During my brew day yesterday I did manage to keep the wine moving along.  As you may recall, I have one batch of syrah and 3 batches of zinfandel going.  They have been ready for oak for a couple of months now, but I hadn’t found the time to do the work.  Yesterday, however, I transferred all four into nice clean kegs with oak and another infusion of potassium metabisulfate.  They will stay there for the next 6+ months, prior to going into the bottle.  I did grab a small sample of each during the transfer process, but didn’t get any pictures.  The syrah has a very dark color and a heavy mouth feel.  The flavors are really starting to develop and it is becoming quite complex.   The three zinfandels, differing only in type of yeast used for fermentation, are all fairly similar.  All three have a lovely bright color and are a little on the thin side.  All three have significantly different characteristics both on the nose and the palate.  I won’t bore you with the details, but I am certainly happy with how these are progressing.  The oak should add a nice bit of flavor and further improve complexity.  I expect the zinfandels to darken a little bit, but I could be wrong. 

 I will likely have a “barrel tasting” in a couple of months to see how these are progressing.  The sulfites will be quite strong at that point, but the character of the wine should be interesting.