Unexpected Riesling for 2007
I wasn't going to do any red or white table wines this year, just help out with the Eno and Norman Hardie harvests and then concentrate on my own Icewines come winter. However, Norm was kind enough to spare a 23L carboy of Riesling juice, so it looks like I'll be making a little bit after all. And Norm gets some great Riesling, so I'm excited to see how this one will turn out.
Here's what I've done so far: I've added 11.5g of Argilact, a gentle casein/bentonite fining agent, to help settle the juice. After mixing it with 115g of cold water, I let it settle for three hours and then added it to the juice. The juice is now sitting on my balcony where it will stay cool for a few days before I rack it off the lees and start fermentation.
Initial brix reading was 20.5 brix on the high-end hydrometer. I don't know what pH or TA are, but Norm was guessing the TA was around 7g/L and could probably use another 1g/L addition of Tartaric Acid.
You can follow along with the progress of fermentation, by reading my winemaking notes.