Barbera Rose

[Artsiom Kh]

Indicators of my grapes Barbera 21 brix and 3.5. The maximum can be 22.5 brix.
Therefore, this year I plan to make a rose.

Tell me what yeast to use.
I choose between these: QA23, B71, RC212, ICV OKAY

 

[cmason1957]

I copied this from the Morewinemaking.com website manual on yeast pairing, they don't list Barbera directly, but for Rose suggest:
Rhône 4600: Complex aromatics along with strawberry, pear and pineapple. Enhances mouthfeel and volume. Great single strain choice or as a blending component.
ICV-GRE: Stable fresh fruit characters, along with high fore-mouth volume enhancement. Good as a single-strain or as a blending component.
ICV-D21: Enhances mouthfeel while maintaining acid-ity for bright, fresh fruit in the final wine. Useful as a blending component to freshen-up hot climate/high pH fruit.
W15: Bright fruit with heavy mouthfeel makes W15 a good single strain-selection by itself, or as a blending component.
71B: “Fruit salad” character, long-lived aromas from production of esters and higher alcohols. Can metabolize up to 30% of the malic acid in a must.

I have used the Rhone 4600 on St. Vincent and Chambourcin Rose and find it produces a very nice wine. I might avoid 71B, since I want all the acidity I can get in a rose.

 

[AaronSC]

This is a bit a of delayed response but I am also making a Barbera rosé this year. I got 400lbs of super fresh, bright and juicy fruit from the vineyard down the road (Skake Ridge Ranch). They were at 24.5 Brit and 3.2 pH, with 1% TA -so high in sugar and acid. I'm making three wines from it: the rosé, a bright, fresh, fruity red and a more rich and deeper expression, probably for blending with other wines when it comes to that to add acid.

I used GRE as the yeast for the rosé and the fresh red, and ICV-D80 for the "serious" red/blending stock. I let 133lbs of the grapes sit after crush for about 3 hours and then pressed -this got me about 9 gallons of rosé.

I plan on doing MLF on the last of the three but not on the rosé and light red. That may change once fermentation is done and I can taste what the 1% TA really feels like! I used to make wines in the Finger Lakes so 1% isn't as scary to me as you might thin -it would likely terrify most Californians...

All of them are fermenting right now so I'll let you know how it goes.

BTW, how is your Barbera rosé coming along? Love to hear.

-Aaron