Grapey-miscellany and stuff, etc.

Two days of doing stuff.  But nothing particularly riveting.  A bit like all of 2020, to be honest.  Sigh.
Yesterday morning, to give Vinomaker a hand, I spent some time rehydrating yeasts for the Pinot grigio and Orange muscat alcoholic fermentations.  (Photo is of Cross Evolution.)  Like a mad professor, Vinomaker is always experimenting with different yeasts, especially for the white wine grapes.  It is rather interesting, and something one wouldn't necessarily have the freedom to do on a commercial scale.  The varied yeast strains really do produce distinct wines.  There were five batches in all and consequently the kitchen smelled like yeast for hours.
I also performed the first Syrah sugar sample of the season - 22.8 °Brix, not bad.  The seeds are almost completely brown and the berries have good flavour.  I ate quite a bit of the stuff as I walked through the vineyard sampling.  Sun warmed grapes are the best snack.
This morning I watched a couple of webinars, one was eminently better than the other.  Today's guest on Behind the Wines was Wink Lorch. Wink (what a simply brilliant name) who is English, is an expert and author of books on the wines and vineyards of Jura and Savoie.  I can't remember the last time I had a wine from either French Alpine region, but it was probably in the Wines of the World class I took in 2012.  The lively discussion on the history, pedigree and DNA of such grape varieties as Savagnin and Mondeuse was great grapey-geek stuff.
I...need...to...get...a...job!

Fermentation Frenzy: Part 1.

There are a lot of fermentations ongoing right now in Vinoland, including a 30 gallon batch of Chardonnay that was gifted to Vinomaker by a commercial winemaker friend.
It's not a secret in these parts that Vinomaker just loves Chardonnay.  I don't understand his fascination with this particular grape variety, but then wouldn't the world be an extremely boring place if we all had the same taste in wine? Vinomaker's yeast of choice to ferment the Chardonnay, is a Saccharomyces cerevisiae hybrid yeast from a unique breeding programme of the Institute for Wine Biotechnology at the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa - Cross Evolution. Known to increase the mouthfeel component of white and rosé wines, Cross Evolution also enhances varietal characteristics and in Chardonnay tends to accentuate fresh fruit and floral aromas. Sounds good so far.  I have seen this yeast in action at TWWIAGE and it really gives quite a dramatic performance, working itself up into a veritable, bubbling frenzy.  But just look at the bubbles in the photograph, they are very small and uniform - most different from the other yeasts that Vinomaker has awakened from their freeze-dried slumber - appearing rather docile and really do not resemble the frothing, fermentation-fiend it is about to become.