Article on making Pinot Noir

I didn't read it all very carefully, but what I did read looks like great information. Thanks for taking the time to write this. Personally, I find a large variation in the flavor and quality of Pinot Noir here in the US. I have tried many of them and only found very few that I would prefer to drink.

Great stuff, Ben. Been through several Pinots with varied results. One thing- In the following paragraph:

Bentonite fining Most red wines have sufficient tannin to be cold stable. However, given that Pinot is often low in tannin it is not uncommon for Pinot to throw a protein deposit/haze. Bentonite may be used to solve this problem. Bench testing is encouraged and recommended, however a light bentonite fining (0.25 g/l) is usually sufficient as a ballpark figure.

Don't you mean "heat stable"?

Thanks and regards,

John

...

I do, thanks for pointing out that typo (article corrected).

Ben

Ben:

Great write-up. The one thing I didn't understand was some of the fermentation times... especially at high temperature. My pinot seems to ferment dry in about 5-7 days with fermentation in the 20C-26C range and maybe a spike to 30C. I don't understand the long, hot fermentations you referred to... such Jadot's. Also, did you research approaches for maximizing color extraction?

Thanks, ...Michael

The way I read that was that they were extended macerations past dryness with an external heat source if need be to keep the temperature up. Of course I may be wrong but I can't imagine any way to keep the yeast from fermenting all the sugar for 25 days at high temp. I really enjoyed reading about the various methods in Burgundy since it's my favorite winemaking region in the world.

Regards,

John