Cab Franc yeast & mlb recommendation(s) for fruit forward wine?

Winemaking Talk - Winemaking Forum

Help Support Winemaking Talk - Winemaking Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

NorCal

Super Moderator
Super Moderator
Joined
Apr 18, 2014
Messages
3,980
Reaction score
6,030
Location
Sierra Foothills, Nor Cal
The availability of Mourvèdre fell through, so it looks like I’ll do another 60 gallon of Cab Franc. I want to make the absolute best Cab Franc possible, regardless of how much work it takes. I’m looking to make a real fruit forward wine, with minimal or no blending, as I have typically done in the past (Petite Sirah, Petit Verdot).

Any recommendations on yeast(s), mlb or process steps to use for a wine that will be:
Fruit forward wine (most important)
Fruit from single shoot, head trained, 18 year old vines
Lightly crushed and pressed
25-26 brix / 3.5-3.7 pH
Lightly oaked with French oak spirals
Barrel aged 11-18 months
AA6B2A58-5FCC-42A8-886A-4E02D749048F.jpeg
 
Subscribing to thread.

You are far more experienced than me or most here. But, how about more of that Renaissance Yeast? That's a clean fermentor, should leave the fruit flavors intact. And maybe harvest at the upper end of the brix range for "ripe" fruit flavors. Then a light touch with the oak, and good to go. The Petite Sirah I fermented with that yeast is "fruit forward" even now still in the tank.

The vines are looking great at Clos du Lac. It should be a nice harvest and if the schedule works, I hope to purchase some of the Cab Franc too. I'm thinking the proper way is through Sac Valley Home Winemakers? Unfortunately my job involves a lot of weekends and it makes counting on things difficult.

Good luck with this year's project. And thanks again for inviting me to the tasting. I took the tasting notes home, and appreciated all the critique good and bad. My favorite was, "drink it up". Lol. I'll work on that.
 
I’d think that you’d need to taste it to see if you’ll skip MLF, most reds benefit, including those that are considered fruit forward. I’d propose that your best approach is from the fermenting process, and if I were attempting this, I’d approach from there.

My yeast selection would be from the chart below, a combo of D-21 and D-254, I’d ferment very cool for fruit retention, do concurrent MLF (tartness may mask some of the fruity taste, a smooth wine let’s it all hang out), punch down easy or do gentle pumpovers, try not to extract too much tannin from your (probably) well ripened grapes, not do any barrel aging, do some taste testing to see what little smidges of sugar and glycerine do to the fruit taste, and bottle. But that’s me.........4BBBA1FD-1DC7-4CBE-9040-BC02650B3D95.png
 
Last edited:
I did an oaked and unoaked Merlot and the unoaked is noticeably more fruit forward than the oaked.

I've also noticed the same in my winemaking, particularly before I began barrel aging, and have read that this is a generally true characteristic. Wines also lose their "fruitiness" as they age, those "in your face" flavors giving way to more mature and mellow flavors with time in the bottle, hence, getting it bottled as soon as practical and enjoying it during its early years. Definitely not to say that it won't be good later in life!!!
 
Any recommendations on yeast(s), mlb or process steps to use for a wine that will be:
Fruit forward wine (most important)

View attachment 55570

I would also look into limiting the skin fermentation to just a couple days. Seems to me the longer the skin contact time and punching down just drives away the fruity esters. This makes the wine more toward the Beaujolais style.
 
Thanks for the suggestions. I made a saignee Mourvèdre in 2015 that turned out fruity, I’m not sure the increased juice to skin ratio would have the same effect or not.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top