When she returned to the winery, Xiao Yifei immediately got into the fermentation room. Martin and the others were busy working in the fermentation room.

"Oh, it's so warm here, I didn't see the air conditioner."

"You know better if you get close to the fermenter."

Xiao Yifei touched the fermentation tank of the stainless steel pipe. The fermentation tank was not cold at all and was quite warm.

"Of course it's warm. After fermentation, the temperature must be ensured to be around 25 degrees. Without this temperature-controlled fermentation tank, we can only wait for the fermentation after the start next spring."

"That's not how many more months do you have to stay in the jar?"

"Yes, so I think new equipment and new technologies are indeed the benefits to our industry. I don't know what those who stick to tradition think."

This proposition was too big, and Xiao Yifei decided to avoid it. Seeing Casey in the laboratory running in and out with her bottles and jars, Xiao Yifei asked:

"How are the metrics of the Casey test?"

"The fermentation is basically over afterwards, we can consider mixing and filling it with the barrel."

"Really, that's great."

Just put the wine in a barrel, it means that the brewing is over, and the next step is the work of the cellar rats. Martin, the leader of the rat, walked by with a few cups:

"Boss, we have tasted it all, you have to come and try it."

"Okay, I haven't tasted what the wine after fermentation just now."

Xiao Yifei came to a can of Merlot, opened the valve, and took a small cup. First of all, he saw that the large amount of sediment in the wine was gone, the transparency was pretty good, and the color looked very pure gem red. After smelling it, the fruity aroma had a little mint flavor. After tasting it, the taste was much better than before. It was smoother. Not to mention that it was used to mix Cabernet Sauvignon, it was also a good wine to make it into wine alone.

People describe Merlot as a girl before brewing. When the same conditions are made, it can mature earlier than other red grape varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon. It runs faster like a jumping girl. But once it becomes wine, she immediately turns into a gentle young woman. Whether it is wine alone or with Cabernet Sauvignon, it is so beautiful and smooth.

"Yes, although I don't drink much, this one should be around 95."

Xiao Yifei tasted those cans of Cabernet Sauvignon again. The taste was OK, definitely above 92 points.

The next thing is very important. Before loading the barrel, you will hold a few wine tastings, which are attended by the winery insiders.

Casey took her professional instruments and pulled out the wine from the jars of Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, mixed them into bottles of wine strictly according to a certain percentage, then marked the bottle with a random number, and then folded a piece of paper with the number and ratio written on it to Xiao Yifei:

"Boss, please take this piece of paper. Don't show it to them. If you want to participate in wine tasting, don't look at it yourself."

"So when will I watch it?"

"If you watch it yourself, you can watch it after you finish tasting today, but don't tell others. You must wait until you finally determine which bottle has the best taste before telling them to put it in the bucket according to this ratio."

"Why?"

Martin interrupted:

"Because we basically know the ratio of each type of wine in previous years. If we knew the ratio of wine before tasting, we would think that this ratio would definitely not work, or this ratio would definitely be good, which would affect our rating. The ratio you tasted in this way might not be the best."

Xiao Yifei understood that this was a worry of preconceived score. So he hurriedly put the paper into his pocket. Now Casey, who knew the ratio and number, left the pile of wine bottles on the table and left the room.

There were seven people in the entire brewing team. In addition, Xiao Yifei, the person who made up the numbers, sat around the table, and each of them placed a bunch of wine glasses in front of them.

Cameron stood up:

"The significance of this wine tasting party. I believe everyone knows that this is the most important moment for our winemaking team. I hope everyone will be fair and fair when rating. Let's taste this bottle of Napa Cabernet Sauvignon from last year as a benchmark."

Martin helped pour the wine into the cup. Everyone quickly wrote down the number of the bottle on the rating table in front of them and signed their own name. These are veterans, the only new Chelsea, who has been with her parents, has long participated in many tastings. Everyone started to watch, sniff, shake, taste and other tasting steps, and set the benchmark score. Then they picked up the pure water in front of them and started to rinse their mouths to avoid interference with the tasting of the next bottle.

Next, everyone started to taste various combinations of new wines one by one. Each bottle had to be scored from various aspects such as color, fragrance, and smell, and sometimes they had to communicate in a low voice. However, everyone was very conscious of this kind of communication, and did not directly say "this is good" and "this is bad", nor did they ask others about their scores.

During each round of wine tasting, Chelsea will take away the rating table of this round, and then wait for a minute or two to restore everyone's sense of taste before proceeding to the next round.

We only completed these dozen bottles of Napa Cabernet Sauvignon with different ratios in the morning, and then counted the scores of each ratio and found the five wines with the highest scores.

"Okay, these 5 bottles are the top five Napa Cabernet Sauvignons we have selected. Let's take a break, and we will continue to taste the Manor Cabernet Sauvignon in the afternoon."

At noon, Xiao Yifei returned to the bee hill. When the black nose heard the voice of the pilot, he immediately came over and barked. Xiao Yifei got off the car, and it immediately rushed up, hugging Xiao Yifei's legs, and its tail was almost broken.

Xiao Yifei squatted down and touched its head:

"Black nose, do you miss me?"

Black Nose immediately put its front paws on his knees, stretching its tongue to lick him. Xiao Yifei hugged its head and prevented it from succeeding. After playing with it for a while, Xiao Yifei went to make lunch. Black Nose was guarding the kitchen door and staring at Xiao Yifei, as if she was afraid that he would leave again.

After lunch, Xiao Yifei planned to continue tasting wine, and the black nose wanted to follow him. It seemed that it was really afraid that Xiao Yifei would abandon it. There was no way, Xiao Yifei could only take it into the Isis space and let it play in it.

In the afternoon, everyone continued to work hard and selected 5 more Manor Cabernet Sauvignons. Everyone was relatively casual about Zinfandel, and only selected 3 bottles. After everyone left the room, Xiao Yifei put the remaining balances of the other ratios in a storage cabinet. Then, with Casey, he prepared several more bottles of the selected wines today according to the same ratio. After Casey left, Xiao Yifei wrote the number he thought on the bottles according to what Martin told him and recorded them. Then put the wines, and these wines will be inspected by a larger range of wine tasting tomorrow.

Today I spent the day while tasting. After dinner, Xiao Yifei, accompanied by David, checked the progress of the installation of winter shears and drip irrigation equipment in the vineyard.

"Now I asked them to practice winter cutting. The 50 acres of Ive's family have been trimmed, and they can start pruning the other 100 acres tomorrow. They have installed the main pipes in the drip irrigation equipment, and the branch pipes across the river are also improved. They can enter the 50 acres to install drip irrigation tomorrow."

Xiao Yifei looked at it and found that the main pipe was a thick water pipe falling from the top of Yuanbao Hill. The height difference of dozens of meters now looks really high. No wonder they have been struggling for so long. Xiao Yifei pointed to a bunch of valves and equipment between the main pipe and the branch pipe and asked:

"What's that bunch?"

"That's a pressure regulation device. With this thing, we can adjust the pressure of each branch pipe. Without adding the indicators of the branch pipe and drip pipe, we can resist the water pressure at a height of 70 meters. There are also some filter devices to prevent the branch pipe from being blocked."

Xiao Yifei nodded.

Back at Bee Hill, Xiao Yifei picked up the phone and called Bo, inviting him to attend a wine tasting tomorrow afternoon.

The next day, more than 20 people crowded in the conference room, with a tasting room team, a club team and other employees who have researched on red wine. They will select 3 Napa Cabernet Sauvignons, 3 Manor Cabernet Sauvignons, and two Zinfandels from the 13 wines they selected yesterday.

Some people think that as long as the tasting room team is handsome and elegant, it is fine. In fact, this is not the case. There are also white-haired old men who can see it well. The members of the tasting room team have to deal with wine every day. The first condition is that they must understand wine. In addition to the public tasting room, those in charge of several club tasting rooms must also be qualified as sommeliers. Similarly, some members of the club team need to contact members, and it is definitely not OK if they don’t understand wine.

This wine tasting party became much easier. Everyone got together and tasted these 13 wines, talking and laughing, and selected 8 of them in just one morning.

The afternoon tasting party was very small, just ceo Greg, brewing director Cameron, his assistant Martin, and Eric, the oldest senior sommelier in the tasting room. After all, Eric is old, Greg intends to make him become the manager of the winery. The four of them plus Xiao Yifei, selected the last three wines from these 8 wines. Finally, this year's red wine will be prepared according to the final selected ratio and then filled with barrels of aged wine.

Everyone knows the responsibilities on their shoulders now, and also knows that this wine tasting is of great significance. It will determine the harvest of the year. Therefore, it tastes very slowly. It also looks back and compares with other wines from time to time, and then repeatedly considers it. Finally, the bottle of wine with the highest scores was counted.

After everyone had chosen, Bo finally arrived. He tasted the final choice, tasted other wines, and nodded to confirm that the wine they finally chose was indeed the best quality that could be achieved this year.

Xiao Yifei took out Casey's paper and found the mixing ratio this year. He calculated it and found that after the mixing, Merlot had a little more. For the mixing, the remaining wine should be sold to other wineries, or aged separately, made into special wine, tasted by yourself or given as a small gift to senior members.
Chapter completed!