Question from a new member (red wine from grapes)

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.
Joined
Apr 7, 2010
Messages
4
Reaction score
0
Hey all! I hope to write a better intro to myself soon, but in the meantime, I had an odd question for any of you gurus...

Long story short: I'm a dual US citizen living in Hungary. My neighbor offered to show me into winemaking. He is an old salt, making wine for 4 decades. But being an old Hungarian, he uses no equipment (testing, etc) and sanitation is well antiquated at best, as I've been learning from books on the subject. With his help, I made 100 liters of Zweigelt. Wild yeast only, no wine yeast. Racked several times, oak barrel aged. The product actually won a gold medal in the local competition for young wines a few weeks ago, so it tasted pretty great.

PROBLEM: I have the wine now in 25 liter carboys. When I racked last week, I noticed an odd white "stuff" in the wine when I held the lees against a light. NOT chunky surface bloom (wine flowers?), rather it looks extremely diaphanous, like roiling fog just under the surface (not a scum on the surface). Or like when two different viscosities are not mixed... When I pour a little into a dish, it is almost as if the pigment is gone in places! When I stir it vigorously, the haze vanishes into the rest of the wine. Otherwise, the wine smells and tastes very good. As a test, and since the wine was undersulfured in general, I dumped a teaspoon of sulfur into it (into about 3 liters of wine). No change a few days later. But again, if I slosh it around, the "fog" disappears for a few hours. Then it's back.

There are no filaments, no clotting... I've been doing some homework, and was wondering if it could be some sort of pectin or lactic haze? Is this how it presents? And if so, what can I do?? I brought all the wine up to about 80 ppm sulfur today.

Any help would be most appreciated!
All best,
David
 
I wonder if that is not the same or similar problem Cellar Craft is having with some of their high end kits?

They added a special enzyme pack to the kit to be added during the second stage (carboy stage) of fermentation.

Check the Cellar Craft web site and look for references to the enzyme, that may help.
 
Okay, silly me... pectin and protein haze... fining with bentonite as we speak, so hopefully all clear!
 
Hiya David and welcome to the forum,

Let us know if that fixes the problem for you..

cheers

Allie :bt
 
Long story short: I'm a dual US citizen living in Hungary. My neighbor offered to show me into winemaking. He is an old salt, making wine for 4 decades. But being an old Hungarian, he uses no equipment (testing, etc) and sanitation is well antiquated at best, as I've been learning from books on the subject. With his help, I made 100 liters of Zweigelt. Wild yeast only, no wine yeast. Racked several times, oak barrel aged. The product actually won a gold medal in the local competition for young wines a few weeks ago, so it tasted pretty great.

David

Man, I wished I had a teacher like that living around here. I would follow each of his steps and make loads of notes along the way.

I have been to Hungary 3 times on a Holliday. We stayed at the small town called Estergom near Budapest. There is a camping site at which we camped 3 subsequent hollidays each for 1 week.

Hungary was great !!!!
Poeple were very friendly hospitable. We attended some great parties there and even went to Sziget the famous pop-festival.

This was about 15 years ago.

Luc
 
My father was born in Hungary and I have relatives that own a tiny vinyard/winery along the shore of lake balaton. Great people, and Great wine.

Have you ever gone to the "Hungarian Museum of Wine in Budapest?
 
Hey there, yeah, we're loving Hungarian life for sure! Going on 3 years now, and I don't think we'll ever return. And no, haven't seen the wine museum, but I'm sure I will someday! Cheers...
 
Has 750 varieties of Hungarian wine for you to taste ---- SELF SERVE!

You must be enjoying the Bikovar or the KE-KE Francos. A good sukorborate is my idea of a goo wine (please excuse the spelling). Where are you located? Anywhere near VEZPREM?
 
Down as south as you can get (almost): Pecs. Pronounced Pay-ch lol... and yes, we love Kekfrankos for sure... I was going to replant the vineyard to that, but found out that Zweigelt (my other perennial favorite to drink) ripens a full month sooner, so that was that! Bikaver, good, but not a fave. Tokaji is great of course but too sweet.... of hungarian reds, Kekfrankos is our favorite! Cheers!
 

Latest posts

Back
Top