We had numerous fermentations going and we monitored and fed Sabrevois and La Crescent fermentations while doing regular punch downs on the Sabrevois. We punch down the cap that forms on the top of the fermenting red wine every day in order to assure that grape skins remain in contact with the wine. Our objective is to extract as much flavor from the grape skins as possible.
Several fermentations finished including Sabrevois so we pressed that wine to remove the skins and seeds from the wine.
With white wines like Brianna and LaCrosse, we finished up the fermentations by moving the wine from the tank leaving just the yeast lees or fermentation sludge at the bottom of the tanks. This was then washed out of the tanks and the tanks were immediately cleaned with very hot high pressure water.
We stopped the fermentations of both Foch and Frontenac and got ready to blend them. We also stopped the fermentations of Verona, Crimson Pearl, and Petite Pearl and we put them in one of our refrigerated trucks where they will stay for about ten days. The cold temperatures will assure that the wines don’t ferment and that we don’t get any microbial spoilage while the wine waits for us to take the next steps.
