2008 Merlot grapes diary: Suggestions welcome

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rshosted

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2008 Merlot Vineyards Idaho notes

9/25/08

I picked up barely over 300 lbs of grapes and split them three ways with Matt and Greg. I got them from Dick who owns and operates a Vineyard in Idaho. I drove up one day, 5.5 hrs away from my house to his vineyard and helped him pick all 300 lbs of grapes. It was a neat experience to pick the grapes I planned to make wine out of.

He stated they tested between 23-25 brix, PH of 3.3, and TA of .7-.75, a little low in sugar but good to go and a reasonable amount of alcohol.
The following night I sat with Sandy and we destemmed all 100lbs of the grapes. It took about 1.5 hrs with both of us working diligently. It was a tad unfortunate that I was on call that day because I was unable to enjoy a nice glass of wine while I worked; though it did seem something worth looking forward to when this wine turns out.

After destemming, I hand crushed the berries a little, leaving many of them in tact. I heard that fermenting whole berries will bring the fruit forward in a wine, so I figured I try it. The juice was slightly pink, but had not absorbed much color. I purchased a fridge controller and set the freezer in my garage at 34*F with a 4* variance. I figure this will keep it plenty cool to do a good cold soak.

I haven’t decided when I will pull it out of the fridge and actually start fermentation, but I figure it will be in about two-three weeks. I am not trying to get the bitter out of the grape as I think that Merlot is often overdone with Tannins. But I do want a good body and structure to the wine that I believe only time on the skins can give a wine.
I didn’t test the sugar myself but knew it would change over the next few days as the grapes cell wall structure broke down and released the sugar more.

There was a touch of mold on the grapes, that I mostly removed by washing and throwing out. I thought I saw more when I was picking, but I think a lot of it was spider webs. Man I can’t believe how many spiders were in those grapes. They were infested. But I guess spiders don’t eat grapes, but they do eat the bugs that eat grapes so you have to live and let live a little. I definitely let more spiders live than I ever thought I would… they are probably moving into my house as I speak… That does mean war and I won’t let them get away with it! Ok, back to grapes.
I added 2.2 grams of Potassium Metabisulphite to the wine. I figure if this was a 5 gallon batch that would set me around 60 PPM of sulfites. I’ll order a free SO2 kit and yeast at the same time. The process has started.

09/28/09

I’ve been pushing the cap down of the wine. I haven’t taken a brix reading but probably will today. The wine is syrupy sweet with a clean flavor. It has a rose color starting to come out, but really not much liquid is present from the other full grape wine that I have created. It seems to not be as well crushed as the other, thus not as much juice; this is exactly what I was hoping for and looks like it is working as planned.

The fridge controller is working great. It keeps the temp of the wine from 34-38*F. I am a little worried that it might be keeping it too cold and preserving it too much. I’m going to do some research and see if I should bring it up to 45*F to get the tannins from the wine. Though, I keep thinking that it’s merlot, do I really want to bring out tannins in this wine? I really loath merlot and there are very few in the last year that I have drank and liked, let alone appreciated.

10/12/08

Today I helped Greg press his grapes and I gave them a try. They were clean and very fruity, a flavor I did not expect from Merlot. They actually tasted like they had some residual sugar, but still tested at SG<1.000.
It got me motivated to mess with my own grapes. I have been pushing the cap down twice a day… Okay, most days, there were probably three where I did it once, and one or two days where I didn’t upset them at all. Also, midway through I turned the temp in the fridge up by about 5 degres with the same variance.

I put them into amy 10 Gal bucket and it was probably down about 1.5 gallons. I had to fill another 5 Gallon container up (though it was not completely full). I would suspect that I have about 2.5-3 gallons in it; just enough to not be able to use the 10 gallon container. I just about tried, but then thought better of it.

So I moved the grapes to the two containers and brought them into the house. I set them on a heating pad. Mostly the 10 gallon container is on, but I let the little container share a corner. I set my temperature controller to 78 with a 2 degree variance, and plugged the heating pad into it. I
wrapped the thermister of the controller in a ziplock bag and pushed the thermister (in the bag) below the grapes. It initially read 41 degrees farenheit. It is up around 50 a few hours later. I only set the heating pad to medium as I didn’t want to ‘cook’ the grapes. My thought is that the plastic bucket does not transfer heat as well as I would have thought. Which could be good or bad. I figure it won’t be immediate but will let it slowly maintain which should keep the little yeasties happy.

I also started a yeast starter with my liquid yeast. I used a ¼ tsp of Nutruient, ¼ tsp of Diammonium phosphate, and 2 tsp of sugar. I boiled the water and put it into a sanitized wine bottle with an air lock. A few hours later it appears to be going strong. Hopfully I can pitch it tomorrow if the temp comes to where I want it to.

And I just about forgot about the most exciting part. A day ago, I went out to my personal vineyard and cut the few remaining grapes that I was able to save from the birds. I ‘netted’ one half of a half a plant (yeah ¼). The grapes seemed healthy, but much smaller berries. I saved about 1.5 lbs (not measured just a guess) of Cabernet Savoigon grapes. I rinsed them and threw them in the big batch. I figure there wasn’t enough to test sugar or TA/PH so I would just go with that. I doubt it will make a huge difference. But as always, I’m hoping for the best. Also I just looked at the grape temperature and they are at 54 *F now. That’s about six hours later, so not too quick. I’ll leave the heat up in the house tonight to encourage them to heat quicker.


10/13/08

Turning up the heat! I got tired of seeing a few degrees here and there. When I woke up the temp had changed, but not substantially so. I decided to move the heating pad to the ‘HIGH’ position. It has heated up dramatically. Though, it still has not hit the 80*F mark. I saw that it was at 74*. I decided rather than let the wine sit at a temp that it is at risk, I would pitch the yeast starter. I poured ¾ into the big 10 gal fermenter, and the remainder into the 4-5 gal container. I left the heat pad on high and will see. I assume the yeast will start to ferment and create some exothermic heat which will facilitate the target temperature, and will be aided by the heat pad.

Later this day, I decided to move the variance for the temp to 1 degree. So it hit 80*F and stayed there. No sign of fermentation, though it does not have an airtight lid, only a semi-tight lid to keep stuff out. So far I have seen the heater cycle once or twice to keep it at this temperature; pretty cool!

10/14/08

What a day. As far as making wine goes, it was probably about as exciting as things get. Things get exciting when they go wrong, no doubt. So I stop by home during the day and it looks like someone has stabbed my big fermenter; there were red fresh stains down the sides of it. I feel the side of the fermenter and it feels like it’s running a fever. I open the top to see the grapes are pushed up tightly against the lid and have been oozing down the side of the white food grade fermenter. The thermistor from the temperature controller got pushed out of liquid with the grapes too so it was picking up the air temperature, not the must temperature. The heat pad was set to high and was on all day, and possibly more.

I needed to find a way to solve the problem. First I noticed the grape level was much lower in the 4-5 gal container, so I moved about a gallon of grapes and juice to the other container in order to lower the level in the bigger one. Next, I removed the thermistor and found a clear plastic tube that a bottle filler came in. The tube is about ¼ inch inner diameter and probably 15 inches long. I stuck the tube into a whole that I drilled in the lid and it wedged in. Next I slid the thermistor down the tube about 12 inches into the line. Since the tube is rigid it will not move with the grape cap. Essentially, it is a thermowell. But since I didn’t have the foresight to purchase said thermowell I have an inexpensive one already attached. I do have plans to purchase a stainless thermowell next time I buy something through an online brewshop.

I pushed the cap down in both vessels and noted the temperature after doing so. The temperature in the new budget thermowell had climbed to 84* F! This is about 1*F away from where wine becomes majorly flawed, from research I have done. Time to take action. Luckily I found a 16 ounce water bottle in my freezer already frozen. I peeled the label off, and sanitized it. I set it right in the middle of the cap and it sat in the must liquid and was held up by the grapes in the must. The temperature didn’t move too much (at all really); I knew it would take time. I changed the variable on the temp controller to 2*. I’m not sure why I did that, but I felt like it would give it a chance to stay cooler. In retrospect that was probably a mistake and I should have left it at 1* variance since that will maintain a more exact fermenting temperature, especially with the improved thermowell.

A few hours later I was happy to have reported to me the wine/must had come down to 77* (the exact point where the hotpad would turn back on via the controller. I was happy that I changed the hotpad to medium and hope that will maintain the temperature more evenly now that the temp it within the target range.

I also tasted the wine. It is super carbonated/foamy. It is sweet and has no discernable off flavor, though it has so much sugar I doubt I would taste it at this point anyway. I also forgot to mention I tested Greg’s wine and the PH was 3.34 and TA .70-.75. Since the grapes came from the same bunch, it seemed unnecessary to retest mine. I did however test my sugar at 22 brix in the final portion of the wine. I’m still debating if I should add enough sugar to bring it to 14-15% alcohol. Not sure how that might affect the acid or flavor at this point though.

Edited by: rshosted
 
rs - I wouldn't take a merlot past about 12.5 - 13% abv. The alcohol will overpower the flavor. Just my opinion.
 

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