If you’re just joining us, part 1 in this series is here and you can find part 2 here.
Also congrats to my sister Sara and new brother-in-law Ryan Bradley who got hitched last Saturday at Viansa winery! Hope you’re enjoying Rome guys!
Ahh, fermentation. The time when the real winemakers get to do their work.
Choosing a yeast has become quite a process. Local labs and supply houses have pages and pages of yeast strains to pick from, each promising to provide some combination of fruity esters, improved mouthfeel or color extraction. Trial and error is really the only way to know for sure which strains will work best with your particular fruit, and without that experience it can be a bit of a shot in the dark.
Initially I was thinking of going with a natural ferment using indigenous yeast (yeast that hitchhikes in from the vineyard on the skins of the berries). However after talking with Morgan at Bedrock, who went au natural with his ferment of our fruit, I decided against it. According to Morgan there was a heart-attack inducing 2-day lag before the yeast took off, and when it did take off, it really took off.
Fermentation temps quickly reached into the 90s and Morgan had to swiftly add dry ice to cool things off so the potentially heat-sensitive yeast didn’t end up killing themselves. The whole thing was hot and quick, finishing up in 3 or 4 days. While I’m intrigued to see how Morgan’s wine turns out, this wasn’t what I had in mind for our juice. I wanted a long cool ferment to try and preserve any floral and fruity aromas created during the ferment, and that meant going with a reliable commercial yeast strain.
Mein Führer! I can walk!
So, instead of letting the freeloading, carpetbagging yeast have their fun, I went with the tried-and-true Assmanshausen strain. It’s a great yeast for pinot, adds some fruity aromas and is a reliably cool and slow fermenter. But for me the best part of using Assmanshausen is that you can’t say the word without raising your voice and channeling Dr. Strangelove. Try it for yourself. ASS-mans-hau-sen! Sweet.
Most commercial yeast are sent to you sleeping peacefully in a sort of suspended animation, awaiting a bit of moisture to waken them from their slumber. And like a sleeping child the yeast can wake up in a good mood ready to eat and play, or they can wake up cranky and destructive. Your goal is to make sure they are gently prodded awake and cuddled lovingly in a nice warm blanket of nutrients. Then you add a little must, just to give them a taste. They’re still dazed and you don’t want to shock the little fellas. Gradually you bring their environment down to the same temperature as the rest of the must and set them loose. Then you wait and pray.
Assmanshausen has about a 24 hour lag phase where the yeast kind of lounge around doing nothing. Maybe they’re preparing for the hard work ahead, or perhaps they’re just shiftless. In any event, after a day they finally get hungry and start to eat and reproduce.
While I patiently waited for my soldiers to get off their duffs and do their duty, I decided I wanted to experiment with some fermentation tannins.
Tannin Management
I mentioned in a previous post that one of the fermentation decisions I made would probably outrage the purists out there, and this was it. First though, a bit of winemaking theory.
During fermentation a couple interesting things happen that affect the beautiful, velvety skin tannins in pinot.
Pretty early on a bunch of horny little proteins are extracted from the grapes. These beer-goggled frat boys don’t care what kind of tannins they hook up with. They just want to score with whatever’s closest, then drop out of solution with them to a private room at the bottom of the tank. They’re every father’s worst freakin’ nightmare.
To compound the problem, the first tannins released into the wine are the virtuous, perfect skin tannins responsible for pinot’s famous velvety smooth mouthfeel. I mean, you work hard to raise these tannins correctly; to protect them from strangers, birds and mold. And then along come these horn-dog proteins looking to defrock your babies, to completely remove a large portion of them from the wine and to generally defile everything you’ve worked so hard for. It’s a pretty serious situation.
So I decided to do what any good father would do and protect my precious tannins. The best way to do this isn’t to try to beat the proteins, it’s to distract them. You accomplish this by crashing the party with a gaggle of filthy, whorish reactive tannins.
Reactive Tannins (aka Dirty Sluts)
Reactive tannins are the dirty little sluts of the tannin world and are just as horny as the proteins. Throwing them in the mix early is like unleashing an army of platinum blonde, plastic-fantastic strippers on the delighted frat boy proteins.
The proteins end up leaving your wholesome tannins alone and available for more respectable activities, like getting hitched to an anthocyanin and stabilizing color in your wine. Even better, those that don’t marry an anthocyanin will happily stay at home in the wine and provide the luscious mouthfeel that helps make drinking pinot such a pleasurable experience. At least that’s the theory.
The most traditional way to make more tannins available during fermentation is to just ferment in a large oak vessel. Unfortunately I didn’t have one available. Other options include powdered chestnut tannins, which are highly reactive with proteins, and powdered oak tannins. I chose to go with a third option - lightly toasted french oak chips.
What’s that you say? Oak chips??
Yes, blaspheme, I know. Does my spoofulating know no limits? “Oak chips are only for cheap, mass produced wines!”, I can hear you cry.
Yes, that may be true if what you’re trying to accomplish is wine flavoring. But if what you’re attempting to do is to improve the quality of the tannins in your finished wine and are only leaving chips in for 8 or 9 days, flavor isn’t really affected by adding chips.
Because the tannins made available by the chips are precipitated out of solution by the horny proteins, tests show that tannin additions during fermentation don’t show up in the finished wine. All you’re really doing is preventing the natural, soft pinot skin tannins from getting gobbled up and dropping out of solution.
As a quick test I added the chips to our DRC clone but kept them out of the Pommard 4. Tasting the two after ferment completed I noticed just a slight difference in suppleness. I think this is mainly because I was extremely conservative in the amount of chips I added (around 5.5 grams per gallon). I also didn’t detect any oak flavors or aromas.
Ultimately though both wines were tasting fantastic after fermentation, and the 50-50 blend is tasting even better. If adding oak chips wasn’t so darn easy I probably wouldn’t bother. Still, I’ll likely continue to experiment with oak tannins during ferment, whether it be chips, staves or vessels. It’s just too much fun not to.
Check back tomorrow when I’ll wrap up the series with a cool announcement. See you then.
Lounging around! Hardly!
During lag phase, the yeast are eating up sugar and building biomass. Instead of producing our favorite byproduct (ethanol), they are building up their numbers. After being freeze dried, they figure out that they are in a nutrient soup and start dividing like crazy. So lag phase is good - it gets the yeast numbers up.
I thought reproduction was a growth or “log” phase event. But in any case you’re right of course, the yeast aren’t just laying around the entire period before fermentation. It’s just that the Assmanshausen lag is a long one by commercial standards, and I’m impatient. Thus in my book they are lazy little suckers.
Thanks for the clarification Greg!
Hey Josh,
ASS man, how zen!
Excellent article. I especially love the dirty slut oak chips (those tannins will do *anything* for a good protein). I am left to wonder if your blasphemous ways with tannin management would also work on Cab Sauv, or am I left to find my own path?
Also, found out today (via The Boss sending me an IM while I was on the air doing Wine Biz) that our vineyard is at 23 Brix (sorry, no pH or TA), and the winemaker is looking at another two weeks before harvest. Who knows how much they’ll leave on the vines for me to plunder for my own uses (muahahaha)
Keep it up, of course, I’m getting really curious about the big announcement. For now, though, it’s off to bed.
–R
Hey Randy,
The tannin management process I described can be used on any red. Give it a shot and tell me how it goes for you.
Good to hear about the grapes - nice long growing season this year should make for some very tasty Cab!
[...] the Capozzi Winery blog « My ‘07 Pinot Recipe Part 3 My ‘07 Pinot Recipe Part 4: [...]
Hi! I love your blog - any wine blog that can intelligently work “platinum-blonde… strippers” into a post is absolutely fabulous in my book
Best of luck and I look forward to reading more!
I used AMH yeast for years on Zinfandel. THE LAG IS EVIL! Unless it is a good thing that it inspires prayer, curses, promises to the Almighty, bargains with Satan, voodoo rituals, and the thought that you might waste a perfectly good virgin on a sacrifice! The slow-go, foamy ferment does pay off, though - especially if you think you might need alcohol tolerance! It just isn’t as satisfying as a nice rich bubbling, frothing witches’ brew of an innoculant!
thanks for sharing your recipe and procedures. it seems most winemakers keep this under wraps– it took me 4 years to come up with my own solid procedures, despite it being readily available for beer brewers. wtf. one question: besides the enzymes and yeast, did you have any other additions- i.e. nutrients of any sort? btw, sorry to hear about consultant woes- your samples ‘gifting’ sounds like a great way of turning this around into something positive.
I’ll be honest, I wasn’t familiar with your blog until I read Dr. Vino’s interview on Tom Wark’s blog, Fermentation where he mentioned you as one of his favorite reads. Of course, curiosity got the best of me, and after being absorbed in your blog for the past hour, reading post after post, I can totally understand his addiction. You, my dear, are a fantastic writer and to hear tannins being referred to as, “a gaggle of filthy, whorish reactive tannins” makes my day! Thanks for doing such a great job making a potentially boring topic into something completely engaging! Keep up the great work because I’ve officially joined the ranks.
I am just now catching up on my pinotblogger.com reading from the last couple of (hellish) harvest weeks. Everything is in thank god!
Josh, your descriptions of fermentation dynamics might be the funniest thing I have read in the last month.
A few thoughts however. The wild yeast ferment I did on your fruit finished in 7 days, a couple days short of where most research shows that maximum phenolic extraction is reached. The combination of not being equipped with glycol chilling and the warm ambient temperature in the beginning of September made for a super-quick fermentation. The two days wait prior to fermentation commencing did seem an eternity at the time since it was the first ferment at the facility (probably the first wild ferment ever), and because it was the first ferment for the new winery– both contributing to heart palpitations. However, the fruit was incredible and the wine in barrel tastes absolutely awesome, I am looking forward to you tasting it. It is currently resting in a 2007 Claude Gillet Vosges M+ toast barrel, and a 2003 neutral barrel from JC Cellars.
Second, over the course of the harvest I have become more and more convinced by native yeast fermentations. The three to four days of lag time works as a de facto cold soak getting lots of early color into the wine (particularly after enzyme has been added). Other than Josh’s Pinot every single one of my ferments peaked for a couple of days in the mid-80’s temperature range, which is about ideal. I have had no problems with completing fermentation, VA, or reduction.The Bedrock Zin has fermented dry to 15.5% alcohol. All in all, not bad.
Yeasts were kept happy with a combination of DAP and Superfood added at rates of 100-200 ppm.
Just food for thought…..
Assmannshausen, actually I was there during my last vintage. It really isn’t so difficult to pronounce, well if you are a Dutchman of course. I tried the famous Pinot from A. but I must say I was really dissappointed. Mostly oxidised stuff.
The analogies you put in are indeed a welcome breeze to an otherwise boring topic. I definately will adopt some of your strategies, and next time I make a Pinot, I will think of proteins and tannins in a different way!