Picked my Mission today at exactly 23 brix. That’s the lowest it has been at this time in the 6 years since I’ve picked it. The Petit Sirah right next door still unsold and tested at 22.8 last week… That’s low for Nov in Lodi. The Santa Barbara stuff is also a bit behind, but catching up. 23brix for the Cabernet I happened to catch on the vineyard management’s portal and the Syrah just passed 24.
I think we’re looking at many areas where the vines simply won’t get to the highest ripenesses - they’re shutting down already.
Most get bulked out, my guess. But just having come back from Lodi today, there’s tons of fruit hanging that doesn’t have a contract and will never get sold. Just one of those years where higher yield meets lower demand.
The Petit Sirah I mentioned is probably 10 acres of fruit just hanging. Vineyard guy offered it to me for almost free. But I’m just at max capacity and also don’t really jive with PS that well. But I did think about it. Maybe I still am;) Could be fun little special edition/one-off wine perhaps?
I assume there is a difference between good quality grapes at 23-24 brix that have all of the other components in balance and 23-24 that are not ripe enough. I have tasted many wines that were picked by numbers, meaning picking by a certain brix to obtain a target abv that were just horrible.
tagging this thread to make sure I keep track of it. So much thanks to Roy, other winemakers, and everyone for chiming in on this. Starting to put away the Canadian pesos now for 2023 buying.
Brix usually converts to alcohol at .59. So 25.5 brix will finish about 15.0%. 23.5 brix = 13.9% and 27 brix is 15.9%.
Many (but not all) top winemakers will add water to a tank to bring the initial brix down to 25.5 to 26.0, so it finishes 15-15.5%.
I have not needed to add Jesus Juice (water, as it turns water into wine) since the 2015 drought vintage. First, I don’t like to typically pick over 27 brix and second, my vineyards are typically in the lower-half of Napa where it is harder to reach that kind of brix.
Now comes the magic…errr… marketing. We are allowed a 0.8% wiggle room on the alcohol listed on the label. Amazingly, no one ever labels it higher than it really is, but lower. So if you finish at 15.9% alc, you might label it with 15.1%. Or if it finishes at 15.3%, you can label 14.5%.
This year, many will actually FINISH at 14.5 to 15.3% on their own, without water and the label will match the real number. It will appear the same on the label but what’s in the bottle will be verrrrry different.
Curious, I assume you print labels with a single ABV for all the wines of a bottling but the ABV could vary somewhat from barrel to barrel and bottle to bottle. What is a typical variation in ABV in a bottling? And how many samples do you take to come up with your base ABV?
Why different? Different because you would still expect some Jesus Water? Or because the overall balance/acid will be different because of the hang times etc.?
For the Napa winemakers around, I’d love to get a better understanding of why 25+ brix is desired to make an optimal wine, when in Bordeaux many wines reach full ripeness (many here would even say overripe) and end up at 14% alcohol even in warm years. Is it that a 13% alcohol wine (even with long hang time) won’t be deemed Napa-esque enough by customers? Is it that the flavors will still be green or not fully developed?
My personal opinion is this is a major factor. I think your average Napa cab buyer wants riper, denser, darker fruit. ‘23 might be great for us WBers, but outside of our bubble, Caymus and Prisoner etc are very popular.
