Bottling, Corking and Plotting
We spent the better part of Tuesday and Wednesday bottling wine from the 2006 harvest. This wine is a mix of mostly Sangiovese with a little bit of Pinot Nero. It will be the first vintage that confirms to the Montecucco DOC standards, and Tutilo thinks it will be good enough to enter into competitions. It still needs to age in the bottle for another six months or so, but based on the generous portions that we’ve sampled during the bottling process, we couldn’t agree more.
Bottling consists of attaching a small pump with a system of tubes and vacuum seals to the wine tank. Each bottle is filled up by hand, one at a time by placing it under a special nozzle on the pump and opening the faucet on the wine tank. Then the bottle is moved to a very simple corking machine where a hand operated lever squeezes the cork into the bottle. We’ve become quite deft bottlers and corkers…518 bottles later.
Friday was spent getting ready for the 2007 vendemmia, or harvest. There will actually be three separate harvests this year to ensure that each bunch of grapes is picked at optimal ripeness. The early ripening Pinot Nero was picked about 2 weeks ago, and the late ripening portion of Sangiovese will be picked in 3 weeks. Tomorrow is vendemmia number 2 for the first batch of Sangiovese.
Tutilo has prepared a chart of the entire vineyard with a space for each individual grape vine. 
I spent the day trailing behind him as he tested the sugar content of the grapes from each and every plant so that we could mark on the chart which vines to pick and which to leave to ripen further. The sugar is tested using a little device called a refractometer that resembles a small telescope with one end cut off at a sloping angle. Grape juice is smeared on the plastic plate at the end, covered with another clear plastic plate and held up to the light for reading. A reading of 100 is optimal. Anything below that will be too sour and acidic, anything much above that will be too sweet and alcoholic. A sugar reading of 100 translates into an alcohol content in the final product of about 14%. A perfect, strong and complex wine!
Comments (3 comments)
Hick… one for you, one for me… .hick….
James / September 7th, 2007, 8:16 pm / #
Rick & Emily
I am here with the boys and they are getting their first look at your blog. Nice going, their first reaction is Uncle Ricky and Emily making and drinking wine. Papa will try this vintage next week and report back to the boys.
Jack says you could wind up being a pizza/winemaker.
Sean says that he likes the blog and enjoys the food recipes.
papa morse / September 10th, 2007, 2:18 pm / #
Even though you were working most of the time, looks like you two definitely enjoyed yourselves. Wish I could taste the wine too! By the way, you both look great! Nice to see pictures of you.
Laura / September 12th, 2007, 9:32 am / #
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