First foray into wine from fresh grapes, lots to learn of course!
Cost was $0.75 a pound. Picked up 100 lbs of Cabernet and 100 lbs of Merlot.
These came from New Mexico Vineyards, Inc. down in Deming, NM. They own about 300 acres of grapes with just about every variety you could wish for. I thought I would start out with something I could make a nice Bordeaux blend with. Will ferment separately and then bench test and blend down the road.
Here are a few picks with more to come (of course). I will probably give these guys a new name so I can easily distinguish them from the other "kit" wines on the cellar shelves. Something that will sound more like a wine made in New Mexico for sure!
Picture of the Vineyard
Grapes safely home from the long journey back North
Picked up the grapes yesterday at 7:00AM and drove the 300 miles North to home. Got to the house around 12:00 and unloaded. 200lb of grapes has like 1,000,000 berries and I had no crusher/destemmer so had to destem and crush by hand. I started at 1:00PM and my SWMBO came home at 5:00PM and it took until 12:00AM to finish them all....
Got them crushed as good as I could with my giant potato masher looking punch down tool and even used my hands. Got them sulfited to kill the bad yeast and will take a look at all the numbers today (sugar, pH and acid). Hopefully won't have to make any huge additions and can pitch the yeast tonight. A crusher stemmer cost minimum $400 to buy and $75 to rent.
Silly me I thought I could do this in a few hours and I really didn't want to spend almost 1/4 the cost to purchase one just to rent one. I was willing to pay $400 to rent one last night around 10:00PM!
If these turn out as good as I hope they do I will purchase a new or used Crusher/Destemmer (If I can find one on CL) for next year.
Cost was $0.75 a pound. Picked up 100 lbs of Cabernet and 100 lbs of Merlot.
These came from New Mexico Vineyards, Inc. down in Deming, NM. They own about 300 acres of grapes with just about every variety you could wish for. I thought I would start out with something I could make a nice Bordeaux blend with. Will ferment separately and then bench test and blend down the road.
Here are a few picks with more to come (of course). I will probably give these guys a new name so I can easily distinguish them from the other "kit" wines on the cellar shelves. Something that will sound more like a wine made in New Mexico for sure!
Picture of the Vineyard
Grapes safely home from the long journey back North
Picked up the grapes yesterday at 7:00AM and drove the 300 miles North to home. Got to the house around 12:00 and unloaded. 200lb of grapes has like 1,000,000 berries and I had no crusher/destemmer so had to destem and crush by hand. I started at 1:00PM and my SWMBO came home at 5:00PM and it took until 12:00AM to finish them all....
Got them crushed as good as I could with my giant potato masher looking punch down tool and even used my hands. Got them sulfited to kill the bad yeast and will take a look at all the numbers today (sugar, pH and acid). Hopefully won't have to make any huge additions and can pitch the yeast tonight. A crusher stemmer cost minimum $400 to buy and $75 to rent.
Silly me I thought I could do this in a few hours and I really didn't want to spend almost 1/4 the cost to purchase one just to rent one. I was willing to pay $400 to rent one last night around 10:00PM!
If these turn out as good as I hope they do I will purchase a new or used Crusher/Destemmer (If I can find one on CL) for next year.