requesting advice on making a red wine

[sfmatthias0]

My friends and I want to make a wine which would preferably be ready for when Game of Thrones starts up (in March 2014, so approximately 6 to 7 months time frame. My friends and I are senior engineering students (just to give an understanding of the way we are approaching this).

First, our goals are to accomplish a wine which can be described as (by what we've heard said about the wine we pick) "full bodied", "spicy", "dry", "tannic", "powerful", "angry", and my personal yet seemingly vague descriptor "fun".

For materials, we are debating buying 5 or 10 small barrels (1 to 3 liters) to run concurrent trials so that if we screw up one batch it doesn't doom the project. The smaller barrels were selected under the (possibly faulty) theory that we could imbue the wine with more tannins (what we think we want given those adjectives being used to describe our favorite wines?) in a shorter time (given higher surface area per unit volume). Given those same assumptions and for cost considerations, we were thinking american white oak. I have read elsewhere that small volume barrels would mean disaster, would running 5 trials in 10 or even 20 liter barrels be a wiser option instead?

We were thinking Cabernet Franc grapes for the spice and potentially blending them with Cabernet Sauvignon. Do we want to buy our own grapes and prepare them ourselves or just buy some sort of pre-made Cabernet Franc grape juice/pulp. Should we pick a different grape? Is this a seasonal thing that should be taken into account given grape selection and time frame? At what point are they blended, before or after fermentation or at some other point in aging?

Is there an optimal type of sugar to use and optimal yeast for a 14.5% (+/- 1% margin of error)? Does this change with barrel size?

What temperature is optimal. I have a room in my house kept at a constant 68 degrees and the rest of the house is kept at 75 degrees. What is the optimal humidity for the room.

How much sugar at what times, or is there an instrument which can be used to measure each day to solve for how much sugar to add (I assume the alcohol content we are going for means this must be done in stages rather than all the sugar at once.

Is there something I'm missing that makes this plan untenable (with regard to time frame and goals)? Are there reference manuals and/or books someone can suggest for research and reviewing while making the attempt? Any websites suggested?

 

[JohnT]

Wheee! you sure do want to know a lot. I will give it my best shot to advise you, but my approach will be to assume that you have not made wine before and that you should start slow, gain a base knowledge, then scale up once your experience level increases.

With that in mind, here is my advice..

Your idea of cab/cab franc is a good one. I would also recommend a petit sarah as this grape (I find) is very consistant and well suited for the homw winemaker.

The next choice is if to use fresh grapes or bucket juice, or simply go with a kit. Here are the ins and outs..

Fresh Grapes (my preference) is far more messy, requires pressing and destemming. I like this choice because it is cheaper and also allow me good control over maceration and chem adjustment.

Bucket Juice - I think that bucket juice might not be for you because they press the grapes and immediately put it into the bucket. As a result, the wine seems to be much lighter and not nearly as tannic. Many folks actually put fresh grapes into their juice buckets for this very reason. My thinking is that if you do this, you still need to destem and press the wine. Given that bucket juice is more expensive than fresh grapes, I prefer to stick with fresh grapes.

Kits - I think that this is best option for you. Most winemakers start on kits, then move to buckets, then move to fresh grapes. I had a chance to sample some of the kit wines made by the members here and have to say that I was blow away!!! the up side on kits is that they require minimum equipment. the down side is that the end cost (per bottle) can be double the cost of fresh grapes.


As far as sugar - wine grapes range from 22 to 26% sugar. I have never had the need to add any sugar to my wines. Since you want a "dry big red" (like I prefer), you really want all of the sugar to ferment out of the wine. So, put that sack of sugar away. It is far more important for you to monitor the PH level of the wine. Get yourself a hydrometer (around $8) to measure your sugar.

As far as oak - as a beginner I would advise against using a cask on your very first batch. casks are expensive and tricky to get right when dealing with very small volumes of 1 to 3 liters. A much better method would be to go with oak cubes (available at any supply shop or on line).

You do not say what size batch you want to make. I would advise a 5 gal batch. Get yourself a standard beginner's winemaking kit. This should include a 5 gal carboy, a bucket to ferment in, syphon hose, corker, and (perhaps) a hydrometer. these beginner kits tend to be a much better deal than the purchase of each item separately.

Temp - For the type of wine you are going for, you want a hot and fast fermentation. Start off at about 75 degrees and let her rip. as fermentation peaks, the temps can rise into the 90's.

Your time frame is ok, but I would not wait too long before getting started.

Wheew! that was a long post, but I think I covered everything.

 

[salcoco]

John T's advice in using a kit is best. economically use of oak cube will greatly reduce your budget requirement for barrels that possibly will allow you to purchase higher end wine kits, one that has a grape pack= more tannin. also use of oak cube will allow you to monitor the amount of tannin the wine has without over oaking. new barrel would be a crap shoot on oak monitoring with the chance of over oaking being increased. for higher end kit I would consider a Barolo or maybe a Old Vine Zinfandel for a bolder red.

 

[WI_Wino]

If you go in the kit direction though you'll want to get a 6 gallon carboy (or ten of them) as most kits make 6 gallons, not 5 gallons.

 

[JohnT]

you could also go with a 5 gal carboy and a 1 gallon jug (for top off).

 

[WI_Wino]

JohnT - For sure, just more "stuff" to have around.

sfmatthias0 - your time frame (drinking in 6-7 months) seems aggressive for everything but kit wines IMO.

 

[sfmatthias0]

JohnT, first I would like to say that you are decidedly awesome for writing all that and helping so much. Yes a hydrometer will most definitely be used as well as any other diagnostic equipment under a few hundred dollars that would help monitor the situation.

Budget isn't too big a deal in that we would rather spend more money for great returns, but upon hitting a certain point lets be honest and say that college age people don't have the most developed of tastes. This oak cube thing is very interesting, I haven't come across this in my (admittedly limited) research. You say that this method allows for finer control of "oaking"? is this control provided simply due to the majority of the tannins in each cube being released into the wine, meaning each oak cube provides an additional discrete and predictable level of tannins? If so is there a reason those with more refined tastes seem to prefer wine aged in oak? what advantage or benefit am I sacrificing?

With the sugar thing, the charts I looked at said to not exceed 1100 SG. The value associated with 1100 SG for potential %alcohol is 13.4%. for a desired 14.5%, the required SG (using a primitive linear interpolation between 1105 and 1110) is 1107 (+/- 1 ish). Is 1107 going to cause a "stuck fermentation" (whatever that means, though it certainly doesn't sound desirable)?

Our total batch size is highly variable and depends on having 5 to 10 trials with each trial being the minimum quantity required to remove the majority of micromanagement and chance of error while still allowing affordability. Size of each trial is between 1 and 5 gallons which would mean we would put up with between 5 and 50 gallons total in volume of wine attempted. That's why I wasn't so specific, how much I make depends on how much it is wise to make with this methodology, favoring smaller quantities but not shying away from larger if such larger quantities make our lives easier.

I think I'll go for this kit concept. I assume they have more cabernet sauvignon kits than cabernet franc kits...What kit would you recommend given the time frame involved and a willingness to spend a somewhat larger amount (500 to 1000) if the benefits are going to be tangible and noticeable? I tried looking for a few kits and know you guys mentioned a few as well, but I felt I should give you a better idea budget wise. When I looked, they seemed to be labelled as 4 week or 6 week or 8 week and in comments sections people were writing about minimum aging being a year. Obviously that isn't happening. Will a cheaper 4 week grape drank 6 months later be superior to an 8 week grape drank 6 months later? I don't quite get this whole aging thing, and don't really want the wine coming out totally mellow either (I don't think?).

 

[jamesngalveston]

you can always change the yeast type in the kit, but you may not get the wine that is described...
you can change the abv by adding sugar, but that to can change the wine.
I would get a kit for starters..
Then buy a 6 gallon bucket and a 5 gallon carboy and some pre-made juice and go to town.
No if you want fun with high abv.....
look up dragon blood here for the recipe...only like 3000 gallons made of the stuff to date...I account for about 130 of those I think.
you can throw in any fruit you want except beets..

 

[midnightsolace]

you can throw in any fruit you want except beets..

Now I'm tempted to make beet wine just to bruise your brain!

 

[DoctorCAD]

Engineers are fun!

Try some of the Eclipse kits, they seem to be the best going right now.

Keep accurate records (duh...you're engineers, of course you will) and you will learn what causes what. To a point, wine is a living, breathing organism and is subject to all the same whims that every other organism is.

As to the "4, 6, 8 week" kits, that is the minimum time required to make the wine. It can and should take 6 months or more, all the extra time gets added as a square, 4 weeks should be 16, 6 = 36, 8 = 64 or close to that.

Enjoy the experience but treat it like a project with a timeline, budget and resource allocation. I do.
In fact, my "stir your must" alarm just went off and I gotta go!

 

[Boatboy24]

You've gotten some very good advice so far. With your budget and apparent interest in experimentation and comparison, you could do 2-4 higher end kits and compare. It could be a fun premier/tasting party. While the high end kits may take 12-24 monts to "come around", they should be quite good at 6-7 months and will continue to improve. Two tweaks you can make to these kits are additional oak cubes and powdered tannin, like Tancor Grand Cru.

 

[tonyt]

Kits is a great option for you. I have done most of the high end brands and agree with DrCad on the Wine Expert Eclipse. Boatboy is right on with the tweaks. I would think twice before changing yeast first time out. The WE Eclipse Cabernet is crazy good, thick mouthfeel, spicy and tannic. I did add oak though.

 

[JohnT]

Read my article on oak. There is a lot to it..

http://www.winemakingtalk.com/entries/take-on-oak.html

For the size you are dealing with (1 to 3 liters) a cask will be an incredible waste of mony. Use Cubes. They are best suited to your situation.

As far as sugar, are you interested in making something that "hi octane" or a wine that tastes good? I would strongly suggest that you go with a good kit and follow the instructions to the letter. After you get a couple of batches under your belt, then you can begin thinking outside the box. I would hate for you to end up with a wine that is undrinkable.