The evenings have a serious chill of late and the fire place is cranking all night so we must be finished vintage. In actual fact we pressed out our last red on Friday 30th April but we have been pretty busy celebrating and sleeping since then. The last press out was a Merlot which makes a change from the usual finish on Cabernet, however this was no super late ripening Merlot but rather an extended post ferment maceration experiment that has yielded excellent results.
Typically at Forester we have incorporated an extended cold soak of premium red parcels prior to letting a ferment take off rather than holding the dry wine on skins after ferment. Following in the tradition of many great Merlot producers in St Emilion, Bordeaux, the ferment was allowed to finish to absolute dryness in the fermenter before the ‘cap’ of floating skins was submerged and the fermenter sealed to prevent surface oxidation and spoilage. After 2 weeks fermenting and then a further 4 weeks soaking we decided it was time to press out and see what we’d achieved.
All winemakers love a good trial and naturally we also pressed some of the same Merlot from fermenter after the initial 2 weeks so we had a control to compare our long soak with. The extra month on skins has really filled the wine out, with not only extra natural tannin (giving depth and structure) but a finer more sophisticated mouthfeel than the control wine. These two wines will age in identical barrels for at least 18 months so we can continue to assess the quality differences with time. My guess is that the presses at Forester may be finishing their vintage work with Merlot more often than not in future.
