Avoiding fruity red wine?

Landwaster · Aug 22, 2015

So I made a batch from Barbera grapes last year pretty late in the season. I believe we used either RC212 or 71B yeast. When we bottled it recently the wine has a very fruity almost sweet taste. The FG is down past 1.000 so there is no residual sugar. My best guess is that because of the late crushing, the temp in the cellar was a bit chilly - so the cool temps accentuated the fruity notes during fermentation. Does that sound correct? Anyway this season we'll be putting in a heater or using heat blankets....

GreginND · Aug 22, 2015

71b tends to pull out fruity esters in the wine. That may be one reason your wine is fruity. But, isn't that the style these days? Big fruity jammy red wines?

Landwaster · Aug 26, 2015

I found my notes, and in fact we had used Lalvin K1-V1116 and RC 212

NorCal · Aug 26, 2015

I'm doing a Barbera with a buddy. One is a hot ferment,the other cool, or at least cool (in a AC room) by Sacramento standards. I can't wait to see if there is a difference in taste. The hot one is fermenting twice as fast.

JohnT · Sep 2, 2015

Landwaster said:
So I made a batch from Barbera grapes last year pretty late in the season. I believe we used either RC212 or 71B yeast. When we bottled it recently the wine has a very fruity almost sweet taste. The FG is down past 1.000 so there is no residual sugar. My best guess is that because of the late crushing, the temp in the cellar was a bit chilly - so the cool temps accentuated the fruity notes during fermentation. Does that sound correct? Anyway this season we'll be putting in a heater or using heat blankets....

I would say that definitely sound correct. Use the RC212 and raise the temp so that fermentation spikes to 90 degrees or so. By spike, I mean that it should reach around 90 degrees when the rate of fermentation is at its highest.

NorCal · Sep 2, 2015

NorCal said:
I'm doing a Barbera with a buddy. One is a hot ferment,the other cool, or at least cool (in a AC room) by Sacramento standards. I can't wait to see if there is a difference in taste. The hot one is fermenting twice as fast.

The batch with the D80 was super fruity, like there was residual sugar. The batch with D254 was the exact opposite, hints of citrus. The blend of both of these was the absolute best combination.

I really didn't know how much yeast and perhaps the fermentation environment would play in the taste off the wine, but in this case it was night and day. So, if you don't want fruity, avoid D80.

Landwaster · Sep 2, 2015

Our first batch of grapes are coming in next week, so I will report back with my findings after they ferment. I bought a few reptile heater kits (as per someone else's advice in the forums) and some temp controllers. I've tested them out with water and they seem to do the job, so we'll see what happens with the must.

Landwaster · Sep 2, 2015

In case anyone is interested:

Flexible Reptile Heating Tape - Big Apple Pet Supply - $18 for a 3' x 1' kit which perfectly wraps around the 6 gallon wine buckets I have. For my larger 55 gallon fermenting drum I may just use two rather than one long one. I'll have to look into how the wattage works.

ITC-308 Digital Temperature Controller - ebay - $34 - I was going to build my own temp controller, but with all the necessary parts plus my time, it comes out to the same in my book.

Avoiding fruity red wine?

Help Support Winemaking Talk - Winemaking Forum:

Landwaster

Member

GreginND

Super Moderator

Landwaster

Member

NorCal

Super Moderator

JohnT

Moderator

NorCal

Super Moderator

Landwaster

Member

Landwaster

Member

Similar threads

Latest posts

Avoiding fruity red wine?

Help Support Winemaking Talk - Winemaking Forum:

Member

Super Moderator

Member

Super Moderator

Moderator

Super Moderator

Member

Member

Similar threads

Join the conversation!

Join today and get all the highlights of this community direct to your inbox. It's FREE!