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Here's a noob question: do you need to measure acid (whether TA or pH) before fermentation begins, or is it OK to measure later on in the piece and make your adjustments then?

I've been handstirring the must, and the whole bunches are well & truly intact sitting down the bottom of the vessels in the cooler liquid. So I have high hopes...! I might leave them doing their thing for 10 days or so, then squish them up by hand in the buckets and let them ferment as normal...

photographic evidence of current peach situation! I think I'll just eat 'em..

Here are some pics. They're all from the first day picking grenache, except the one of the fermentation buckets in my bathroom, which I took just then... bubbling away nicely! Yeah it does seem pretty high (although shiraz usually is). I know the surrounding blocks were harvested...

Yeah I can see why volunteer harvesting would be frowned upon by the authorities ... but a big lunch, drinks flowing, and going home with a few bottles of good wine makes for a good day... It was VERY hot work though!

I have a tree full of peaches that are ready to drop! Tempted to try to make a peach cider ... something lighter and fizzier than a wine, as such.

Cheers guys! I ended up layering whole bunches at the bottom of the ferment, the crushed must on top, and pitching yeast straight away. If the whole grapes stay intact for long enough for fermentation to take place within them, then great. If not, and it ends up being a regular ferment the...

That's true, feel free to rub it in then...! Just got back from shiraz pick & crush, the grapes look good - definitely ripe & sweet! came in around 30 Brix / 17 Baume (the grenache yesterday was 22 / 12).

Fantastic, I love stories like these!

I'm all for happy accidents. This is a raw quote from a winemaker I interviewed for my PhD who accidentally made a good sherry by neglecting a half-barrel of chardonnay:

I say if it feels good, do it! If the grapes are doing a sterling job of fermenting themselves into a nicely-flavoured wine you might as well make the most of it. http://palatepress.com/2014/01/wine/playing-yeast-diversity-quite-science/

I'm planning on doing a ferment of partial carbonic maceration - so I will fill about 1/3 of the fermenter with whole bunches, and add the crushed grapes on top. The general idea of carbonic maceration is that anaerobic fermentation takes place within the intact grapes, which leads to some...

Harvest time here in SA and the weather is beeeeeeyoudiful (sorry to all you North Americans still shivering through the depths of winter... Tomorrow I'm picking Grenache at my in-laws' place ... and Friday heading to McLaren Vale to take a row of Shiraz that is inaccessible for machine...

Sure can! The father-in-law has his doubts that I'm going to bother maintaining it. He keeps saying 'just buy grapes from a winery, much easier'.. Just need to prove that I'll do it properly!

In like Flynn! Gonna introduce the All-In-One to the great southern land

To be honest I've never counted. The vineyard is approx 15x20m = 300 square metres, including a veggie patch. 12 rows of vines, at a guess each one probably spaced 1.5m apart. So as a rough estimate ... 120 vines. I have a feeling some are planted a bit too close together, there are some that...

2014 grenache/shiraz. It's starting to come together! It's quite a light wine and weirdly enough tastes a LOT like a pinot noir.

Cheers! Thankfully I will have a couple of bro's-in-law helping too.

Grenache, as well as some eating grapes (one white and one red, no idea of the variety!)

Ah - cool. Thought it might be just to get around the fact that each state has different liquor regulations so it's easier to just enforce an umbrella ban at a federal level.