moving into red wine making

[jazzibear]

I've never made red wines before (only white wines and fruit wines), but I want to make some full bodied dry red wines. I recently ordered some red juices (Noiret and Vincent). I know it's better to make red wines with grapes or skins, but I don't have access to a press, so I ordered juice. I'm concerned about the wines being thin or weak without skins. I will be adding oak (bought Hungarian oak, medium toast chips for primary, is that oak ok for this?) I've never oaked before.

Does anyone have suggestions to make these wines fuller bodied? I've read about things like adding raisins or dried elderberries. Any thoughts on these ideas or other suggestions. Is it possible they might end up being full bodied without skins or other additions?

 

[richmke]

You could get some dried grape skins
http://www.grapestompers.com/product_details.aspx?SubcatID=41&ProductID=795&internal_index=0

 

[jazzibear]

Thank you for responding. I would love to get some dried grape skins. It almost looked like they were available on that website, but it shows that it's discontinued and when I tried adding it to my truck (that website uses truck instead of cart), it didn't show up. That is a great idea though. I've been looking online and through threads here and it seems as though no-one is selling dried grape skins anymore. Does anyone else know if anyone is selling them right now?

 

[richmke]

Another idea is to get a lug (35 pounds?) of any wine grape you can find. Might be just a tad late.

 

[DoctorCAD]

http://www.juicegrape.com/Mosti-Mondiale-All-Grape-Pack/

This place has grape packs, but at $30.04 with shipping, its really outrageous.

 

[jazzibear]

Thank you for the ideas. Since I already picked up the Noiret on Saturday, I had to do something. I just added some Medium toast oak chips and Red Pasteur yeast. Maybe I'll also add grape tannins, I don't know. Yes, $30 to add on the packaged grapes does seem like a lot at this point. We'll see what happens with it as it is. I'm picking up the Vincent juice next weekend. Maybe next year I'll use grapes and get a wine press. Thanks again.

 

[LoneStarLori]

I have used black Zante currants available from Amazon http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00514CAQW/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

I always add them to the secondary along with some extra tannin, about a 1-2 TBL and it really bumps the body. You'd be surprised what they can do to a weak wine.

 

[jazzibear]

Sounds good. I think I will give the currants a try. I just have a few questions about it, if you don't mind. Do they leave a raisiney or any other kind of unusual taste in the wine? How much would you add to a 5 gallon carboy? Would you chop them? Have you tried adding them to the primary in addition to or instead of the secondary? I know that's a lot of questions. Thank you.

 

[LoneStarLori]

There are plenty of debates on here about "raisin taste". I personally don't pick it up. I like using the currants when possible because I think they are more like a dark fruit taste.
I did add them to a couple of batches at both the end of primary. Then I added them again to the secondary. They turned out pretty nice.
There are a couple of threads here that deal with tweaking kits. When good wines gone bad, and thinking outside the box. Both with pictures of the steps. I usually do my posts in Thinking outside the box. Joeswine does the ones in When good wines gone bad. He does a excellent job of documenting tweaks and is the tweakmaster.
The last one I did using currants in was a higher end kit that also had grape skins. It's only 2 months old but is fantastic. The thread is located here: brunello. This shows you how I add the currants and tannin. If you look back on the thread, there are several different tweaks with raisins or currants. I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.

 

[jazzibear]

I'll check out those threads. Thanks again.

 

[JohnT]

Why not simply get whole grapes?? You can make a very simple press from 2 5 gal plastic buckets. Real cheap!

 

[DoctorCAD]

Why not simply get whole grapes?? You can make a very simple press from 2 5 gal plastic buckets. Real cheap!

Its not "simple" for everybody. The only grapes available around here are muscidines, and I'd rather put gravel in my wines than those grapes.

 

[jazzibear]

Actually, I could get fresh grapes. I live near the finger lakes wine region. The lack of a grape press was my main concern. How do you make a simple grape press with two 5 gallon buckets? Is there a place I could get detailed instructions on how to do this, or could you give me detailed instructions? If it truly is simple and it works well, I might try it also. Thank you.

 

[jazzibear]

Why not simply get whole grapes?? You can make a very simple press from 2 5 gal plastic buckets. Real cheap!

Would it be a good idea to have part juice and part grapes, since I already have some juice going and have more on order? If I can make a simple wine press with two buckets, maybe I can macerate the crushed grapes in the existing juice, then there would be less to press, if a two bucket press is hard to use. How would I make such a press and how well does it work?

 

[JohnT]

get two new 5 gal plastic buckets. They should be identical so that one cleanly inserts into the other. Also get a Shallow "washtub" size bucket.

Take One of the buckets, and drill a-ga-gillion 3/8" holes into the side and into the bottom. This is going to be your sieve. The bucket without holes will be the plunger.

Fill your sieve (bucket with holes) with your grapes to about 1/2 way up. Insert the plunger (bucket without holes) into the sieve.

Set the two buckets into the washtub. Put a board across the plunger and sit on it.

Ta-da- Instant Grape Press!

 

[LoneStarLori]

You're not going to be using more than about 5 lbs, you can easily just smash them in a paint straining bag available at Lowes then plop the whole bag in the primary. Then squeeze the bag every day. That is how kits with skin packs are done.

 

[jazzibear]

Sounds great! I can do kind of a combination of pressed grapes and juice. The bucket idea really does sound easy. I might do a combination of the strainer bag and squeeze with the buckets in the end. I still like the idea of tweaking with currants too, less messy. I noticed a reference to tweaking with elderflowers in one of the threads too, another interesting idea. I'm getting a little obsessed with this wine-making stuff. I will see if I still have time to order some grapes! I think I can still get some, looking at the winery websites. Thank you for all of your help.

 

[nicklausjames]

For one lug in juice you do not need a press. Just sterilize a 5 gallon bucket or something similar. Than sterilize a pasta strainer colander whatever you call it. Place it over the bucket and pour the juice and grapes through. You can than take something sterile and press it on the grape filled collander if you wish or just discard the grapes. If you only add one lug it will take you 30 mins max. I have two presses and did it this way this year in my juice that only had one lug bc it's just easier. I use the presses for just grapes and larger volumes.

 

[jazzibear]

The colander idea sounds good and easy to work with. I ended up getting 120 lbs. of grapes, which I'm hoping should be good for the bucket press. I figure I'll only need to cut and drill holes into one bucket, the plunger bucket will be undamaged and re-usable. I took 120 lbs. of crushed Chancellor grapes, 10 gallons Chamborcin juice, 5 gallons Noiret juice, 5 gallons Vincent juice, 1 1/4 lbs. med toast Hungarian oak chips and 6 packets Pasteur Red yeast and split it between three 20 gallon Brute cans. I thought about using strainer bags in each can for the grapes and squeezing them everyday, but I ended up putting it all together so I can do the traditional punching the cap thing, even though I'm using juice. I put bath towels over the Brute cans and snapped them into place with the lids, hopefully the yeast will get enough oxygen that way. I'm very concerned about fruit flies and the vinegar bacteria they carry around with them (I think they carry vinegar bacteria anyway, another reason I was originally hesitant about trying grapes for the first time), so hopefully I can keep them out this way. We'll see how it goes. I will also be doing malolactic fermentation for the first time on this one and I've been looking around for the easiest to work with malolactic bacteria. Hopefully it all works out. Thanks for all the great ideas.

 

[nicklausjames]

Get the sticky fly strips at Home Depot for the fruit flies. Hang them around the area of your wine. You can't get rid of all of them but can get rid of most.