Shier Winery

Blackberry pictures are rough, especially when using the flash. Making such a short trip up to the Shier, I forgot the good camera. The wine continues to dry and is now starting to clear. It has a pleasant bouquet, but I will wait until next time to taste. A not-so-bad picture taken on my Blackberry. View of Newburgh from Beacon.

I racked the wine off the sediment on Sunday morning. Many of the oak chips had settled to the bottom of the carboys. There were small crystals on the chips, which looked somewhat like the precipitate of tartaric acid. It was surprising because the carboys were not subjected to freezing temperatures . The temperature on the basement floor was about 51-52F, after slowly dropping from around 57F at the time the wine was placed in the carboys in November. It seems more likely that it could be the precipitate of the potassium bicarbonate that was added to the juice at the vineyard. I will hold off on testing the acidity levels until the next racking about a month from now.