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<h2 id="h-ice-ice-baby">Ice, Ice, Baby!</h2>
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Welcome back to the Cellar, where this Friday finds us midstream in another part of our 'weekly wine maintenance' program.&nbsp; What is this mysterious - and very localized - cloud we're looking at today?&nbsp; It isn't a fog machine in the cellar - much though Kelby and Meagz may want that for their awesome singing and air guitar solos.&nbsp; Nor is it an early rehearsal of our Halloween rendition of the Three Witches from Macbeth (eye of Newt, indeed).</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">It's dry ice!&nbsp; And while it is a very different process, the Dry Ice helps serve a similar protective purpose as the lees stirring Meagz was undertaking last week. Particularly for wines that are in a stainless steel tank - i.e. not a barrel that can be topped right to the brim - there is usually some amount of headspace that we have to make sure is flushed of oxygen and the spoilage organisms that need O2 to survive.&nbsp; At Red Newt, that means a weekly 'topping' of Dry Ice.&nbsp; As the ice sublimates into the gaseous form of CO2, it expels the lighter O2 gas from the headspace.&nbsp; Seal the tank up a few minutes later and, viola! A happy and protected wine.&nbsp;</span></p>