Some experience · 23.0 litres · Barrel-fermented white
Barrel-fermented Chardonnay
Fermented on oak, put through malolactic and stirred on its lees. The full treatment, and the reason Chardonnay has a reputation for tasting of butter and toast rather than of grapes.
Starting sugar
22.6 Brix
5.69 kg of fermentable sugar
Original gravity
1.095
from the ingredients, not asserted
Finishing gravity
0.995
dry
Alcohol
13.1%
Brix alone predicts 12.4 to 13.6%
Residual sugar
0 g/L
approximate, from gravity
Ready after
9 months
best around 4 years
Made to Barrel-fermented white, and every computed figure lands inside the published range for it.
ABV inTA inpH inRS inWhat decides this wine
Batonnage, and knowing when to stop. Stirring the lees weekly builds the texture that makes this style; stirring it for eight months makes a wine that tastes of bread and nothing else. Twelve weeks is usually enough.
What goes in
| Ingredient | Weight | Sugar | Volume | Share of sugar |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chardonnay22.5 Brix Whole-cluster pressed if you can. Chardonnay tolerates a little oxidation at this stage, unlike Sauvignon Blanc. | 35.00 kg | 5.69 kg | 23.10 L | 100% |
| Oak chips or cubes Medium-toast cubes from the start of fermentation, not added later. Fermenting on oak integrates it; steeping it afterwards tastes like a plank. | 60 g | - | - | 0% |
The ingredients contribute 23.1 litres and the water makes up the rest to 23 litres. Those figures are checked against each other when the site is built, because a recipe whose volumes do not add up produces a wine weaker or stronger than every number above.
Acid and sulphite
Acidity of the must
7.0 g/L
at pH 3.30
After malolactic
5.0 g/L
malolactic takes roughly 2 g/L with it
Tartaric to add
23 g
to reach 6.0 g/L. Bench trial before treating the batch
Sulphite at bottling
1.4 g
potassium metabisulphite, for 36 mg/L free SO2 at pH 3.45
The batch
- Must volume
- 23 L
- Ferment at
- 16-20 C
- Molecular SO2 target
- 0.8 mg/L
- Malolactic
- Yes
- Yeast
- CY3079to 15%, high N
The sulphite figure is worked out against the pH of the finished wine, not of the must. Malolactic and deacidification both raise pH, and dosing a finished red to its must pH under-protects it by roughly a third. Recompute for your own reading.
Method
- 01Press the whole clusters gently and settle the juice cold overnight.
- 02Rack off the heavy solids, warm to 16C and pitch with the oak already in the vessel.
- 03Ferment at 16 to 20C, which is warm for a white and correct for this style.
- 04At dryness, inoculate for malolactic and leave it on the full lees.
- 05Stir the lees once a week for twelve weeks, then stop and taste.
- 06Sulphite once malolactic is complete, rack, and bulk age six months.
The two instruments this recipe needs
Every number on this page came from a hydrometer reading and a pH reading. Without those two you are following a recipe rather than making a wine, and the sulphite figure in particular is meaningless without a pH you have actually measured.
Measuring
Hydrometer and trial jar
SOLIGT Triple Scale Hydrometer and Glass Test Jar for Wine, Beer, Mead & Cider - ABV, Brix and Gravity Test Kit
$18.98
Tracks the ferment from must to dry. The gap between your starting and finishing gravity is the only reliable way to know the alcohol you actually made.
Measuring
pH meter
Apera Instruments AI1113 pH Calibration Buffer Solution Kit (7.00, 4.00), 8 oz. Each
$18.00
The most important instrument on this page. pH decides how much of your sulphite is actually protecting the wine, and dosing without knowing it is guesswork.