Fresh Grapes

[Pablo]

I picked up fresh grapes with the bulk buy from the Toy Store. I am making two red blends.
One is my Petit Pinot. (Petit Syrah and Pinot Noir)
One is my Super Tuscany. (Cabernet, Sangiovese and Merlot)
These should be great in about 2 years.

 

[ibglowin]

Cool.

Post some pics!

 

[Bartman]

What a great deal George made to make a wide variety of fresh grapes available to us hobbyists and wanna-bes! At prices comparable to mid- to -upper end kits, besides. Thanks George!

I picked up two Petite Sirah lugs to blend with one Barbera lug. If it presses out as expected, I should get six gallons for about $115 in grapes, and just a little more for yeast, acid, bentonite, etc.

The experience of assessing how much "Stuff" to add, degree and type of oak to use, using the crusher/destemmer, punching down the cap, smelling the plant materials ferment into wine - has all been super awesome. Much more labor intensive than kits, but more rewarding to, far beyond the "reward" of the final product.

I hope I can wait two years...

 

[ibglowin]

Bart,

Hold off on the Bentonite. I added nothing to my fresh grapes and it was crystal clear all by itself within a month. The CO2 also left without any vacuum degassing as well.

Just two of the BIG differences between Kit wines and Wine from fresh grapes that I have seen so far!

 

[Bartman]

Bart,

Hold off on the Bentonite. I added nothing to my fresh grapes and it was crystal clear all by itself within a month. The CO2 also left without any vacuum degassing as well.

Just two of the BIG differences between Kit wines and Wine from fresh grapes that I have seen so far!

Thanks for the tip, Mike.

I haven't pressed the grape skins yet anyway, so I wasn't planning to add any bentonite until later. My preference is to add as little of anything as possible. Combining my lack of equipment for fresh grapes with my reluctance to modify what nature produced (and first-hand knowledge that the grapes were really sweet, ripe and looked great), I have decided to take the fresh grape "experiment" to the extreme of no acid or sugar adjustment. If it turns out so-so or disappointing, then I will chalk it up to experience. But if it turns out great, then I will be overjoyed that I did not manipulate it at all.

I know there's risk in not testing and adjusting, but I want to start with the old-world/-school style, and learn as I go.

 

[ibglowin]

Most Cali grapes are good to go without any adjustment.

Were you planning on looking at the chemistry at all before hand? Its always good to know one way or another but more than likely they will be in the ball park as far as pH and TA as is.

 

[Pablo]

Instead of punching cows in the pasture here, I've been punching down the grapes in the morning and evening. It will be very hard to wait 2 years for finished product. I tasted it last night. Very good.

 

[grapeman]

Bart I would at least check the brix, TAand pH. You don't need to adjust, but like Mike said it would be good to know for future reference. If it turns out great, wouldn't you like to know what you used the first time to better try to duplicate again?

 

[Bartman]

I understand what you are saying Appleman, but after some anxiety-ridden contemplation staring at my then-inert buckets of grape skins, I decided to fly blind. I figure next time I do this, it will be with a totally different batch of grapes (different harvest year, source, and probably varietals), so how much usefulness/help would I get from referencing the info. you mention on this 6-gallon batch?

As with baseball (GO RANGERS!), in which every game is different from the last one and you start out 0-0, a hobbyist like me won't get much benefit from knowing those statistics on 3 lugs of "somewhere-in-California" grapes, in contrast to someone like you who expects to get comparable harvests from your own vines from year to year (given your knowledge of the local weather, unusual growing circumstances, etc.).

A lesser (but still relevant reason) is obtaining and using the testing/sampling materials - I would need to get T.A. and pH testing stuff just for this batch, so I decided to take cheap-skate, "on a wing and a prayer" approach, for better or worse.

Lastly though, I couldn't figure out how to take an accurate brix measurement with my hydrometer - after crushing there was not enough free run juice to fill the wine thief and the buckets were almost entirely grapes/skins. How do you do that, without a spectrometer? That I would have liked to have had - but since I have never had trouble getting my reds to ferment to dry, I decided the chance of a stuck fermentation were small enough to chance it (see potentially faulty logic above)

 

[Wade E]

If you plan on doing grapes again I do advise you to get a refractometer at minimum to get an accurate sg/brix reading. What yeast did you use or did you go au-natural here also. Most grapes like these have very high sg's which will usually lead to a stuck fermentation ending result if going au-natural.

 

[grapeman]

I really do think you will be fine Bart, but the basic information IS very helpful from batch to batch. If you knew the basics, you could calculate your alcohol - now you will only be able to guess. If you find it too hot, you will have no idea where it began so you could try to lessen it next time. If it is too acidic or not acidic enough, you have no idea how to adjust next time. Brix is easy with the hydrometer. Just use a glass cup - place your fingers over the lip- spread your fingers just slightly and dunk it all into the must. Let the glass fill up enough to get a sample. Pour it into your hydrometer test tube - you do have one right? Sample as usual. pH can be done with litmus paper. A TA test kit is about $7-8 dollars. So you see you can set up the basics pretty cheap. You could also bring a sample over and see if Joseph would do these for you.


Good luck with them Bart. You got some great grapes and should be able to make some great wine.

 

[Bartman]

I used Lalvin EC 1118 that I got from FVW. Right now, I'm quite pleased with the progress, even if I don't have much testing to refer to. (My secret shame - my wine log/journal hasn't been updated for over a year; after a 2-3 years of making 5-7 kit wines/year, I had referred back to it exactly twice and only then because my wine/carboy tags got wet and blurred the SG readings.)

To back up a little bit, I picked up and crushed/de-stemmed the grapes at FVW on Friday about 2:30 pm, but 15 minutes later at home, my wife was starting to feel ill, so that threw a wrench in my plan. I couldn't get out on Sat. to FVW to pick anything up, and used the yeast I had on hand. Nothing much was happening until Sunday afternoon/evening (that's when I was my most anxious), and I thought maybe the yeast was bad and the whole thing was going to be a big nasty rotten mess. By Monday a.m., things were rolling along, the fermenting yeast smell was permeating the house, and the cap was clearly taking shape at the top.

Now, after working the must over numerous times (punching down at least twice a day), and tasting the gradually fermenting juice, I am much more excited about the whole process and the intermediate result to date.

Thanks for the tip on getting a big enough sample of juice for SG measurement; I'm not sure there was enough juice in the two 6-gal. pails on Friday to do that - it was almost all skins, which led to part of my uncertainty. I might have gotten enough to fill the wine thief, but I doubt it. ABV has never been a big issue with me - it's somewhat interesting to compare, but I'm not trying to precisely measure my alcohol intake - I just stop drinking when the floor gets too close and the ceiling too far.

Seriously, however, I didn't know the finished alcohol level could be too high from the grapes alone; I thought that required sugar be added to jack it up past 12-13-14%

I now have a greater appreciation for the adjustments and balancing that are done to the kits, so that's another side benefit of using the fresh stuff.

 

[Wade E]

With most red wines 25 brix is about the goal, much higher and you usually want to dilute down with acidified water, much lower and you want to boost it up with sugar. My friend picked up some grapes 2 weeks ago and the brix were 27.5 which just makes a lot of alc and at that point just isnt fun to drink and can really take a few years to mellow out.

 

[ibglowin]

Says who!

the brix were 27.5 which just makes a lot of alc and at that point just isnt fun to drink..... 

 

[Wade E]

IMO, when the alc starts to get that high it masks to many flavor profiles. Not to mention I like to drink to enjoy the wine, not to get ripped.

 

[ibglowin]

I was just joking around Wade.......

 

[CajunJay]

You can always adjust acid just prior to bottling. It probably isn't that far off the mark. If your wine has a good nose but tastes flat, add a little acid. It will make all the difference.

 

[Pablo]

Pictures. In the buckets. In the carboys.

 

[Pablo]

 

[Wade E]

Looking good Pablo!