Do you ever taste your wine while its still going through primary?

I know things will change after malo and a bit of time but Im surprised how astringent some of my vineyards/batches are this year. This is my first time doing zin and I years past when I did cool climate pinot I kind of remember them tasting and smelling better during fermentation. What is your experience in this respect?

Taste it every day.

Are there ever cases for you where it is tight and unfriendly near the end of primary fermentation but it totally blossoms soon after malo or even longer afterwards?

Wine generally tastes different every day, and the wine you are fermenting will be like night and day to the finished product. Remember also that CO2 created during fermentation can considerably lower your pH temporarily, so take that into account.

Thank you Linda.

As with Linda, I taste frequently between crush and barreling. But I think it is hard to get a frame of reference for these early stages - the wine is only at the stage so briefly.

Barrel sampling is more drawn out, so it is easier to get a feel for what it should taste like at that stage of its life.

I generally only smell during primary. It also depends on how many wines I have going at once.

I tasted from my tanks today at the winery - my first taste since we crushed on Thursday. The color is beautiful! The odor is very strange when you go to take a sip - just like nothing you know. The flavor is altogether different: sweet, mouth-filling, exotic almost.

This season has been so much fun - some years you wonder if you can do it again. But we still have work to do.

I tasted through all my little batches of zin today and flavors were very nice. Most of my wines have been picked at around 24 brix and seemed to have nice red fruits and floral flavors.

My tanks are down in the single digits at this point. I could be in barrel in a week! Interesting to taste the difference between vessels.

i smell every day to make sure the ferment isn’t developing any issues, and taste daily once it is nearing dryness to determine when to press off the skins.

Yeah, smell it all the time. You just want to have fruitcake aromas as you go. Typically, it never tastes or smells better than 1/2 way through ferment, and then the flavor tails off a bit as it finishes. Completely normal. Half way through, the juice is warm and there is still tons of sugar in the mouthfeel. By the time it is done, there is little to no sugar and the tannins get big. It will really go south the first few months in barrel. Starts to taste like a wood plank. By Jan, Feb, it will start to come around more and more and keep getting better.

Taste it all the time… Over the years you will build associations between the flavors now, and the flavors then. I find it exciting to taste our work at all stages.

Taste it at destem and then press generally. Too busy to filter out the berries during punchdown otherwise.
As noted the aroma, taste, texture changes quite a bit as the fermentation progresses, and temperature changes.

How do you check your sugars on a daily basis?

All you need is a colander/strainer, and some plastic measuring cups.

All our folks are taught to smell as they work on the young wines and note anything off or different. Typically at least two of us will sniff and taste each lot daily. I can’t imagine not knowing what is going on daily with the baby wines

Yeah I sniff multiple times a day but with these zins I was surprised at how astringent they were tasting during primary compared to the pinot noirs I made in the past. Post-fermentation they are tasting good.