You'll remember that we have made some wine from what remained after last year's tornado and hail storm the night before the harvest. The wine has been sitting in a tank in my brother's cave since last September, happily going through its alcoholic fermentation, then resolutely refusing to finish the malolactic fermentation.
We had the wine tested by the oenologue about five times during the past few weeks and it just hasn't budged. It can't be bottled until it's finished and we're losing patience. Malolactic fermentation (malo) is a process used to reduce acid in wine where malic acid (like apples) is altered by natural means to softer-tasting lactic (like milk) acid. It happens thanks to the presence of lactobacteria, but in our case, as neither the cave nor the cuve have been used for winemaking for years, there just aren't any of the little bacteria-blighters about.
So yesterday we went of to our pal Hans to beg some lees - the bacteria-rich gloop left in the bottom of the tank when the fermentation is over. One of his wines had just finished its malo so we're trusting that the lees will kick off our recalcitrant wine.
We had a tussle with the floating cuve lid (le chapeau flottant) which had stuck firmly to the sides of the tank. It has a thing like a bicycle tube around the outside which holds the lid in place when inflated. So, having prised it free, we just swapped the lid for one from another tank and swilled down the dodgy one before we buy a new tube.
My niece Poppy came to lend a hand. She's not vaguely interested in wine-making but likes to be useful and clamber about above the tanks.
Meanwhile all of us got the blue hands of red winemakers.
Now we just have our fingers crossed that the wine is bubbling away with its new bacteria. The temperature is around 30-34 degrees centigrade here at the moment so it shouldn't take too long. I'm guessing we'll need to re-test in a couple of weeks. We'll keep you posted.
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