There is nothing like the scent of newly-started fermentations in the winery. It’s a unique mix of CO2, yeast, berry aromas, and what I can only describe as “strawberry mousse”. Sort of a subtly sweet smell of fresh wild strawberries and  perfumed whipped cream – it doesnt’happen all the time, but when it does it is quite magical.

There’s a great example going on right now in with our Maresh Vineyard Block 12 fruit in our open-top Taransaud oak 3-ton fermenter. And it looks like this -

The activity of the native yeasts devouring the sugars in the grape juice produces alcohol and CO2, and sometimes the gas pushes up this beautiful pink foam – the “Strawberry Mousse”.  I love it when this happens – I just think it’s a good omen. All of our lots are behaving nicely so far, and the flavors and aromas continue to make us happy!

Please plan to stop by our tasting room this weekend if you can – we’re doing a special flight of 1er Cru Burgundies along with our 07 Cuvée Martha Pirrie and 06 La Paulée Pinots – 6 wines all together, and a great opportunity to taste a nice selection of Burgs we don’t normally open. It’s from 11-4 Saturday & Sunday – hope to see you then!

This entry was posted on Friday, October 17th, 2008 at 2:52 pm and is filed under Scott's Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.