Bad Astronauts

Chris Minnick is featured in a new book:

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 23:08:00 +0000

My wit and wisdom about winemaking are featured in a new book (along with my Grapefruit wine recipe): 101 Recipes for Making Wild Wines at Home: A Step-by-Step Guide to Using Herbs, Fruits, and Flowers
. Check it out!

The 2008 Wines are Coming Fast!

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 23:00:00 +0000

It's been a while since I've posted anything, but much has been happening in the Bad Astronaut Wine world, so I think it's about time I got back to it and filled you all in!

First of all, the 2008 Wines are incredible! We bottled the Zin a little while back, and I'm having to hide it from myself so that I don't drink it all before it reaches it's peak.

If you participated in the bottling, and/or if you have some of the wine, I would say that it's just about now fully over the bottle shock and is tasting really good. I'm really looking forward to how it will taste next year!

Pretty soon, we'll be bottling the 08 Merlot, the 08 Petit Sirah, some 09 Charonnay, and perhaps a couple other surprises!

The season of releasing the Grapefruit Wine has begun!

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 03:21:00 +0000

Tomorrow will be the first official tasting of the Bad Astronauts Galactic Grapefruit Wine. We did an unofficial tasting a little while ago in Sonoma, but since then, we've gotten approval on the label, printed the labels, and labeled and foiled the bottles. Tomorrow, we'll be pouring grapefruit wine at the Sacramento Institute of Fun's Jazz De-Mystified event (the Institute of Fun is another one of the businesses I'm involved with, by the way).

Next weekend, we'll be pouring at Revolution Wines' Christmas Walk.Big things are happening for the Bad Astronauts.

Wine updates

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 06:57:00 +0000

Sam and I drew samples, tasted, and tested the pH on all 9 of the 2008 wines tonight. I'm happy to report that I'm very happy. The Chenin Blanc and Rose' are stable, clear, tasty, and have good acidity. The Zin, Cab, Petit Sirah, and Barbera are all delicious and fault-free. The Merlot is an interesting case...we think it has smoke taint.

Remember all those fires during the summer? Well, things were particularly bad in Napa and Sonoma. Our Merlot came from northern Sonoma (Kenwood). The taste of this wine is spectacular for how young it is. The smell is sort of like a forest fire.

The question is: do we try to eliminate that smell, or is this a uniquely 2008 sort of a thing that people will come to love and will pay a premium for in 2010? We're going to run this question (and the wine) by a couple people who have been in the business much longer and see what they think. Stay tuned!

Galactic Grapefruit Coming Soon!

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 16:47:00 +0000

We're completing our focus group testing and getting the label ready to be printed. We expect that Galactic Grapefruit Wine will be available for purchase in time for Thanksgiving.

This weekend, Jeff took a bottle to Philadelphia, and I shared a bottle with Molly, John, and Maya here in Sacramento. Grapefruit Wine has now been enjoyed by people on both coasts as well as by someone who has been to space!

Sonoma Home Winemaker Pouring

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 17:04:00 +0000

Yesterday, Margaret and I poured Bad Astronauts wine at the Sonoma Home Winemakers Celebration. We met a lot of people, including a couple who were going to astronaut Rusty Schweickart's house for dinner and wanted a bottle of Bad Astronauts Galactic Grapefruit wine to bring him! We gave them one, of course! I hope they post something here about how he liked it and whether he'd be willing to be the good astronaut spokesperson for Bad Astronauts wine!

We also met a guy who's dad worked for mission control in Houston and who described himself as a "Space Baby". He very much enjoyed our wine.

This was our first public Bad Astronauts pouring, and it was a huge success. Everyone who tasted our wines loved them, the Galactic Grapefruit was a hit with the crowd, and we raised some money for Sonoma High School while having a lot of fun!

Bad Astronauts Merlot

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 20:40:00 +0000

Here's the merlot status so far:

I drove to northern Sonoma county (Kenwood) Monday morning to get the grapes. I got to downtown Sonoma at about 6:00, had some coffee there, and then drove up highway 12 for another 20 minutes or so to the vineyard.

Morrison Vineyard is the most beautiful place in the world. Ian Morrison, the owner of the vineyard, grows only Merlot, and he does it very well. He's also a very nice man.

After chatting with Ian for a while, I walked the vineyard. The grapes were ripe and delicious. The yield per vine was definitely much lower towards the top of the hill, and I think I preferred the taste of the grapes at the bottom of the hill.

The picking crew started picking at about 8:00, and I had my grapes loaded into the truck by 9:00. I drove back to Sacramento, and arrived back at the winery at around 11.

Initial numbers:

24.5 - 25 brix (depending on testing method)
pH 3.66

After crush (thanks Priscila, Sam, Jim, Zach, and Dave for your help!) I added enzymes and potassium metabisulphite.

Tuesday, I threw 20lbs of dry ice on the grapes.

Wednesday, Margaret and Priscila put 20 more lbs on.

Wednesday night, the must temperature was 50 degrees. I added superfood, followed by yeast, and 800g of tartaric acid. My goal is to get the pH down to about 3.4.

Thursday, I added 2 lbs of untoasted oak chips (in a nylon straining bag).

Friday morning, fermentation was underway, but slow. I added my phase 2 superfood and DAP addition.

Everything's looking great, and I'm very excited about this wine.

Zin progress update

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 14:20:00 +0000

The Zin is perfect. We've had a nice hot (but not too hot fermentation) and it's pretty much dry now. pH is around 3.36, I'll be adding ML today, and we'll be pressing tomorrow.

pH, TA, and Malolactic info

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 05:15:00 +0000

Red wine pH should be between 3.4 and 3.6. TA should be around 7 g/L. Malolactic Fermentation (which converts malic acid into lactic and makes red wines smoother and more awesome) has the following effects on acidity (according to this site: http://brsquared.org/wine/Articles/MLF/MLF.htm):

* a pH increase of between 0.1 and 0.45 units (more typically 0.1-0.25)
* a chemical deacidification usually reducing titratable acidity by about 1-4.6 g/l (as tartaric)

So, our wine currently has the following stats:

pH 3.5
TA 8.5 g/L

After ML, it could potentially have the following stats:

pH 3.6 - 3.75
TA 3.9 - 7.5

I'm not ok with the risk of the pH being over 3.6, which makes me think I should adjust pH to 3.4. However, I'm also not ok with a TA over 7, which makes me think I shouldn't adjust.

After some more reading, it sounds like what we've got is a higher concentration of Malic (a weaker acid) than of Tartaric (a stronger acid). This explains why the pH (which measures the effect or strength of the acid in the wine) is high (less acid strength) and the TA is high (more acid).

So, if I adjust with Tartaric acid, I think it will decrease the pH and increase the TA, but the Malolactic fermentation will have a larger effect because we have a relatively high concentration of Malic.

If you're a chemist, please let me know if I'm on the right track here!

If you're not familiar with TA and pH, here's some reading.

Zin!

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 04:40:00 +0000

We picked up our Zinfandel grapes from Fair Play Farms in El Dorado County this morning. Fair Play Farms is where Perry Creek gets their grapes for their premium high altitude (2401) wines. They taste great, and the numbers are pretty much right where I want them to be. A crowd of people showed up at the winery to help crush them, and we had it knocked out in just a couple hours. Thanks everyone! Once everything was crushed and the equipment cleaned up, I pulled off 6 gallons of juice to make into a Zin Rosé.

The sugar fluctuated from between 23 and 25 brix. I'll take another reading tomorrow before adding yeast and see if it's settled on something.

pH was at 3.5. This is maybe slightly less acid than I want. However, TA was .85%, which indicates slightly more acid than I want...so what do I do? My current thinking is to do some research tonight and test again tomorrow before making any adjustments at all.

Come have some fun and drink some wine!

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 05:39:00 +0000

The Bad Astronauts Winery, in cooperation with the Sacramento Institute of Fun (of which I'm a co-founder) will be holding a wine appreciation class this Friday evening at Revolution Wines. Teaching the class will be Corti Bros' Wine Merchant Donal Smith. The fee for this fun and wine-tacular event is just $40. Contact me for more information.

This is the first public Bad Astronauts event, and we're limiting participation to around 30 people. We still have about 8 spots left, so if you're interested or if you have questions, give me a holler!

Merlot Update

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 17:20:00 +0000

Here's the latest from our Merlot vineyard:

It's been a strange week weather-wise. After triple digit temps last week we now have cold, damp fog that lingers. Brix is at 23 plus or minus and I'm guessing harvest in about two weeks.

Fantastic fermentation!

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 01:58:00 +0000

Chenin Blanc: 15.5 brix
Barbera: 26.5

Looks like the barbera picked up some sugar from the skins because after the first day of fermanting it's just barely under the sugar reading I took before the cold soak. I'm excited about both these wines.

Barbera crushin

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 02:37:00 +0000

Barbera - the story

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 02:26:00 +0000

Sam and I drove to Drytown Cellars (near plymouth, in Amador county) today to pick up the club project red wine (Barbera). We got there at about 12:20, and there was mass confusion. We somehow got our 250 lbs into the truck, paid, and got out of there...I'm still not real sure what was going on. We added 50 ppm SO2 before leaving.

When we measured the sugar at the winery, it was 26 Brix. We stopped at American Ice Company on Del Paso on the way back and bought 30 lbs of dry ice. We through 10 lbs into the macrobin. We left the other 20 lbs (2 10lb blocks) in the cooler and drove back to the winery.

I should have taken a picture of the dry ice in the must. It looked very cool with all the smoking. We bailed the smoking must and dry ice into a primary fermenter and wheeled it back to the winery.

The temperature of the must was about 75 degrees when we got back (around 2:30), and it dropped to about 65 degrees by 4:00.

I tested the must and got these numbers:

26.8 Brix
.7 TA (not real sure about this)
pH 3.31

We stirred it up a little and then put a lid on it. The goal with this must is to keep it cold and prevent fermentation for 24-48 hours in order to extract more color from the skins.

UPDATE: We took some of the must to Revolution Wines and had them test with their (far superior) equipment. Here are they numbers they got:

pH 3.23
TA 1.095

Chenin Blanc - the story to date

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 01:35:00 +0000

We picked the Chenin Blank in Clarksburg yesterday. Here's how it all went down.

We drove down there with Maya and Sam's gang. The son of the vineyard owner (Steve) showed us where the vines were that we could pick. The field had been mechanically picked the morning before, and we were allowed to come in and pick the ends of the rows for free. The grapes were right next to Bogle's Chardonnay vines.

We took a field test of a few grapes and decided the sugar was at 23 brix. We got to work at about 10ish, and we had picked somewhere around 750-900 lbs by noon.

When we got back to the winery, we set up the crusher/destemmer and the press next to each other and set up a production line. One person (me) stood in the truck and bailed out grapes. The next person (Kathy) brought the grapes back to the crusher. The rest of the folks took turns crushing, dumping into the press, pressing, and dumping into the primary fermenter.

When we were done, we had about 56 gallons of must. I ran some tests and got the following results:

22 Brix
TA .95%
pH 3.31

I took 6 gallons and Ian took 5 gallons. Sam and Jim split the rest between 2 primary fermenters.

I added about 75ppm SO2 to my carboy and then put it on ice in the winery at 3:00. At 3:30, the temperature of the must was 75 degrees. At 7:00 it was 56 degrees.

This morning (8:00), the Chenin Blanc was at 60 degrees and I added more ice to the tub it's in. At 5:00, it was 64 degrees.

At 7:00, I pulled the carboy out of the tub and saw that there was about 2 inches of sediment on the bottom. I decided to rack it.

I added 3tsp pectic enzyme and 5.3 grams Fermaid K to a smaller carboy (5 gallons) and racked.

Then, I rehydrated the yeast (EC1118) and added it.

UPDATE: here are the numbers we got when Revolution tested it with their equipment:

pH 3.28
TA .84

Group photo!

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 02:27:00 +0000

Here's the gang of Clarksburg Chenin Blanc pickers (except for me cause I took the picture)

Picking Chenin Blanc

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 02:09:00 +0000

Here's Maya picking chenin!

Merlot Update

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 04:45:00 +0000

I just got an update on our Kenwood Merlot grapes:

This morning's Brix reading was 21.9. That puts us at least two and probably three weeks from harvest. Very hot weather is slowing down ripening.

Zin Update!

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 21:21:00 +0000

Here are the numbers on our Zin grapes, as of today:

Brix - 15.8, TA - 12.0g/L, and pH - 3.05

Our wine at the state fair home winemaking booth

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 00:08:00 +0000

Bad Astronauts Winery 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 20:37:00 +0000

It's coming together! We have a few more barrels this year. We also have insulation and a chilled area separated by plastic strips (which you're looking through in this picture).

Cleaned Up Barrels!

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 02:16:00 +0000

A bad barrel

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 15:47:00 +0000

All of the barrels that we brought to the blasting were in good shape. Some people were not so lucky -- actually, they were sold some bad used barrels and didn't find out until they opened 'em up. Here's a barrel with a bad case of mold. Compare this to the picture of the healthy barrel below.

Clean barrel

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 22:37:00 +0000

This is the inside of one of our barrels a few minutes after being blasted with dry ice. I think this is a 2005 American oak.