Bottling Accolade

So another one of things I’ve been busy with is bottling Accolade.

Accolade is a semi-sparkling Chardonnay that I made for my son’s wedding. Bo and Heather were married in April of 2004. I was so thrilled that they were finally getting married that I decided to make a wine in their honor.

Heather (the future mother of my grandchildren) enjoys prosecco, an Italian style sparkling wine. It is typically fruity with less effervescence than champagne. So completely naïve to the production of sparkling wine, I jumped in with both feet.

I’d like to report that making Accolade was easy, that it was produced with no setbacks or tribulation, with no gnashing of teeth or rending of cloth. It didn’t quite happen that way. Fortunately, it was unique and delicious. Heather loved it; people loved it, so much so that I had to make more.

I approached the new Accolade with cautious optimism. However; if you look back at “Adventures in tank moving” the tank had been bounced since I last made Accolade. As a consequence, the man way door gasket no longer sealed. Of course since the tank is 45 years old, I had a very tough time locating a gasket which would seal the tank. There were several unsuccessful attempts, including one where I epoxied a hand cut Teflon donut looking thing to the inside of the tank doorway. We finally located a company in Wisconsin that was able to fabricate a gasket that sealed successfully.

It is surprising how difficult it is to make 2 wines exactly the same. I talk about how much the weather and winemaker affect the wine, but I didn’t really think it would prove so troublesome to make this Accolade taste like the first one. In fact, they aren’t quite the same. But what can I say-

Anyway, we were finally able to bottle this equally delicious but quirky wine in early August. Accolade is made using the “Metodo Charmat”. Instead of making the bubbles in the bottle, we make them in a large tank via a secondary fermentation. This requires us to bottle Accolade under pressure. The counter pressure filler that I could afford only has 4 spigots. I have a single pneumatic capper. Bottling was not going to be fast. I assembled a team of 5 hard working enthusiastic individuals to help me bottle. We cranked out about 18 cases an hour. The “A” team slaved for 2 ½ lo-o-o-ng days, opening cases of bottles, filling them, capping them and then boxing the now filled bottles back up. The 46 pound cases then all had to be stacked (case by case) in the wine storage bay at the winery. We bottled 416 cases of the new Accolade.

Did I mention that in my spare time, I sprayed the vineyard (finished in the dark) and poured wine at a local golf tournament?

grape puberty

Its been too long since I’ve written anything-

Not due to lack of stuff happening- actually I’ve been working my little winemaking fingers to the bone. In the last month or so, I barely get a chance to get the basics covered; like eating, sleeping and bathing. And I won’t even talk about laundry.

So the first I’ll give an update on the grapes. The 2006 grapes are starting veraision, although not 50% yet. Veraison (ve-ray-zon):The phase of growth where the grape begins to turn color and the sugar begins to form.

One might ask- but don’t you grow Chardonnay? That’s a white grape, right?

It is indeed a white grape. Actually they look green, but at veraison, the color goes from lime green to a more golden green tone. The skins thin, the grapes soften, and the flavors gain some sweetness; although the grapes are still quite tart yet.