17.9 brix
Cabernet Sauvignon (field) 3.15pH at 18.9 brix
Cabernet Franc (field) 3.28pH at 18.1 brix
Merlot (field): 3.27pH at 19.5 brix

Here are some suggestions on sampling from Sean:

“Random berry selection from both sides of the row zig and zag…we used to do this in large vineyards and they made us run 5 seconds and stop left right etc…for your own data keep varietals/block samples separate. There should be a different maturity rate for you cab sauv. and cab franc. Be cautious of the amount of fruit you take as it is a small vineyard. Maybe 30 berry samples/block…-pick the “shoulders”-center and bottom part of the cluster. ”

Wow. Last week I left for a week in Minnesota with my in-laws. Veraison was underway, and I was worried that the birds might get at my berries. I’ve heard many a horror story about birds picking entire vineyard clean. I’ve never made it past veraison without the deer or the birds eating all my grapes. I spoke with a couple of other vineyard owners who do NOT use netting, while I also spoke with others who would never risk their grapes and ALWAYS use netting. Regardless, I don’t have the time or the money to fool with netting right now. Mark Greene thought those fake owls might work for this year, so he let me borrow a few of his. I mounted one on my deck and another atop one of my 15 foot cedar poles. They look fairly menacing and have startled both my wife and I since I put them out.

Well they must work since I came home last night and had difficulty finding any berries that had been destroyed by the birds. No deer either. My grapes are looking great! I found a local wine maker who is willing to take the grapes, but I need to have at least 1 ton of harvestable grapes. Do I have that many? I don’t know. It will be close. I don’t really think I do. Maybe 3/4 ton. I bought a 1/2 ton bin, so I guess if I don’t have enough tonnage this year, I’ll either give it a whirl myself or perhaps I’ll approach another wine maker I know to see if he is interested.

Next year should really be a fun year, 95% of all my plants are on the wire now, which means that next year, will be the first year I take nearly a full crop. I have a little bit of additional trellis work and some earth anchor to put in, as well as some cover cropping to do, but next year should be far less work than this year and this year was far less work than last year! In theory I should harvest 2-3 tons next year, that would be great!!

Here are my first pics of MY grapes that actually made it past veraison and are now sitting at about 15-16 brix: