My Syrah is around the same here in the Sierra foothills; just under 21.
Acid is holding well. The whites are all in; SB 10 days ago, and the
Marsanne came in this last Saturday. Numbers were pretty good; 22.4 Brix;
3.3 pH; TA at .6

I also primary reds in Macrobins (they're great, aren't they!), and am using
15.5 gal. SS tanks for secondary / aging - not doing enough volume yet to go
to the big oak barrels, and don't trust the control of the small barrels.

I'm paying about $.50 for the 500 lbs of Zinfandel that I am buying, but I
have to pick it - so $1.50 doesn't seem unreasonable.



"EnoNut" > wrote in message
oups.com...
>I just checked the Cab fruit I will be doing this year and it is still
> around 20 brix so it will probably be a few weeks yet here in
> Calistoga. This is my first barrel this year, and I'm really excited
> about it. We have a group of us here that are sharing a hand cranked
> stemmer/crusher and a verticle press. Going to be primary fermenting
> in a MacroBin, then transferring to the barrel. Unless someone has a
> used SS tank they want to sell me cheap :-) I'm paying around
> $1.50/lb picked for my 1/2 ton + here, not sure if that is a decent
> price or not, but since this isn't a large commercial vineyard I should
> be able to get early in the day fruit.
>