Picking Early vs Picking Later

Cellar Rats (ITB)
1

We did a little experiment at the Rosella’s Vineyard this year. One section of the vineyard is Dijon clone 777 planted on 5C rootstock. This section, at the first cool spell in September, has always seemed to shut down to us…with flavors not being fully ripe. We wait and wait on it…until flavors are seemingly there (probably achieved by dehydration)…but aren’t as blown away by the results of the final wine as we have wanted to be. So we decided this year to do something different.

This year we picked one section of the vineyard immediately upon this shutdown and then waited until the grapes started tasting as they had in previous years (and were showing a similar amount of dehydration as in past vintages) and picked the second section. The vines are adjacent to one another with no physical differences in the property.

This vintage there was only 9 days difference between the harvest dates at the two sections (September 12 and September 21) and we just received the basic chemistry panel back on the second section. Here’s a comparison between the two. Would love the thoughts on anyone out there:

Clone/ Block Juice Panels

clone 777 (picked 9/12)

777 block 2 (picked 9/21)


Analysis


L-malic acid
2.89 g/L
2.54 g/L


tartaric acid
3.54 g/L
3.93 g/L

brix
24.5 degrees
24.5 degrees

glucose + fructose
25.5 g/100mL
25.5 g/100mL

potassium
1780 mg/L
1700 mg/L

ammonia
58 mg/L
46 mg/L

alpha-amino compounds
164 mg/L
160 mg/L

pH
3.68
3.66

titratable acidity
0.50 g/100mL
0.46 g/100mL

yeast assimilable nitrogen
212 mg/L (as N)
198 mg/L (as N)

Scorpion’ : Acetobacter/Gluconobacter
< 10 cells/mL
2400 cells/mL

Scorpion’ : Brettanomyces bruxellensis
< 10 cells/mL
< 10 cells/mL

Scorpion’ : Hanseniaspora uvarum
150 cells/mL
190 cells/mL

Scorpion’ : Lactobacillus brevis/hilgardii/plantarum
< 10 cells/mL
60 cells/mL

Scorpion’ : Pediococcus damnosus/parvulus
< 10 cells/mL
640 cells/mL

Scorpion’ : Pichia membranifaciens
< 10 cells/mL
320 cells/mL

Scorpion’ : Zygosaccharomyces bailii
< 10 cells/mL
< 10 cells/mL

I will share more about my thoughts later as well as our plans for this wine
Thanks,

Adam Lee
Siduri Wines & Novy Family Winery

2

What were the weather parameters between the two picking dates? High and low temperatures, any rain, any cloud cover? In the eastern U.S., nine days could mean the end of the world. The lack of change in the brix levels would indicate very little dehydration occurred. Was this true? Does a total acidity of .46g/100ml bother you at all or will you just add some acid?

Martin Keen
Lancaster Valley AVA

3

Adam, Great experiment. Please keep us updated on delevopments.

4

The thing that interests me is how these wines will taste when fermented seperately. The numbers are real close, but you like the flavors better on the latter pick. This should be a good result for your latter pick. In 2006, my first attempt at my own Cab, I picked one part by the numbers, 24.4brix, 3.50ph, and the latter by taste 1.5 weeks later, without doing any lab testing until after the pick. It was 25.2 brix and 3.7ph. The latter made much better wine and after that I stopped paying attention to the numbers as a reason to pick and only use them to give me a sense of what I am in for. My guess is that this experiment will just make you more confident in going with your gut instinct.

5

Interesting stuff Adam.

How did you do your sampling to send to the lab? Take a bit as grapes are destemmed? Mix everything together afterwords (pump over, or what have you) and take it from the tank/tbin? Do you do any whole berry, or is everything crushed. Oh, you do some whole cluster…so how do you account for that in what gets sent to the lab. I find that really good sampling is a tough biz, and lab results can be varying degrees of meaningful/meaningless depending on this.

Also, my understanding is that 5C doesn’t like it much when it doesn’t get enough water. Could the period of shutting down be partly due to changes in irrigation (or changes in air humidity, which would affect irrigation needs)? In addition, I’ve found (in my massively statistically insignificant observations) noticed that 777 takes longer than most clones (115 or 667 for example) to develop flavors (which perhaps combines with my vaguely supported 5C irrigation theory).

6

We also found this to be true with our 5 over our 777 this year. The 777 just never seemed to want to get up to that flavor level.

7

Do you do Scorpions on all of your juice samples, or just this one for experimental purposes?

8

The samples are taken to the lab after destemming (but no crushing, about 10% whole cluster on both samples) and 48 hours after crushing (3 punchdowns a day). Both samples treated the same way.

I do find that 5C shuts down without sufficient watering. But for some reason 777 on 5C shuts down more easily, or more quickly, than other clones. Not sure why that would be.

We do scorpions on all of our different lots. Have for a couple of years now.

Adam Lee
Siduri Wines

9

5C is of riparian heritage. It is a shallow rooter and will shut down on you in dry soils if you don’t give it enough water. It’s an interesting choice for the SLH. Is Rosella’s in the high ground like Pisoni, Adam?

Thanks for posting this here and elsewhere. It has been interesting to see some of the responses…especially the ones seemingly chastising you for actually doing it and posting the results [scratch.gif]. I hope the results are interesting and enlightening.