This is what happens ...
This is what happens when you're the computer guy in the family. A broken left and right clutch on my nephew's Macbook.
I've been making wine at home for twelve years and working in software development for about twenty. I married the two interests, a wine competition solution I designed and co-developed that allows wine judges to score wines directly using an Apple iPod touch. I'm also hosting competition results. www.ijudgewine.com.
I love cooking, everything to do with wine, and enjoying it all with my friends and family.
ColorSplash for iPhone
ColorSplash is an application that runs on the iPhone that allows you to manipulate images in a specific way, turning the whole image grayscale and then allowing you to reveal the original color in specific areas. You reveal the color by using your finger to rub that area. There's even a reverse mode that allows you to reapply the grayscale in the same way, essentially touching up an area. There are multiple undo's and you can save a session and the image separately. This was a lot of fun and worth the $1.99 in my opinion. Working with some of my images gave me some ideas for wine labels for the next time we bottle.
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Making Olives
I've never made olives before so this should be educational and fun. To leach out the bitterness, I'm going to use lye for the green ones and a salt brine for the black/purple ones. Not sure yet what I'm going to flavor them with but I'm thinking of using lemon, jalapeño, and garlic.
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Auto Sulfite Tester
My friends Tom and Rebecca loaned me their auto sulfite tester. It's very easy to use. The sulfite level of your wine is probably the test you need to perform most often, maybe once a month prior to bottling, more if you're a commercial producer. A lab typically charges $20 a test and for seven wines that's $140. At $600, it's a good deal and will make your wines better if you use it to keep your sulfites where they need to be.
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Help - I have an addiction
I had just pressed and racked off the last five gallons of wine for the season, a little batch of petite verdot. Everything was tucked in for the winter, sulfites having been updated, and all the containers neatly topped off. I walked in to change and immediately received a call. "Hi this is Diane. I'm sorry we didn't return your call but we were out of town. If you're still interested, you're welcome to come over and take whatever's left."
Well, if nothing more, it was a good excuse to take a trip to Plymouth and visit this awesome piece of property. I was hoping there were still some decent clusters to be found, although I wasn't sure about the sugar. So, I headed down to Plymouth with my macro bin in search of barbera.
Two hours after walking through the vineyard, we had a few hundred pounds of barbera. Not as much as I was hoping for but probably just as well. A day of soaking after taking the fruit back home and crushing the sugar came up at 29.5. This is too high but I will adjust by adding about four and a half gallons of filtered water from the co-op. And then I'm done. Really!
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Malbec Tasting
I was recently invited to a malbec tasting where the $12.50 Norton I bought from Costco took first place in a group of seven malbecs representing Argentina and California. The following gallery shows my score sheet with prices, and the wines in the order of group preference.
Malbec is a Bordeaux varietal, more often used in blends than as a straight varietal wine. Argentina has become known for the best malbecs in the world, more specifically, the Mendoza region. In the late 19th century, France was hit with the phylloxera insect and has since replanted, having grafted its malbec on primarily resistant American root stock. Argentina, however, thinking it was resistant to phylloxera, planted with straight malbec vines. Unfortunately, phylloxera is now starting to hit it as well.
On a personal note, I have a little malbec in the Bordeaux field blend I made this year.
Note: I made a mistake on the Alamos on my score sheet. It should be seventh, not first for group rank.
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Racked Wine Going Through ML Fermentation
Racking wine is the least fun of all the wine making activities. It really boils down to washing a lot of containers but nonetheless, it is a critical part of making wine. This is the second racking, the first performed just after pressing. At this point it's basically clean wine with all the sediment now gone. For the most part, other than adding SO2 over the next year, there isn't much else to do but wait.
Having said that, one test I haven't done myself that I want to try this year is paper chromatography. This test is used to determine the progress of the wine's malolactic fermentation (ML), a process initiated with an inoculation of malolactic culture just after the first racking. Most red wines go through malolactic fermentation, producing a softer, more approachable wine due to the conversion of malic acid to lactic acid and producing diacetyl in the process. Think buttered popcorn.
Paper chromatography uses a large jar with chromatography paper and a solvent to measure the existence of acids. Basically you put five drops of wine along the bottom edge of the paper and do the same with the two control solutions, malic acid and lactic acid. Roll the papers into a cylinder, staple and put it in the jar with a little of the ML test solvent at the bottom. Put a lid on it and let it stand over night. You will see that the solutions get drawn up into the paper and you can measure the amount of malic and lactic acid present in the wine. When ML fermentation is complete, you will see no malic acid on the paper but will see the presence of lactic acid. Even after the test indicates there is no more malic acid present, you want to be careful to ensure that there is no more gas coming out of the wine before bottling. Of course, you can send a sample to a lab if you really want to be sure that it's done.
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Barbera in Plymouth
This hidden gem is a beautiful piece of property just east of Plymouth in Amador County. Although we were there to help pick barbera, the owners also grow petite sirah and a few other varietals. The hillside vineyards surround a flat area where some old stone walls have been restored. I don't know the history of the property but it's very intriguing, and perfectly laid out with the house overlooking the whole thing. The large vineyard on the hillside just below the house is barbera. What was amazing was the quality of the fruit this late in the season and after the rainy weather we've experienced. We chalked it up to good drainage and the great sun exposure that characterizes hillside vineyards. The amount of fruit was so prolific and the clusters so large that in less than an hour we had easily picked about 700 lbs. We ended up trucking the fruit back to my house in Sacramento to crush. The guys left with their crushed fruit, already sulfited, but not after a lengthy discussion on the importance of knowing the pH and total acidity of the wine. Of course, we had taken the sugar with a refractometer before and after the crush but a day's soak is best to get an accurate reading.
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Wine
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