Finger Lakes Harvest!!

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randomhero

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Well the weekend of the 19th was a very busy one..Saturday I drove out to fallbright and picked up my 150 pounds of Cab Sauv grapes and 50 pounds of a grape called Carmine.

Also got 7 gallons of Traminette juice, 3 gallons of Chancellor for blending with a Cali Pinot Noir I have aging

So Saturday night i tested and tested some more to figure all the numbers for each type.

And then came Sunday which was real crazy....in the morning I added all of the yeast. Then around 6 that night my wife went into labor!

By five in the morning I had my second boy!!

And finally came tonight. I pressed the Cab grapes and now am letting 10 gallons of wine settle which i will rack off the gross lees tomorrow.

The Carmine is still fermenting away and has a couple more days to go. Ive never had this type of wine so if anyone has an idea about it, please let me know!



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Random congratulations on the baby. I just racked over 100 gallons carmine to barrels today. Great link posted above about carmine since it references the winery I work for and the vineyard it came from. This wine is a great one for blending with others. It has a very nice deep color to it.
 
Thanks for the congrats! hes been a very good baby so far haha..

And yea that article and fallbrights website were the only places tjat i found info. How is it as a varietal?

Or is it usually used for blending? And what about MLF?
 
Thanks for the congrats! hes been a very good baby so far haha..

And yea that article and fallbrights website were the only places tjat i found info. How is it as a varietal?

Or is it usually used for blending? And what about MLF?

We use it as a blender and it will go through mlf.
 
Alright sounds good! They had it on sale for $1.00 per pound so i figured might as well try it.

It sure smells and tastes good from the fermenter
 
Random, first, congratulations on the birth of your second son! I love the picture of the two of them. It will be great to show it to them one day when they are both adults.

My question is, Do I understand that you bought Cabernet Sauvignon grapes that were grown in New York? If so, what was the brix reading?
 
It was at 23 brix when they harvested. From what the owners were saying was that this year was a pretty great year.
 
Thanks...if hes anything like his older brother who wont get near any of it, Ill probably be stuck doing everything by myself haha
 
Carmine is not really well known, I have a friend on Sodus Bay who has quite a bit. It tends to overcrop and can have some herbaciousness and some bell pepper character. It is quite vulnerable to Crown Gall and I have seen some Leaf Roll Virus in it as well. Thorpe Vineyard, another close friend, is featuring it as their Twenty Fifth anniversary wine. Joe Nardonne from the Rochester Area winemakers won best of fair at the NY State Fair many years ago with some Carmine he got from Tom. It struggles a little up here along Lake Ontario but it can make a nice wine, especially if you need to add a little color, it is very dark. It takes a lot of work to make something out of it which is better than something more suited to our climate up here like Cab Franc or Lemberger. I believe it was bred at UC Davis by Dr Olmo. It is kind of cool though because nobody else has it.
 
That was the exact reason why I got some, because you dont really hear about it.

I will use most of it for blending but some ill make sure to bottle alone to see how it tastes. But thatll be in a while haha.
 
Congrats on the baby!! Looks like 2 healthy beautiful children!

I am making my first Finger Lakes wine as well, I was able to get 12 gallons of Catawba from a local winery that purchased several totes from the Finger Lakes, somewhere Near Senaca lake I believe.
 
Well Finished pressing and let the Cab Sauv and Carmine settle and tonight after trick or treating i got them into carboys.

200 pounds of grapes came out to 12 gallons of wine. With just a little left over. I thought that was a pretty good amount.
 
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