It's been pretty cool at the winery this winter, hovering around 50 most days. The primary ferment of the Chardonnay, begun in October, is still creeping along. I wanted a long cool ferment, and I sure got it -- last week it was moving at about 1g of sugar a week, with 6.4g to go. Ditto the secondary ferment now happening in parallel -- dropped to just under a gram of malic acid, but still a bit to go.Stylistically, I like this. But, being a small producer, other factors can rear their head: such as the economies of scale of hitting a shared bottling date with some other winemakers in February.
Thus I am attempting to everything a gentle nudge by warming up the tank 5-10 degrees. Space heater, meet fermentation tank; fermentation tank, meet space heater :)
