Maestoso Merlot Crush October 2008
The grapes for Maestoso were hand harvested into 30lbs micro bins on October 23 2008. As always, the fruit was hand sorted twice by around 14 people and then gravity fed to the fermenter. Looking in the fermenter, this year’s fruit has the most amounts of whole berries I have ever seen ending up in the tank. The berries were literally jumping off the last vibrating table when they came out the de-stemmer. Nice firm berries with lots of flavor. They came in at a scant 1.3 tons per acre and 26.8 brix, the right PH and better acidity than expected from this vintage.
After warming the must to 17°C, the yeast was added on October 24th, followed by a nice steady ferment of 7 days and pressing at or slightly above negative brix. With a huge amount of whole berries that still hadn’t opened, a full 1.8 bar press was given to break those berries. This allows those extra flavors’ to come out. The press fraction was assessed the next day and since the seeds achieved perfect physiological ripeness in this vintage the quality of the pressed wine was so outstanding that it was added back to the free run juice as opposed to being treated separately. The wine finished fermenting to dryness on November 4th and malolactic fermentation started.
So far there is a promise of yet another outstanding Maestoso being released from the 2008 vintage. Stay tuned for future updates! ~ Lastella
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
should I leave my address or email address (just in case in move) when you can ship me a free case for sampling mmmm free errr wine
Weston~
Yum!
“Press” wine (in so many ways).