Storms

Yesterday's Weather

The remnants of Hurricane Lee joined up with a low coming down from Greenland and lashed our world with rain and wind throughout the day yesterday. The wind was gusting over 50 knots yesterday afternoon and the rain was bucketing. While I was driving, I looked at the thermometer in the car which read 12C. I was thinking wow it feels much warmer, just as it clicked through from 12C to 16C, and topped out at 17C. Bizarre. We had more than 30 mm of rain over the course of the day. 

After the wettest July on record, I'm afraid we may be competing to establish a new record for September. I am sure glad we got the grapes picked before all this. Hurricane Nigel is mid-Atlantic and possibly heading our way for this weekend. What a nightmare. 

Hurricane Nigel with its giant eye

00:00

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18:00

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22:00

23:00

 Temperature: 12

12ºC

12ºC

13ºC

14ºC

14ºC

12ºC

12ºC

11ºC

11ºC

11ºC

12ºC

12ºC

13ºC

16ºC

16ºC

17ºC

17ºC

17ºC

17ºC

16ºC

16ºC

16ºC

16ºC

15ºC

15

9

15

13

4

11

17

20

9

4

7

7

7

24

28

33

35

35

44

44

43

22

41

20

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

50 

54 

54 

57 

63 

67 

72 

69 

69 

67 

59 

1.7 mm

2.6 mm

2.5 mm

3.4 mm

3.7 mm

3.9 mm

0.7 mm

0.0 mm

0.0 mm

0.6 mm

0.8 mm

0.4 mm

1.5 mm

1.4 mm

0.0 mm

0.0 mm

0.0 mm

0.1 mm

0.1 mm

0.3 mm

1.3 mm

3.6 mm

1.1 mm

1.0 mm

 Pressure: 984

999 hPa

998 hPa

996 hPa

995 hPa

992 hPa

992 hPa

992 hPa

993 hPa

993 hPa

993 hPa

992 hPa

992 hPa

992 hPa

991 hPa

991 hPa

991 hPa

990 hPa

988 hPa

987 hPa

987 hPa

986 hPa

985 hPa

984 hPa

984 hPa

WEATHER DATA FOR 19-SEP-2023

Station	Rain	Max	Min	Sun	Wind	Gust	Soil	Global	Gmin
	mm	oC	oC	hr	Kts (Km/h)	Kts (Km/h)	oC	J/cm^2	oC
Athenry	30.4	17.7	12.1		14.9 (28)	(0)	15.4	270	12.1
Ballyhaise	27.6	17.1	9.2		8.6 (16)	(0)	14.7	465	9.6
Belmullet	13.9	17.4	9.7	0.1	15.6 (29)	41 (76)	14.8	381	9.5
Casement	12.1	18.6	11.0	0.8	21.2 (39)	41 (76)	14.9		10.5
Claremorris	17.9	17.3	10.8		11.6 (21)	(0)	14.8	324	11.0
Cork Airport	7.4	18.0	12.8	0.2	20.3 (38)	42 (78)	15.2		12.1
Dublin Airport	13.1	19.0	10.7	1.3	13.3 (25)	37 (69)	14.9	810	10.0
Finner Camp	18.5	18.5	9.5		10.8 (20)	39 (72)	n/a	518	9.4
Dunsany	20.5	19.0	10.6		15.3 (28)	(0)	15.0	568	10.3
Gurteen	19.8	18.5	11.4		16.1 (30)	35 (65)	15.0	509	11.7
Johnstown Castle	5.1	17.5	13.6	0.1	17.0 (31)	37 (69)	15.8	501	12.8
Knock Airport	25.6	16.0	9.0		11.1 (21)	37 (69)	13.5		9.2
Mace Head	9.0	17.2	13.9		26.0 (48)	43 (80)	n/a	299	13.7
Malin Head	17.1	17.3	10.1		17.6 (33)	39 (72)	13.4	506	9.4
Markree Castle	22.0	17.8	9.5		n/a (0)	n/a (0)	14.1	473	9.5
Moore Park	5.5	19.4	13.1		10.1 (19)	(0)	15.9	658	12.3
Mt Dillon	26.8	17.7	10.7		9.2 (17)	(0)	14.4	317	10.6
Mullingar	25.3	17.5	10.6		10.9 (20)	(0)	15.3	352	10.2
Newport Furnace	31.8	17.3	10.5		12.1 (22)	39 (72)	14.3	243	10.5
Oak Park	7.6	20.9	11.2		14.6 (27)	(0)	15.6	700	10.5
Phoenix Park	9.6	20.0	11.4		n/a (0)	n/a (0)	16.3	812	10.4
Roches Point	4.5	18.1	14.1		25.9 (48)	49 (91)	15.6	467	13.1
Shannon Airport	21.8	18.7	13.0	0.4	18.7 (35)	37 (69)	15.7		12.8
Sherkin Island	6.2	18.0	15.4		26.5 (49)	43 (80)	15.9	847	14.1
Valentia	22.5	17.7	14.7	0.1	20.5 (38)	42 (78)	15.9	412	14.1

Rondo must is fermenting

We started destemming and crushing this morning at about 1100h. We had about 20 kg of grapes which yielded 14.8kg (14.8 l) must, finishing at about 1430h. It's fab to have the shed to work in as opposed to being cramped in our tiny kitchen in the house. 

Alex sterilised his new clean room boots and proceeded to stomp on the grapes after lunch. It actually made the nicest must. We followed the same procedures as with the Solaris. We measured Brix of the mixed batch while preparing the yeast and nutrient mixture, then measured the specific gravity and sampled the juice. The taste was surprising. Quite dark and cloudy. 

Rondo Harvest

Brix target: 22-26

Brix reading Sunday 17 September 2023: 22

Grape Yield: 20 kg

Hand de-stemming was completed 18 September

Must yield: 14.8 litres

Must Brix: 20

Must SG: 1.084

VenoFerm Nutrisal (Diammonium phosphate) nutrient 9g in ~ 100 ml 50:50 boiled water and must

Oenoferm Terra Yeast reactivated in nutrient solution for 15 minutes. 

Fermentation started at 1615 on the 18 September 2023 @ Room temperature 20.5C.

The Brix is a little low for red wine but Thomas Walk prefers to start with a lower sugar content and have healthy grapes than to wait for a higher sugar content and risk disease. As we did have some loss due to mold, I'd say it was the right decision overall, as the vast majority of the grapes were lovely, big round marbles with lots of juice. We should get to about 11.2% ABV. 

As the red must is fermented with the skins, we didn't hydropress at this stage. That will happen at the next stage. 

Things are starting to be familiar now. We've done this before and it's slowly coming back to us. 

We had several downpours today so we are very glad we harvested yesterday. 

Happy Birthday to Alex's mum, Meike who would have been 90 today but left us almost two years ago. Remember to take the Angel's share, Mammi! 

Rondo is harvested

Rondo grapes, bags removed

We were going to wait for the Brix to increase for the Rondo grapes, but we have a massive storm heading our way on Tuesday which is going to dump loads of rain on Ireland -- the remnants of Lee combined with a giant low off Greenland. So we moved harvest up to today as the Brix was reading 22 (normal for red wines is 22-26 for a higher finished alcohol content). 

It was interesting to see that the clusters we left unbagged were completely decimated by the birds. Inside the bags, we had beautiful red wine grapes. We will wash, destem, and crush tomorrow for the first fermentation.

There were two areas where we had some mold forming on the grapes. I kept those separate and will pick through them in the morning. They say mold is not bad for grapes and that some mold actually helps fermentation. The moldy areas were where the foliage was thickest. We need to prune more heavily in the Spring after the vines have flowered and we can see where the grapes will form. The clusters near the edges where there is good air circulation and access to sunlight were the healthiest and largest.

What I did not see this year is powdery mildew, which I'm pretty sure the vines had last year.  Fortunately, I have learned that Potassium bicarbonate – similar to baking soda – has the unique advantage of eliminating powdery mildew once it’s there. Potassium bicarbonate is a contact fungicide that kills the powdery mildew spores quickly. In addition, it’s approved for use in organic growing.

I'm so relieved we got that done. 

PS The hydropress was leaking around the pressurised gasket so Alex increased the pressure. But it didn't help. So I suggested that the airlock was malfunctioning. Alex then remembered that Thomas had told him to check and raise the lid periodically as the must expands as it ferments. Sure enough the airlock had filled with must and was blocked. We'll have to check it daily. At least we know the fermentation is happily progressing.

Look at those babies!

Left - unbagged, right bagged

Clusters that were bagged below clusters that weren't

Gorgeous!

Not a bad haul for 6 vines

Lots of wind and heavy rain on Tuesday.

Looks professional.

Gorgeous.

Not bad for 6 vines

Hydropress leaking around pressure seal

Changing forecast

The forecast has changed and we are now going to get a whammy of a storm on Monday night into Tuesday. The remnants of Lee are combining with a massive low coming down from Greenland, so we are going to get lots of rain and wind on Tuesday. We must now harvest the Rondo today and tomorrow. After lunch we pick.