Wine making the "old school" way

[RotGut76]

I met a gentleman the other night. My friends Dad. He is straight from Sicily and barely speaks English and he's known for his wine making in the family. I've had the pleasure of sampling some of his wine and it is indeed outstanding. Anyway, like I said, I finally got the chance to meet him and pick his brain for some advise on making better wine.

So we started talking and he gets grape juice in the 6 gallon bucket just like the ones we would buy. He said he stopped using actual grapes because he's getting too old to mess around with all the work that goes into it.

Here is the part that I don't exactly get. He doesn't add ANYTHING to the juice. He puts it in a 120 liter fermenter and lets it sit. That's it. He then racks it to a secondary and lets it sit some more.

I know grapes have their own yeast and sugar naturally but why does this method seem too simplistic to work that well?

By the way he said a long time ago back in sicily they didn't have the big plastic/glass fermenters. They used to use oak barrels for primary and seconday fermentation. I'm sure that added some kick *** oak flavor to it.

 

[fabrictodyefor]

WOW! Hope you get a reply on this one! I did have some concord grapes start to ferment on me before I added yeast.....I had just added the campden tablets and grapes...next morning it was already fermenting. Was not confident enough to just let it go, so I added the remaining ingredients, including wine yeast!

 

[Julie]

Actually most of the vendors who sell juice buckets have the sg where it needs to be and they balance them, some even add the yeast. But with that said, I have still needed to adjust acid on these type of buckets and you still need to add k-meta.

 

[syncnite]

If you make wine in the same place for years (I don't know how long) the wine yeast in the air/walls will be ample enough to kick off a primary fermentation.

The oak he used was probably neutral after years of use. And a barrel that has been used for MLF will typically have plenty of Malo bacteria for secondary fermentations.


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[jpsmithny]

My friend and his father have been making wine this way for years but using whole grapes.
I haven't tasted it but i'm led to believe it is very good.

Since I've started making wine and having long conversations with him, he has purchased his own juice buckets
and fermented them out with nothing else added. He was impressed at the outcome.

Wine grapes will have some wild yeast on them as they are grown and
this is what is used in those fermentations. In fact, the strains of yeast that
we buy are actually strains of these same wild yeasts.

I've had juice buckets begin fermenting before Ive gotten them home before
so there is some wild yeast there but for consistency, I add a known strain of yeast.

And wine was made this old way for centuries.

 

[Turock]

Like Julie said--most buckets come in adjusted and with the yeast already in them. If you don't want a different culture, you can just ferment the bucket like it is. BUT--you need to pitch yeast nutrient to it in a couple doses. If you don't the ferment can become sluggish or stuck and you risk having H2S develop.

 

[Runningwolf]

Every source of juice needs to be treated individually, there is no constant. Most places do not add yeast, but with that said said there is one major player in Canada that does. The only way you can get their product without yeast is by buying a 60 gallon drum. They distribute all over north east USA and so that can be a mix up. I strongly suggest making up your own yeast starter with you preferred yeast regardless of whether your pail has it or not. If you make a good starter it will become the dominate yeast.

Most pails are adjusted to 21 brix +-a few brix. If you buy frozen pails of grapes you'll need to test and adjust everything. I just started two from Spain and the brix was 25 and 28.

 

[RotGut76]

Thanks for all the replies. This stuff is good to know.

One other thing he mentioned that I forgot to add was that every once in a while if the fermentation became sluggish he would add a pound or two a brown sugar.

Between the our drinking and his broken English I really couldn't get the reason for doing this out of him. Hopefully we will speak again. He insisted I bring a few bottles of my wine over so I'm sure I can learn some more from him.

 

[fabrictodyefor]

. He insisted I bring a few bottles of my wine over so I'm sure I can learn some more from him.

I'll have to try that sometime!

 

[seth8530]

I do not doubt that he makes some good/great wine. However, one of the major pitfalls of forsaking modern winemaking techniques is reliability. Sometimes the wine will spoil, sometimes it will not. Sometimes it will ferment dry, sometimes it will stick. Sometimes it will end up stinking, other times it smells like feet.

As the taster, you only get to see the wines that turned out good.

 

[Turock]

A ferment that is sluggish is sluggish because of lack of nutrient (nitrogen). It is not good to add more sugar because you can get the alcohol too high for the culture, thus killing it off due to alcohol toxicity.

Many of these old winemakers didn't really understand why they were doing what they were doing. They just followed word of mouth from family members. You're far better off making wine with accepted practices.

 

[tmmii]

A ferment that is sluggish is sluggish because of lack of nutrient (nitrogen). It is not good to add more sugar because you can get the alcohol too high for the culture, thus killing it off due to alcohol toxicity.

Many of these old winemakers didn't really understand why they were doing what they were doing. They just followed word of mouth from family members. You're far better off making wine with accepted practices.

I've added nutrient like you say to, and fermentation was a lot smoother and predictable. What are your thoughts on adding grapes? It seems like a lot of work, is it worth the hassle?



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[Turock]

Not sure I understand what you mean--can you explain?

 

[JohnT]

I to weight in here for a second..

I more than understand the desire to replicate the old way of doing things. I, myself come from a long line of European winemakers. The one thing that I have learned through the years is to NOT let nostalgia dictate what is best for your wine.

I am sure that most members here would agree that there have been countless posts that begin somewhat like this...

"I am making wine the way my grandfather did, and do not know what went wrong".

I am just saying that one should learn the modern science behind winemaking before you decide to adopt "the old ways". Believe me, you will save yourself a lot of heartache!.

 

[Tom_S]

I am sure that most members here would agree that there have been countless posts that begin somewhat like this...

"I am making wine the way my grandfather did, and do not know what went wrong".

Yep, there sure have been. What people who claim you don't need to put yeast in to make wine never tell you is that in the old country vineyards naturally have the strains of wine yeast growing wild. Plus the vintners would take the lees and throw it out in the vineyard, ensuring that the yeast in the lees would continue to propagate in the vineyard. Also what they don't tell you is that people who make wine with wild yeast don't always get a good batch. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's lousy. It all depends on which strain of yeast was dominant.

 

[tmmii]

Not sure I understand what you mean--can you explain?

Sorry should have broken it up. I did the nutrient like you say to do in two steps and everything in my last batches was perfect.

The op was saying the old guy was skipping adding grapes, I'm getting mixed reviews on it, do you ever add grapes?




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