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I’ve been thinking the same thing and have been missing all the harvest and crush photos. Thanks for sharing yours!

What grape variety?

A few years ago I went to a wine shop in Lyon, France looking for a bottle of wine from my son’s birth year that I could save 20+ years for his wedding someday in the future. I was looking at the Northern Rhônes both because I love them but also I assumed that the more substantial tannins would...

Are you tasting as you go? Interested in how the tastes, textures, and aromas develop.

Heh, I would definitely follow Rich’s lead, rather than mine! Just sharing what I did when I was too absentminded to order the proper electrode storage solution. I also meant to add that some odd black stuff seemed to grow when I stored the bulb in the 4.0 buffer solution, but has stopped since...

I used pH 4 buffer to store my probe for about a year until I got some electrode storage solution. It seems to be ok.

Still a little difficult to say from the photos but I’d say powdery mildew. If you really want to use them, I’d agree with the others to press them directly and not macerate. As to why it’s on the red grapes and not the white: some varieties can be more resistant than others. You’d probably do...

Do you have a specific question? You can look at this thread I started two years ago about my experiences with wild fermentation: Adventures in Wild Fermentation My first year I made a wild/ambient starter, but don’t now because I prefer a slower ferment. I haven’t made anything with...

Congrats! Keep us updated on how it all turns out!

Do you have pictures to share? It might be easier for us to say whether it is ‘la pruine’ (bloom) on the grapes or mildew.

Looks good to me, especially for not having sprayed. Every vine I’ve planted grows a little differently. Some survive the first year and some don’t; some grow well on my site and some don’t and I pull them out and replace them with something else.

That’s too bad. When did you end up harvesting and how did your other varieties go?

I haven’t made it so don’t know if I have any helpful suggestions or not but that’s basically how the Georgians make their amber wines in qvevri. What equipment do you have to seal it up that long? I’m doing something similar with red grapes using a fermonster, which you can see in this thread...

The airlock on the fermonster was good for a week or two after I topped it up but then wine started pushing out through it and making a bit of a mess. I’ve switched to a blow off tube and that seems to be working, though even then at first there was enough pressure to push the bung out. I...

Sounds like you can’t go wrong with any of those choices. I look forward to hearing how it goes.

Happy to see you back, @Ajmassa! It hasn’t been the same here without your posts, projects, and experiments.

Nice. In its second year I let just two or three clusters grow and they were a beautiful golden when they ripened - impatience and circumstances have prevented it the last two years but I’ll try again next year. I make it dry. The way I make it I don’t think back sweetening would be very good...

I’m not a northern grower but I grow Itasca and will second what @wood1954 said. The Itasca has been the easiest of my vines to grow and is more disease resistant than my Marquette. I give cuttings to friends and neighbors who are interested in having a grape vine in their garden because it’s...

Back to the OP’s original question, I haven’t found a lot of books in English on natural winemaking, and most of the home winemaking books I’ve read seem to caution against it, but here are a couple I’ve found but haven’t read: Biodynamic, Organic and Natural Winemaking: Sustainable Viticulture...

For me, it was finding so-called ‘natural wines’ in France and having my ‘aha’ moment. That was what I wanted to make. It’s difficult for me to describe the difference, but it’s something unlike what you’ll generally find in wines made with conventional techniques, part of which is sulfiting...