Journal | October 27, 2020
Hardscrabble Journal
Final Day of Crush 2020
Today we crush and press the Petit Manseng grapes we harvested yesterday. Their acidity remained stubbornly high this year, a reflection of a cool September and October, so we took advantage of the Indian summer days of last week. The warm days did take a bit of edge off of the bright acidity, but those grapes still remind me of the “Sweet Tart” candies I enjoyed as a kid.
Petit Manseng is very easy to grow and the clusters can handle any weather Mother Nature throws our way. Grown here in the mountains it is best suited for a wine with some residual sugar. That could be a very sweet Late Harvest style or a more restrained demi-sec (“half dry”). The reason why is that the grape has very high natural sugar and high acidity. If it was to ferment dry, meaning the yeast converted all the sugar to alcohol, we would be looking at a wine with 15% to 16% alcohol. This combined with a bracing acidity would make an unbalanced wine that would be hard work to drink.
In the cellar, instead of encouraging the fermentation to finish the job, we allow it to peter out before all the sugar is converted to alcohol. By November and December our cold cellar becomes inhospitable to yeast activity, so fermentation activity wanes without much intervention on our part.
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Linden Vineyards / Learn More / Latest at Linden | Journal: October 27, 2020