TXWineDuo,
I'm a little too late for helping with this year's harvest, but for future harvests I can offer this advice on pressing the Blanc Du Bois - Please don't press it so hard that there is no juice left in the skins. If pressed too hard, Blanc Du Bois will give off some bitterness that is just not very good. I press with a water bladder press after running the grapes through a crusher destemmer and generally will fill the basket and press once, let the pressure off, fluff up the grapes in the press and press a second time until the juice starts becoming a slow trickle. This adds maybe 10% more. Some years I do not fluff and press a second time and that's ok.
For making some sparkling wine, I have placed whole clusters into the press, pressed once, fluffed once and pressed a scond time. This juice comes out so clean that after it is iced down there is very little sediment to dispose of, maybe a 1/4 to 1/2 inch vs about 1 inch to 1.5 inches of sediment for the grapes that were run through the crusher destemmer before pressing.
My 2 favorite yeasts to use with Blanc Du Bois are ICV-GRE and BA-11.
One other key piece of information that will help you make your best wine form these grapes is to control the temperature of the fermenting juice so that it is between 50 degrees and 60 degrees F. I've done this with 6 gallon pails sitting in an Igloo cooler with a water bath and then change out frozen water bottles a couple of times a day. This helps to retain the wonderful fruit aromas in the wine. 5 and 6 gallon glass carboys will also fit inside the coolers when it is time to put the wine under air locks.
Hope you had a good harvest etc.
WeimarWine
