Day 26 16th March

According to our analyses, the 26 Pinot Noir is through malo-lactic fermentation and I have to say, it is looking mighty fine.

The usual flavour profile and great Bloodwood colour says it will be a long liver (sic) and it will eat up the new oak we will be racking it into in the next few days. This has been a very quick conversion of the 2.1 gms of malic acid to lactic and sussinic acids which are far more stable than malic.

If you have ever opened a bottle of wine and there is a spritz to the palate and a few fine bubbles in the glass, it is likely to be a malic acid conversion post-bottling.

And that’s how a lot of amateur wine makers ( me included) made their first accidental “sparkling”.. I can say that sparkling Trebbiano or Uni Blanc isn’t much to crow about but it is still better than flat Uni Blanc.

Since the beginning of February we have recorded 75.2 mm of rain at Bloodwood.

In that time there have been floods across large areas of inland and eastern Australia. Uluru, for example has recorded 208.2 mm and the wine growing power houses of the Australian wine industry in the Riverland through to the MIA have also suffered an awful ripening season. Mildura, that desert town which provides much of Australia’s sun dried fruit is currently reporting 164.6 mm since the beginning of February.

Vines, particularly while they are in ripening mode don’t like excessive water. It drowns the roots and rots the fruit.

We have been blessed here at Bloodwood but we need to make a decision about the harvest date for the Cabernet and Shiraz still out in the vineyard. There are showers forecast for the end of this week and early next week which, given the forecast is right, will amount to between 0 and 30 mm. Zero rain is ideal and 30 mm is not.

Hold on to your rain gauges for us.

Ferments need oxygen.

While it is anathema once they are through, a good airing or two during the initial primary fermentation helps stabilize the colour of the wine, cleans up any stinky ferment odours and softens tannins along the way.

If a fermenting wine is struggling or cooking because of overheating, it can smell quite reductive and unpleasant unless you are used to long still coal burning winter nights in Lithgow.

One of the industries standard processes to help in this regard is micro-oxygenation whereby minute doses of oxygen are introduced through the wine over the months it may spend in stainless steel tanks.

But because we at Bloodwood don’t believe in half measures, we employ macro-oxygenation or rack and return during pumping over operations through primary ferment.

Now I know we are comparing apples with durians here but if the wine is healthy and vibrant and fresh at the end of ferment and doesn’t smell like someone has walked past it with diarrhoea, any subsequent malo-lactic conversion will generally go through more cleanly.

Well that’s what we are hoping for with this Cabernet Franc.

Cheers,

Stephen and Rhonda