We agreed that we would do the first racking when the first serious cold weather arrived. With a few serious frosts this week, high pressure and a full moon, the time was right. Figuring out how to do it was quite tricky, as you end up with a very heavy bottle of wine on the floor as a result. When we first decanted the free run and pressed juice into the damigiani back in September, the second one got the lower half of the barrel, so we figured this would have more sediment in it. With this in mind we decided to mix the two bottles together, and racked half of one bottle into a new, sterilized one, and then half of the other one. First thing to do was remove the oil seal with a clever little plastic bottle:
Then using a simple syphon tube, with a metal depth gauge (a kitchen skewer tied on with wire) attached to hold it a few inches off the bottom of the bottle. This worked really well, and we realised the bottles had a shallow raised bit in the middle (think it's called a punt?) so the lees lay in a ring around the edge and the base of the syphon tube was resting just above the clearer middle. Clever.
They tasted very like a good wine, a bit watery perhaps, and slightly tangy. Rachel thought the second bottle was a bit sulphurous; I couldn't tell as I had a cold. It took ages – 50 litres or thereabouts through a slim syphon tube.
One major problem: we ran out of wine. No, we didn't drink it all (although a fair amount was consumed drawing it down the syphon tube!), but after racking off the smaller bottles into the last damigiana the surface was still too far below the neck. So a hasty trip to Somerfields, and I am ashamed to say about 6 litres of 'Fab Cab 2008' was glugged in to bring the liquid up into the neck. Finally a fresh oil seal was added, and plastic caps placed on top. They're still on the floor at this point, we'll have to draft in some extra muscle to lift them onto the bench ready for the next racking, in February.
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