Patience and other winemaking lessons

Winemaking Talk - Winemaking Forum

Help Support Winemaking Talk - Winemaking Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

vinlibervin

Junior
Joined
Feb 7, 2011
Messages
3
Reaction score
0
Hi - joined the forum in Feb 2011 just before making my first vintage from grapes. I had no prior winemaking experience but I read a lot and searched these forums for as much info as possible.

Mid March 2011 I purchased my grapes from the large fruit and veg markets here in Sydney (Australia). Growers from mostly South Australia bring excess grapes up here to sell to home winemakers.

I very excitedly purchased what I considered to be the best looking grapes - some mataro (mourvedre). There was some mold as it was a bad vintage generally in Sth Australia (2011) but compared to what else was on sale I thought they were fine.

Anyway took them home crushed and took measurements of the must.

Hmm, 17.5 Brix.

Lesson 1 - take a refractometer to check your grapes before you buy.

Added sugar etc to get the must up to SG of 1085.
PH was 3.58, added some tartaric acid (100g to 150L must) and pectinase (100g )

Fermentation was hot and fast - 29C and 4 days - added DAP and did punchdowns. Pressed by putting everything into the press. Ended up with 110L wine with very gentle pressing - could have achieved more but was in a rush.

There was a sulphide smell in the carboys so used a copper pipe to stir. By this time I was pretty much resigned to the fact that this was going to be bad wine

Lesson 2 - don't put the gunk at the bottom of the fermenter in the press unless you really like funky bad sulphide type smells

On reflection I also think that the rubber bungs I was using in the carboys also contributed to the off smell so I changed them over to silicon eventually.

Anyway - added oak chips - 150g French Oak chips to each 50L container.

Had a pretty leisurely racking regime - did SO2 tests to maintain c50ppm.

Did a late MLF as didn't have the required bacteria when ferment was on.

Lesson 3: be prepared at ferment!

Of the 100L remaining I split into 2 x 50L kegs. First keg was what I thought was going to be bearable. Second keg - basically thought was going to be rubbish. Eventually used some of the rubbish keg to top up bearable keg - so then down to 2 x 20L carboys of rubbish and 1 50L bearable.

Didn't have any bungs for the 20L carboys so just put a plastic cap on them. One ended up looking pretty ordinary - i think it was some sort of infection (red gunk not white so not quite sure) concerned for remaining wine under my house so I tipped that out. So 1 x 50L keg and 1 x 20L carboy left.

The real problem with the remaining wine was that there was no body to the wine - really seemed as though it was alcoholic grape juice rather than wine - maybe even bordering on rose style which was not what i was looking for and was a bit weird with oak nuances.

I picked up some vacuum pump tips from this forum to do rackings - would have been impossible without that - so thanks to everyone here.

Anyway - I then just let them sit since 29 October 2011. Cut to 2012. At easter this year I purchased some bottling equipment - basically the ferrari bottle attachment to put on my vacuum pump.

So i christened that by mucking around with one of the 20L carboys. I did a taste test and - it was palatable - almost reasonable. So I decided to test it on my friends who were coming over for easter - so filled a few bottles for a taste test with friends and then made a large sangria. From what was left I filled a 5L carboy.

My friends thought the wine was OK - i.e. not bad - sangria was a hit and i left the 5L to sit around.

So now its mid June 2012 - I had a few screw cap bottles lying around and a half bottle of wine which I had purchased so I decided to empty the 5L into 6 .5 bottles. On the weekend I used the mixed bottle when entertaining - no one noticed.Promising.

Monday night this week I opened one of the bottles from the 5L. And I will tell you what - something has happened. I think it might even be a bit of oxidation (!!?!) but the wine has become a deeper colour and appears to have more body than before. Quite a different wine from the stage it was at Easter - certainly more body and I might say not a bad drop - it is definitely a light wine - i.e. not your usual Aussie fruit bomb - but a very nice mid week quaffing style wine.

I only ever used carboys and kegs - no oak barrels - I wonder if the wine was previously missing some oxidation (mini oxidation from barrel / cork in bottle)? And by splashing it around in Easter when bottling I gave it a dose of air - and no additional SO2 to protect it? Any thoughts?

It is not going to win any medals but I reckon it would on par with $10 - $13 bottles of wine you buy in Australia.

FINAL Lesson - have patience - wine really does take time and never give up - or alternatively give up and put your wine away somewhere but don't poor it out in case it comes good in the future

This year I decided to get a bit more serious so I sourced some local chambourcin grapes (only ones that do OK in the humid Sydney weather) and picked them myself - was really nice working with good produce and knowing exactly where your grapes came from. And also nice going through the entire process from beginning to end.

At the moment the chambourcin seems like a tannic monster with big acid (again forgot to MLF at ferment - so will do that in spring). I think this will take even more time to even out!

Thanks to everyone on this forum for providing great educational material.
Al
 
Wow that was quite the journey mate!

Glad you didn't give up. Lots of lessons learned along the way. Thanks for sharing. Good luck with the Chambourcin. Get that MLB before hand!
 
Al, thanks for recounting your "excellent adventure" on the forum. Patience is great and so is perseverance and it seems you have both. Good job. :r
 
Back
Top