Day Six: Vineyard Sampling

Today, I tasted the wines of tomorrow, in two different senses. In the literal sense, I tasted the 2009 Zinfandels while running analyses on barrel samples. They're coming along great! A couple of them have some good, strong tannins (but not harsh by any means), while others are big, peppery, spicy jam bombs. I think the 2009 Zins will be quite a treat. Hmm... I wonder if I could use my internship position to secure a place on the mailing list.

In the more figurative sense, the interns were all taken out to the Estate vineyard to collect bunch samples. We were taken among the vines and showed how to snip bunches as randomly as possible, so we can get an accurate representation of how the fruit is ripening. While we were out there, we picked a couple of berries and performed the ol' taste test. To confirm my answer to my dad's question: yes, the grapes are very sweet. They don't taste like the wines that they eventually become, because most of the flavors and tannins come from the skins. To get those compounds into the juice, you have to crush the grapes and then let the skins stew in the juice, so that the color and flavor are extracted into the juice. This process is called maceration. So, a ripe berry picked right off the bunch and popped into your mouth will taste surprisingly similar to a regular table grape, just a lot sweeter. Tasting is also a good way to check what's known as "phenolic ripeness" in the grapes. Phenolic ripeness refers to the chemical state of the tannins and phenolic compounds, which are responsible for color and flavor. The way you test for phenolic ripeness is by checking the colors of the stems and seeds. The browner they are, the riper the grapes; the greener, the less ripe.

After we collected the bunches, we took them back to the winery and crushed them up, collected the juice, and ran some tests on it to see how far along the ripening process is. At the Estate vineyard, it looks like we're about 80% there with the sugars (which become alcohol in fermentation). The acids were a little high, but we're not too concerned about that. The stems and seeds were still green, so phenolic ripeness is slow, but it'll get there. The grapes just need more time. Luckily, the forecast is for more heat and sunshine, with no rain in sight, so they can just take their time.

While I'm on the subject of ripeness, I may as well talk a little about vineyard management as pertaining to ripeness and vine/grape health. Ideally, a vineyard manager would want all the grapes to ripen at the same time, so that you can pick them all at the perfect moment: not overripe, not underripe. Unfortunately, in practice, that's rarely going to be the case without some work. When whole clusters don't ripen (stay green), or a second crop of fruit comes in late in the vintage (it happens), you just have to snip 'em off. Being on the vines, they suck up nutrients from the other, riper grapes. This stage of pruning is known as "green dropping". If, on the other hand, you've only got a couple green grapes on an otherwise gorgeous, ripe cluster, though, you just pick them off the bunch as it rolls by on the sorting table during crush. Pretty simple. At the end of the vintage, when harvest is near, here's what you want your vines to look like:

Figure 1. Grapes nearly ready for picking. No green bunches!

Anywho, after analyzing the vineyard samples, I went back into the lab and set up another cork trial (wineries go through a lot of corks, and every lot has to be tested!). After that, the rest of the day was spent finishing up monthly barrel sample analysis. If my (and Patrick's) calculations are correct, then Williams Selyem's 2009s are doing just fine. And thanks to my little taste test on the Zins, I can guarantee their fine-ness.