Action in the Cellar

Like hungry teenagers, wine fermentations require not only a yeast to start the fermentation, but regular “meals” of yeast nutrients. Adding nutrients to fermentations is almost a daily event and last week, we concentrated on feeding Iowa Frontenac and Iowa Marquette Rosé. Fermentations of red wine leave

Once the fermentations have started, we have to provide nutrients for the yeast 2–3 times during fermentation. This prevents off-flavors and antimicrobial growth. So, we are constantly monitoring the fermentations. On the red wines, we are doing regular punch-downs to extract as much flavor as we can

We started processing Edelweiss on Tuesday. The Brianna was racked off sediment and we started fermentation. We continued testing grape samples to determine which grapes we will harvest after the Edelweiss is all harvested. Foch was delivered from the grower and the first step in the Winery

We started testing grapes on Monday and monitored both the grapes and the weather to determine when we can start picking. Brianna is usually the first to be ripe followed by Edelweiss. We have lots of Edelweiss so that will take some time. We loaded up the

Iowa White Bouquet will make its debut at Tassel Ridge Winery this week. It is a fruity, dry white blend that will be an excellent complement to chicken, fish, pork, and spicy dishes. We are moving crush pad equipment to the Winery from our warehouse in order

We have three wines that we want to bottle before harvest makes bottling impossible. The first is American Pink Catawba followed by Cranberry Wine and then Iowa White Bouquet, a new wine which we will release sometime in August. We will change out drums used to hold

We received the replacement pump and motor for our cross flow filter from Italy this week and got it installed and working. The first thing we did was to run a cleaning cycle and then we will start filtering wine. We have an updated bottling schedule and

As soon as we receive the replacement pump/motor for our cross-flow filter, we will be able to get ready to bottle wine again. In the meantime, we are fining our batch of Catawba and are taking steps to assure that wine in the tanks is stable. This

Since we can’t engage in wine making, we are getting the wine cellar floors all cleaned and are getting bottling line equipment ready for prime time. Cranberry ferments very slowly and we are keeping an eye on that fermentation. We also ended the Catawba fermentation. We will

The fermentations of Catawba and Cranberry started over the weekend of April 11 & 12. We continue to monitor them. The big news is that a pump and motor on our Crossflow Filter burned up a bearing early last week. We have removed both the pump and