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Pressed today. Ended up with 165 litres. Gravity reading was at 1.000 so perfect timing as it still has a couple of points to ferment. Spent hours scrubbing up and sanitising the press and my kegs and carboys. Probably not 100% necessary but the brewer in me likes things to be spotless. I kept...

Took a gravity reading and it's at 1.034 so has come a fair way along. Hoping it doesn't quite ferment dry by Saturday morning when I can press as I really can't do it any earlier than that. Has developed more color again over the past 24 hours. Starting to taste more like wine than fruit juice.

Big and Grenache can happen with some of our really old vineyards in McLaren Vale and the Barossa Valley. I'm talking wines from 60 to 100+ year old vines that are not trellised and no irrigation leading to low yields. Of course as a rule you'll never see wines as big as a Barossa Shiraz but...

Hey REDRUM, Got the grapes from Mark Briggs at Briggs Nursery Foggo Road. Top fella and he still has some fruit left if you wanna go pick some.

Not bad color for 3 days in! Very happy.

Also inoculated with mlb tonight.

3 full days into the ferment now and all going well. Temperature has been mild and it's sitting around 25 degrees. Very clean smelling ferment. So much berry fruit aroma which has surprised me a bit. Was very sweet yesterday and only today getting a noticeable drop in sugar from taste. I'll do a...

Picked and crushed a 1/4 tonne of old vine Grenache from Mclaren Vale yesterday. Fruit came from 60-70 year old dry grown bush vines. Was bloody hard work doing all the work by hand but got there in the end. Got the fruit crushed and pitched Lalvin 2226 rhone yeast. Left 15% as whole bunches...

Rack it into sterilised keg with minimal headspace and put the airlock on and you'll have no dramas. 2 months away and you'll be pretty certain the mlf is well done on your return. Rack then and sulfite. Don't think you have many other options. Oxygen is more an enemy than time and the keg will...

Thought it was about time I dropped by and said hello to my fellow forumites. I'm Mike from South Australia. Fairly new to winemaking but been brewing for 15 odd years. So far made some mead, ginger wine, blackberry and mulberry wines. The mead turned out fantastic and the berry wines need more...

I'm in South Australia and will potentially be facing similar temperatures. I'll be crushing about 300kg of beautiful dry grown old vine Grenache in around 4 weeks with the help of my neighbor, an elderly Italian gentleman whos been making wine for over 50 years. He's never worried about cooling...