Dan’s Cellar Notes for August 2007

By Dan Mouer

I’m B-a-a-a-c-c-k-k!

Okay, I promised to be back a lot sooner, but life does have its way with us. But I am back now to stay. And I refuse to refer to this little newsletter as a “BLOG!”

Folks, if you have winemaking questions, please don’t hesitate to write me at dan.mouer@comcast.net.

Wine From Grapes 101

Virginia Pinot Noir in a Harvest Lug

So it’s mid-summer and all around you your winemaking friends are talking about grapes. Not kits, but grapes. And you’ve been having a heck of a good time making very decent home wine from kits, but you think maybe—just maybe—it’s time to start from scratch with real wine grapes. Here are a few ideas to get you started.

First of all you will need a shopping list of what to buy that you don’t already have on hand from making kit wines. You will need a hydrometer if you don’t have one, and an acid testing kit. Leave out the Ph papers or testing meters for now. Buy some sugar—just plain white sugar in a bag. Also pick up a pound or so of tartaric acid, some appropriate wine yeast, and a few ounces of potassium metabisulfite (meta). I also recommend getting a few ounces of citric acid and a heavy-duty 1 liter spray bottle. Mix ½ tsp. of meta and the same amount of citric acid in water to fill the spray bottle. After cleaning all equipment, spray it with this solution before it touches your grapes, must or wine. Use the powdered meta dissolved in a little warm water to make the needed anti-microbial and anti-oxidant additions to your wine

Find grapes! Someone near you is bound to be growing grapes suitable for wine making. For your first wine from live fruit, I strongly recommend you make a simple dry, still, white table wine. In Virginia the best choices would be Viognier, Pinot Gris or Chardonnay for a vinifera, or Vidal, Cayuga, Seyval Blanc, or Chardonnel for a French-American hybrid.
Find out when the grapes are most likely to be ready for harvest. Ask your vineyardist if he or she will have the grapes picked, or if you are expected to pick them yourself. If the latter, plan on showing up very early on harvest day. You want to get the grapes to the crusher before they have a chance to heat up too much. If needed, take a set of pruners and, perhaps, some garden gloves to help avoid pruning your fingers—and to discourage the yellow jackets!

Ted Warren gathering Chardonnay at Bill Jones’s River Glade Vineyard

RIP, Ted!

Find out if the vinyardist will provide a crusher and a press, or if you will be expected to make your own arrangements. Likewise, you need to know if you should bring your own harvest lugs. I use small plastic totes that hold about 15-20 pounds of grapes each.
Try to find a way to keep the grapes cool on the way home without crushing them or diluting them with water (no melting ice!).
Crush the grapes into large, clean food-grade buckets. Add ¼ tsp of potassium metabisulfite for each 75-100 pounds of grapes. Dissolve the meta in a little warm water and put it in the buckets before you add the crushed grapes. If you plan to carry out malolactic fermentation, then use a scant 1/8tsp per 75-100 pounds of grapes. Don’t use the destemming basket if the crusher is so equipped. The stems have a role to play when it comes to pressing the crushed grapes.

Chardonnay on the crush pad at Dan’s Springhill Winery

Press your grapes gently. The idea is not to extract the last drop of juice. If you like, you can disassemble the stack of spacers in the press and break up the cake to re-press it, producing more juice. Some folks like to keep the “free run” juice separated from the press juice. If you have a spare fermenter and want to do that, feel free. Press into a clean, non-scratched, sanitized food-grade bucket just like you’d use for a wine kit.
Measure Brix with a hydrometer and total acidity with an acid test kit. For a dry white table wine you’ll want Brix around 21-24 and total acidity (TA) of 6-9 grams per liter as tartaric. Add sugar to bring the Brix up to your target level, and add tartaric acid to raise the TA. If acid is too high, plan on conducting a malolactic fermentation after the completion of regular fermentation. For more info on MLF, see next month’s Cellar Notes.
Choose a yeast by consulting your supply shop or a winemaking book or web site to help choose the characteristics you want from your yeast strain. Keep it simple at first. Pick a good, reliable easy-to-find yeast. With kits you sprinkle the dry yeast on top of the must/juice. However, I strongly recommend you re-hydrate your yeast in filtered cool water first and then stir into your must. Make sure you incorporate air in your must before pitching the yeast. Now is not the time to worry about oxidation.
Cover your fermenter loosely. The idea is to keep bugs and dust out while allowing fermentation gases to escape. For this type of wine I recommend fermenting in the coolest part of your house, so long as it stays at 60 degrees or better. Stir your wine gently every day.
Check your gravity (Brix) after three days, and when it reaches SG 1.00 or slightly less, rack into sanitized carboys to which you have added ¼ tsp. meta dissolved in a little warm water. (Don’t use this meta dose if you plan on doing malolactic fermentation). Leave a little headspace for the next couple days, then top up when fermentation is basically complete.
Sometime in January, rack your wine to a clean carboy. Be careful not to oxidize the wine at this point. Set the carboy outside or in a cold garage or shed. Cover the carboy with a paper bag to keep light out. Allow the wine to rest at temperatures below 40 degrees, and as low as 5 or 10 degrees F. for several weeks to “cold stabilize” the wine (precipitate bitartrate crystals). Bring back inside and rack immediately, again with ¼ tsp meta. Add a pinch of tannin powder to help clarify the wine.
The wine should be clear by late March. If it is, rack one more time—this time with ½ tsp meta—and bottle it. If not, you need to consider using finings. For whites, try SuperKleer KC.

Know your grapes

Liebfraumilch

White, off-dry wine or semi-sweet from Germany’s Rhine River Valley, made from Müller-Thurgau, Riesling, Kerner or Sylvaner grapes. The name originally applied to wines made at Liebfrauenkirche in the city of Worms, but soon came to be widely used for nearly any generic white wine from the Rhineland. While the quality of wines labeled “Liebfraumilch” can vary widely, the label usually suggests an inexpensive, everyday version of “hock.” By law, the wine must be of Qba quality—meaning one rung above Tafelwein, the lowest category of German wines. However, most Liebfraumilch is produced from over-cropped vines grown in the least desirable rows of the more marginal vineyards along the Rhine. Most connoisseurs of good German wines have little nice to say about Liebfraumilch! Nonetheless, I have been pleasantly surprised from time to time with a Liebfraumilch that has clean fruit and light sweetness balanced with good acidity. When such a bottle sells for about $5, it’s a bargain!

Malbec

Once one of the principal blending grapes of Bordeaux, Malbec is hard to find in its old homeland. The grape is also known as Côt and as Auxerrois in various parts of France. It is still blended with Cabernet Franc in some parts of the Loire Valley, but Malbec is generally at its most successful these days in Argentina and neighboring areas of Chile. Malbec produces wine with good deep color and medium to medium-full body and mouthfeel. When it is properly ripe, it provides good plum-like flavors with a hint of spiciness. However, when it is under-ripe, it can be very “green,” much like Merlot, to which it bears some resemblance. Very little Malbec is grown in the U. S.; none to my knowledge in Virginia. Wine kits made from South American Malbec should make nice, big, plumy red wines.

Merlot (or Merlot Noir)

“I’m not drinking any ****ing Merlot!!!!” Miles made his stand known emphatically in the movie, Sideways, and, almost overnight, America’s most popular red wine began to fade in deference to the newfound cult status of Pinot Noir. Well, what a shame! Merlot is one of the world’s great wine grapes. Those who love wine should know how to appreciate both Merlot and Pinot Noir, for they are very different.

Merlot is the most widely planted red grape in Bordeaux. It reaches its azimuth in Bordeaux’s Pomerol district, where it is generally the sole grape in Chateau Pétrus. A bottle of 2000 Pétrus will set you back by a mere $2500 or so. Now that suggests that Merlot is a grape to take very seriously!

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For info on the Central Virginia Winemaker’s group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CentralVirginiaWinemakers/

Dan.mouer@comcast.net