Improving my Wine

[ckassotis]

Hi all,

So I entered my first two wines in the MVWS Wine Competition this year. They were my first two wines I have made, a Concord and a Riesling, both Alexander's. I think the Concord was anyway, might have been another brand, but canned concentrate for sure.

At any rate, I got my actual score sheets back today from these wines and wanted to share some of the comments and hopefully get some feedback from you guys as to how I can address some of them going forward! Definitely some productive feedback I thought. I think anyway, haha.

Okay so wine #1 - Johannisberg Riesling, sweet Vinifera

-All judges loved the clarity and the sparkle, remarked on the color.
-The biggest complaint was the nose - two remarked that it was a vinegared smell, they all agreed that it was very unpleasant. One said not vinegared, remarked it was a sulfury odor.
-However, they all marked me well for taste, all three remarking that it was surprisingly nice tasting considering the nose.
-Overall notes were that the taste and look were quite wonderful but that the nose ruined the quality of the wine.

So, certainly I had noticed a nose that I didn't entirely like to this wine. The taste was always fine though, so I never paid too much attention to it. Not sure how I would have gotten a vinegared smell to it, but perhaps the sulfur smell was being misidentified by some of them?

wine # 2 - Concord, NA sweet

-Judges commented on the dark/oxidized coloring of the wine.
-Again commented on the lack of bouquet, 1 mentioned too much sulfur, and the other mentioned a vinegary/sulfury smell.
-Again they all remarked on great flavor and fruitiness. Also remarked on nice finish.

So here my question is the following - how can a wine be both over-sulfited as well as oxidized? Wouldn't one prevent the other?


TAKE-HOME MESSAGES

Seems like the nose is where my wines need the most work. Could this be to oversulfiting? I was pondering this the other day, and thinking that I sulfite at every racking. I have since switched to every other, but perhaps that could be where my problem was? Any other comments/suggestions? It seemed like the taste was on, which is good if nothing else!

Thanks for the help!

 

[robie]

So here my question is the following - how can a wine be both over-sulfited as well as oxidized? Wouldn't one prevent the other?

Congrats on stepping up and entering your wines in the first place. Good going!

The wine could be both over sulfited and oxidized, if you added the sulfites AFTER the wine was already oxidized.

My guess is the wine was not oxidized, but over-sulfited, which also would mute the aroma. CO2 will also mute the aroma.

 

[Minnesotamaker]

The one thing that has always been pounded into my head is that..."90% of a wine's score is earned in the vineyard." I've never been a big fan of the canned concentrates. They'll make wine, but not sure I'd expect it to fare well in stiff competition. Try focusing on finding fruit that is top notch and that'll at least give you the potential of tremendous results if everything else goes well.

 

[Turock]

I totally agree with Lon. In fact, in our wine judgings at the county fair, kit wines are not allowed.

Concentrates are fine for drinking, but they'll never get big awards. In 2007 we won Best of Show for a concord. The judges told us it won, against many other wine types, because it was perfectly balanced. We had put in some extra work on that bottle before it went to judging, and the grapes it was made from was from a real good year where the grapes did not go thru heavy rains before harvest.

Wines from the fruit give you the best chance of, at least, winning a few blue ribbons.

 

[JohnT]

Could not agree more. Concentrates will only take you so far.

When you use concentrates, you are giving up a large portion of control on how you make your wine. You rely on the concentrate to yeild high quality juice and that is very rarely the case. You are also doing away with the chance to control the maceration process.

Next time, try either a better kit or (better yet) start with real quality wine grapes. Avoid concord. I find that any wine made from concord grapes always tastes like grape jelly.

 

[ckassotis]

Thanks for the suggestions robie!

As for the comments, I think you might have misunderstood! I wasn't trying to win any awards here certainly, was just shooting for unbiased feedback that I could use to improve going forward.

I totally agree that I doubt I would win awards with concentrates, especially considering they were going up against fresh grape wines.

I already have 100% juice kits going, and have some fresh grapes coming this Fall. However, I would never suggest that anyone new try fresh grapes. There are too many things to learn first, and spending large amounts of money seems like a waste to me until you learn them! Assuming this sulfite lesson was correct, I'm happy to have learned it on a concentrate and not have ruined something significantly more expensive!

 

[winemaker_3352]

I think what they are trying to get at is that wine from concentrates will only taste, smell, and the overall balance will just be so so.

K-meta addition - this is what i do.

Add in primary up front
Add during stabilization after fermentation
Add in 3 months during aging
Add in 4 months during aging
Add in 4-5 months during aging (usually bottle shortly after)

the SO2 additions can be spread out as the wine will retain more as time goes on.

You can also buy SO2 testers so you know exactly where you are.

Start with monitoring your SO2 levels in the concentrates - it will improve the overall quality.

What grapes are you getting this fall and where from??

 

[russfink]

So here my question is the following - how can a wine be both over-sulfited as well as oxidized? Wouldn't one prevent the other?

It's probably not over-sulfited, but there were probably significant sulfur defects in the wine because of yeast stress. Possibly caused by lack of nutrients, high or low ph. Tough to tell.

Did you use any yeast nutrient? If so, what brand?

 

[JohnT]

Thanks for the suggestions robie!

As for the comments, I think you might have misunderstood! I wasn't trying to win any awards here certainly, was just shooting for unbiased feedback that I could use to improve going forward.

I totally agree that I doubt I would win awards with concentrates, especially considering they were going up against fresh grape wines.

I already have 100% juice kits going, and have some fresh grapes coming this Fall. However, I would never suggest that anyone new try fresh grapes. There are too many things to learn first, and spending large amounts of money seems like a waste to me until you learn them! Assuming this sulfite lesson was correct, I'm happy to have learned it on a concentrate and not have ruined something significantly more expensive!

Starting with fresh grapes is not as expensive as you might think. There are ways to make do with a minimum of investment. As far as learning, you already know how to make wine from concentrate, So I assume that you know how to make wine from quality juice.

The only part you have never done is to make your own juice first. This is not as big a deal as you might think, but it makes all the difference!

1) crusher-destemmer - this is a very expensive piece of equipment that takes the stems off of the grapes and gently "smushes" them. You can ge the same effect by first pulling all the stems off the grapes by hand. For 5 gal of wine / 64 lbs of grapes, this will not take too much time. I could do this in about 30 minutes.

Once you have clean berries, place them into a container (unused garbage can) and squash them with your bare (very clean & soaked in k-meta) feet. This will crush the grapes without crushing the seeds. Do this until you feel the grapes become very soupy and you only feel seeds under foot.

Once complete, treat with k-meta.

Note: for red wine, you want to ferment for about a week, then press. For white wines, you may want to press right away.

2) press - again, can be a very expensive piece of equipment. For very small batches (5 gal or so), you could simply go to a restaurant supply store and get a big sieve. I have seen where a 5 gallon bucket (riddled with small holes) was used. In either case, simply strain off the skins/seeds from the juice, then apply a plate (china) and some gentile pressure to get as much as you can.


Summary- so for a 5 gal batch, in addition to what you already have, all you need is a strainer and a small (20 gal) unused garbage can. A 5 gal bucket costs around 2.50 and a garbage can costs around 10.00 at lowes. A total investment of 12.50.

All this really takes is time. I HIGHLY recomend that you give it a try!

 

[russfink]

Or you can buy a juice bucket from a local grower.

 

[JohnT]

Or you can buy a juice bucket from a local grower.

I would give fruit a try if you are making red wine. This way you can control maceration (time the wine sits on the skins to control body, color, and flavor. Since bucket juice come viod of any grapes skins, red wines tend to be very light.

Bucket juice is just fine for white wines though.

 

[ckassotis]

Thanks Jon for your sulfite explanation. I think I was definitely over-doing it on adding this, quite possibly leading to the results I saw.

I'll need to buy some of the cheap little SO2 kits and test those wines and see what I come up with.

As for grapes this fall, not entirely sure. I'm thinking Norton, maybe Chardonel and possibly a little something else. Not sure from where, have been talking with a winemaker friend to just steal a small portion of the ones he is already buying, since I'd only be taking ~100 pounds or so of any one variety for this year.

As for yeast stress, I don't think that would be it, but who knows. pH and TA were spot on for those, and nutrients were added as well. Not sure what brand, whatever Midwest supplies.

@John - I might not have been clear, sorry. Certainly not suggesting that grapes will not always provide a more superior project or that these are terribly hard to do. I would however stand by the fact that I would recommend to no one stepping into winemaking with fresh grapes. I think there are a lot of important lessons to learn first, which as you noted, I hope I have. I should have fresh grapes for this season, and look forward to the process. Unless you are getting a free-pick though, these will always be more expensive than buying some of the concentrates. Especially for worthwhile grapes! I certainly know the process though, as I have helped out with crush time at a few wineries now in the past year.

 

[russfink]

Since bucket juice come viod of any grapes skins, red wines tend to be very light.

Yeah, and that isn't to be overlooked either.

 

[ckassotis]

Yeah from what I have been reading, you really need to get a bucket with grape pack, or something of the sort, if you want to avoid that problem. Obviously not an issue with the whites.

 

[robie]

As for grapes this fall, not entirely sure. I'm thinking Norton

If you find a good source for Norton, please let me know. I am interested in Norton, too.

 

[Turock]

CK--when using concentrates from the grocery store, they already have sulfites in them. So I would say it's pretty easy to over sulfite. I would think a wine like this one would need very little racking because there aren't many solids in juice. Our wines are made from grapes and fruit, and even with these, we rack only once and we never add more sulfite.

We all know that proper sulfite levels depend on PH and you can run some SO2 tests so you can get a handle on how much to use for the fruits you use. We have never tested in 23 years of winemaking. But we have strict control over our PH on all our wines. We've learned proper sulfite levels from experience, because when we started out, there was no internet and the explosion of help for home winemakers like there is today. We sulfite at the primary and never again until we bottle.

I think what I'm saying is that new winemakers may be racking too much and adding too much sulfite. One of the best ways to oxidize is by too much racking, too much opening the airlock for tasting. Once our wine gets to the secondary, it's never opened again until bottling time. Reducing your wine's exposure to O2 will be a big help.

I think you should try some grapes. When we first started out, our first wines were concord. They are inexpensive grapes and a good way to cut your teeth on wine from grapes. Niagara is another good one for a white. Niagara is one of my favorites because it's highly aromatic.

 

[Turock]

Doing reds with some heat will give you all the color you can handle. Sometimes, it's little techniques that yield the results you're looking for. Also, no water additions unless using high brix grapes.

 

[ckassotis]

Hmm thanks for the suggestions Turock! I think racking too much and sulfiting too much might be a common problem, as you say.

I'm looking to get some fresh grapes this season, very excited to give that a shot!

 

[JohnT]

@John - I might not have been clear, sorry. Certainly not suggesting that grapes will not always provide a more superior project or that these are terribly hard to do. I would however stand by the fact that I would recommend to no one stepping into winemaking with fresh grapes. I think there are a lot of important lessons to learn first, which as you noted, I hope I have. I should have fresh grapes for this season, and look forward to the process. Unless you are getting a free-pick though, these will always be more expensive than buying some of the concentrates. Especially for worthwhile grapes! I certainly know the process though, as I have helped out with crush time at a few wineries now in the past year.

I am sorry to disagree with you. In fact, the first wine I ever made was with fresh grapes and I would recommend fresh grapes to any newbie.

In my experience, kits require WAY more handling and chemistry then I feel I need when using fresh grapes.

My point above was to quickly sum up a simple and cheap method to use when starting with fresh grapes and that the process is not as bad as you portrayed.

 

[Turock]

I agree with you, John. The reason we like working with grapes is that you have total control of the process without anyone else's hand being involved like you do when working with juice buckets, concentrates, etc. And cold weather grapes are very forgiving to work with, unlike the high brix grapes of Calif where you need more knowledge to get a good result. We started with grapes--been doing it now for 23 years--and I have to say we've never fermented concentrates. Grapes aren't hard to work with, but there is more cost with a crusher, buying brute containers,etc.