I would like to hear your experience with Norton TA, pH, Brix also. I have a farm near Springfield, MO and considered buying a few Norton to test what critters eat it and how the grape perform. I really like the wine, it has an earthy quality. I wish connoisseurs liked it.
Um, I am not that kind of winemaker, so I doubt I'll help you much. The test-strip pH of the one Alabama commercial bottle I have opened is 4.5 and the pH of mine is very close, at between 4.0-4.5. I have two more commercial bottles, from Missouri and Virginia, to open and test yet.
Vineyard said 25 Brix as I picked. I got 20 Brix on the hydrometer. Brix and Norton, I have found out through research, are very difficult chums who do not always get along. The very high solids content of the grape juice makes accurate Brix readings really hard. My hydrometer Brix reading was taken from the just-crushed juice, which was basically clear and only slightly tinged with color. I did not see how the vineyard took its Brix reading on the refractometer.
I agree, I love the wine (which compelled me to make it) and it is a good dry wine to offer people who otherwise might not drink a dry. Not all like it but it is more approachable IMO for a sweet wine drinker than others, maybe because it likes to finish at 1.000 with a bare touch of residual sweetness. The grape has an affinity for oak, and that sometimes leads too many vintners to over-oak it. As you saw, I used chips in primary and I plan to leave it at that.
Plus, it fulfills one of my desires in grape winemaking, to use grapes that originate only in the United States.
In other research, I found it appears many vintners of this grape say the wine is best at between 1 and 3 years of age, but tends to slightly lose quality after 3 years and declines more rapidly after about the 5-6 year mark. This is my first batch, so I have no firsthand knowledge of that. I've just read it.
After long carboy residency, I do plan to cold stabilize this, and see what I get by way of tartrate crystals. I do that now with any grape wine I make. It's easy insurance against crystals in the bottles.
Oh yes, I removed the rubber bungs from my gallons just quickly enough, it seems. The smell is already gone from the wine. I have not tasted, but that is encouraging,.
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