Re: what's fermenting?

Welsh's has several plants around the country including Cal. They started blending in Thompson Seedless which of course hurts the concord and niagra farmers. The plant in North East is considering paying a lot of farmers in the Erie area $600 an acre to drop their fruit. They just haven't hit 16 brix yet. I was at Presque Isle on Sunday and tasted some grapes from local lugs. They were actually sour. If I see 2003 on a label of PA. or NY wine this year, its a pass. On a happier note, I picked up 700 lds. of Stokes cabernet grapes with a 23.2 brix and TA at .69. Tim

Just this last weekend we pressed 300lbs. of Napa Cab I (from one vineyard) and 500lbs. of Napa Cab II (from a different vineyard). We racked the 2003 Chardonnay, which we had 500lbs. of as well. I meant to go get some Syrah as well, but didn't get an order in time. I'm sure I still could have scouted around, but I have to be honest, I harvested 1,000lbs. of that with a little help from my friends, but it was still and enourmous amount of work. If I could have found a place in time that would have picked the Syrah for me, I would have gone in for another 500lbs. Or maybe an odd 700lbs., which would have rounded out this year's harvest to a nice round ton.

From 2002, I still have Merlot that's cycling through a French oak barrel. Then after that the 2002 Amador County Cab goes in after that (can you tell I like Cab?). We just bottled the 2002 Sauvignon Blanc. Got about ten cases of that. I guess I'm kinda late on oaking and bottling the 2002 stuff, but now after some years of doing this I have such "back stock" that I only seem motivated to get it out of bulk ageing when I need carboys for the new batch, which is exactly what is going on here.

I took a picture of all the carboys and whatnot around the barrel. It was cool the different colors and all. I guesstimated around 150 gallons or so of misc wines. This year I bought splits to bottle in smaller amounts (375ml) as well, which will be nice for topping off, and also for picnics, backpacking and whatnot. I also have been considering doing a bigger bottle, for show, maybe a 3L or 5L, jsut for the hell of it, and hand print a label for it.

I still really wanted to do a Syrah. Never have, and I love Syrah. I just had a Rabbit Ridge Syrah the other night at a friend's house, and it really was elegant. Can't remember the year. Oh well.

Well, 'tis the season for winemaking! Good luck with you and yours,

Deadend

I just checked my NE Ohio Niagara: Brix = 15.8 TA = .40 pH = 3.21 I guess I need to add acid blend and sugar. Georgia bound tomorrow, so I can't pick these grapes until Monday. Is it even worth trying to make wine with these numbers, or wait till next year? Ken A.

However, this was the first year that we harvested honey from our hive and the elderberries did well, so I have a few small batches going.

a. 5 gallons of elderberry melomel b. 3 gallons of Lancaster mead, flavored with the petals of red roses (I made York mead with white roses last year) c. 3 gallons of pyment (grape/honey wine/mead) d. 3 gallons of plum melomel

I usually make 6-8 different batches of wine/mead each year and generally in

Paul