Filthy Good Vino

Fermentation is winding down & it’s time to get our oak barrels ready to fill. There’s nothing quite like the smell of a new French oak barrel. We’ll be running about a third of our wine to barrel for barrel fermentation. The barrel fermentation should give us some opulence and juiciness. We’ll combine the other ferments to give them a bit of post fermentation maceration. It’s all about layering different flavours and refining the texture / mouthfeel of the wine. I’ll explain everything in detail in my next post.

Prepping new oak for the Filthy Good Vino Bathtub Winemaking Project! Necking a mag of 2007 Vietti Perbacco to give us energy!

Nothing like smelling new oak barrels!

Barrel Ferment ticking away nicely! Through the Eye of the Barrel!

The yeast are starting to get buggy moving! Flavours are looking good!

Filthy Good Vino Project Cabernet Ferment Day 2 Part 2 Adding Acid

Home in time for a midnight plunge! Love the Filthy Good Vino Bathtub Winemaking Project! Attention to detail! Even after 5 decades of Gaja, funky Nebbiolo from Barbaresco Subscribe to filthygoodvino.com to follow our vintage diary & exploits! Next post will review the evolution of Gaja’s Barbaresco over 5 decades!

Beautiful day to pick our Cabernet for the Filthy Good Vino Bathtub Winemaking Project! We’ll be posting regular updates taking you through the winemaking process step by step for Vintage 2015.

Cabernet is picked – BOOM!

Even the Sheep are loving the Filthy Good Vino Bathtub Winemaking Project!

Down the guts of the Crusher as the Cabernet makes it’s way through! The blurry paddles beat the berries off the bunches & feed the stalks out the end for me to collect for tea bag production later! All will be revealed!

Making a stalk teabag! Wrapping a bucket of the spicey colour fixing beauties in muslin to chuck in the ferment! I pull them out toward the end of the ferment before the hard, bitter stuff starts to be extracted! Timing as they say is everything & everyone likes their tea made THEIR way!

My stalky teabag pokes it’s head up through the vat full of must (crushed grapes) I’ll push it down to expel trapped ear and allow it to steep later!

Pushing my stalk teabag to the bottom of the vat!

Analysis Done! Temp 18C sugar 12.6Baumé! Most importantly flavour = Yummy & the tannin is ripe! That’s what you get with 17 year old vineyard yielding sub 2 Tonnes/acre, looked after by lots of worms!

Reflection on Yesterday’s Cabernet Pick! Transferring must from fruit bins into our bathtub vats using the old school bucket pump! Matt & I last worked with grapes together back in 2000 at Yering Station 12-15 hour / day 7 days a week! Not sure how we did it! After 1 day this year I was knackered!