New winemaker!

[roxyco]

I'm new to wine making and just started my first batch of grape-to-bottle! Here's a picture of my kitty guarding my wine while I take a hydrometer reading. Enjoy!

 

[Bossbaby]

is it a kit or fresh grape ?

 

[hounddawg]

Welcome to WMT
Skoal
Dawg

 

[sour_grapes]

Welcome aboard!

 

[TX Wineaux]

Welcome

 

[roxyco]

is it a kit or fresh grape ?

Fresh grapes I bought from a local distributor. The Cab Franc is turning out delicious but the merlot has a little bit to go lol

 

[Rice_Guy]

Welcome to WMT

 

[BernardSmith]

Hi Roxyco and welcome.
I take my hat off to you. If this is your first attempt at making wine and you are using fresh grapes you are not risk averse! Many folk on this forum focus on kits and many others focus on country wines (wines from fruits, flowers and vegetables other than grapes) but to start your adventure with grapes is - I would argue - wonderful. Is there wine making in your family's history? What sort of volume are you making? what did you use to crush and destem the grapes? And if you have pressed them what did you use to press the grapes?
I have been making country wines and mead for a number of years and this year was my first attempt to make wines from fresh grapes. I am excited - Sangiovese are the grapes I am working with. and for me it feels significantly different making wine from grapes than making wine from any other fruit or even from a wine kit.

 

[roxyco]

Thank you, SO much! Personally, I know I am a very ambitious person lol but I wanted to go through the process from start to finish (well, almost start - I didn't grow the grapes lol) I've make a pinot noir with a kit and it was awful so I figured I'd try it myself. There isn't any wine making history in my family but we always drank dry red wines and my grandmother, when she was a little girl in Egypt, was naughty and was punished by the nuns by being sent down to the cellar - where they kept all their wine. Well, she drank a lot of their supply while she was down there! So I think I partly get my rebellious side from her.

I still need to put my press together, hopefully that will get done this weekend!

Good luck on your adventure with your Sangiovese grapes! I hope you are learning a lot and enjoying the process!

 

[BernardSmith]

I am certainly learning a great deal - Not least how to crush grapes using an old milk crate, and how to press grapes by hand.. When you make country wines or mead you don't typically use about 12 or more pounds of fruit per gallon but when you make wine from wine grapes you don't add water and so the cap is thick and punching down is not simply stirring a couple of times a day. Heck! even crushing seems to mean that you get very little liquid expelled from the grapes until the enzymes you add and the yeast do whatever it is they do to extract the juice. And then today, I took a gravity reading from what is called the second run (it's a shame and a waste to toss out the pomace after pressing once, so you can add water and sugar and trartaric acid and ferment on the skins and pits a second time and the taste and color is great (although the mouthfeel might be a little less and the tannins a little more pronounced but you can squeeze out a second batch- and this batch is currently at 0.990 - and is perhaps the driest wine I have ever made in 25 years but the flavor is good. (pH is 3.6 with much of the malic acids converted to lactic). But bottom line, I am hooked on using fresh grapes and all being well, next fall I plan on buying a few different varietals... though my wife's and my own favorite wine is elderflower and I make a mean t'ej (Ethiopian style honey mead).

 

[heatherd]

Welcome to the hobby!!

 

[winemaker81]

it's a shame and a waste to toss out the pomace after pressing once

Bernard, I toast you with a glass of last year's 2nd run!

 

[BernardSmith]

Cheers! ;-)