Can I press red wine grapes the day they are picked?

[winemaker81]

@alan molstad, I suggest you buy commercial wines made from the same grapes you have (or similar) and try different styles. This will help determine what to make, although it sounds like a blush for the first effort will work for you.

 

[Rice_Guy]

a red sometimes called a “big red” translates to a wine which has extracted a bit of phenolic/ pigment/ tannin from the skins. This normally translates into longer lasting flavor notes, bitter flavor, less fruit aroma, and to various degrees of oaking which gives vanilla notes and additional phenolics.
the white wines are harder to make. They are higher in acidity which is a preservative. good whites are more fruity, usually not oaked, usually fermented cooler, sometimes fermented under airlock, need better nutrition.
Rose is someplace in between. Another rule is that one can break all rules as yes you could ferment a red cooler. . . . . The key is what do you like. , , , if I didn’t know the answer to what you like, then a default is a red wine has built in preservatives (phenolics) so it is easier.

The truth is, Im so new that I dont have enough experience to know what I really want.

 

[Steve Wargo]

You ask a good question.

The truth is, Im so new that I dont have enough experience to know what I really want.

What i KNOW for 100% sure I want is that I NEVER want to spend 12 hours standing in one place as I rub grapes against an upside-down milk crate...

I never want to do that again....

I would love to be able to go from vine to press as it would really speed things up...
and I do kinda like a wine that is not so dark in flavor or color anyway...

so far the idea of going straight to the press has a lot going for it.

I kind of understand what you are saying. Maybe with your next batch of grapes; Crush the grapes and allow, stems and everything else to fall into the Primary Fermentation Vessel. Then ferment the skins, juice, stems, for five days or less (depending on the color obtained), then press. I think It will allow time for the wine to extract most of the color from the skins, but still limit contact with the stems. It's a trade-off. Just thinking out loud.

 

[hounddawg]

probably irrelative, but would putting them in a food grade barrel - bucket, and use a SS stirrer, i use a Kraft SS mayo stirrer on my elderberry's during ferment, after stirring daily, the stirrer will pick all the stems out, even the very small ones, might be nutts on grapes, but elderberry is very tuff to get all them little stems out, i do the same to crush sort of my,,, apples , pears after freezing on the bigger tougher fruits, early on i used a joint compound stirrer, ,made to stir 5 gallon joint compound buckets. also called sheetrock mud, till i finally got my hands on a 316 stainless steel one, from a Kraft foods parts suppler,,
Dawg

 

[Steve Wargo]

Lets say I don't de-stem or crush the grapes, but go straight from the field to the wine press?

In other words, treat red wine grapes like they were white?

There are some red grapes that make excellent rose-type wines. That's Pressed not crushed. I'm not sure what variety of grape you are talking about. I know of one vineyard that presses straight from the field a certain type of red grape to make a rose. They also ferment the same red grape skins and all in some of their other batches. The rose sells very well.

 

[Sailor323]

Probably a little late for this, but you could try carbonic maceration.

 

[Earldw]

my situation.
I live in northern North Dakota and I have 60+ Valiant grape vines.

This fall was the first time I have tried to make wine, and I ran into a situation.
I dont have a crusher/de-stemmer and so I did all of that work by hand.

12 hours of standing in the same spot,
Never again!

I'm retired so I will never have the money to get a crusher de-stemmer, so thats out.

Thus the idea I have for next year is to cut way, way, way back on the amount of work I do.

So Im thinking that rather than taking the stems off all, and rather than crushing all, I only de-stem and crush a smaller amount of the grapes, and the rest I take to the press.

I still would have some skins in the juice for fermenting, but most of my grapes would go from field to press.

Other than living in Florida instead of North Dakota, and muscadines instead of Vallient, we are in similar shoes Alan. I tried getting away without a crusher last year on a 5-gallon batch and I could not extract much juice using a mechanical press alone. The frozen and thawed grapes did ok, not great but ok. The fresh ones kinda laughed at me. If I had to do it over without a crusher, I’d probably freeze, thaw then pop them with a rolling pin while still in the ziplock bag. Very time consuming and I am not known for abundant patience.

I bought a crusher this winter and will be taking it on its maiden voyage this week

 

[Jusatele]

There is a kindle book that has a lot of DIY wine stuff

the homebuilt winery

it does have plans for a manual destemer, worth a look at least

 

[FlamingoEmporium]

,,,, humm I could dance with the wife to crush the grapes

toe jam eliminates the need for yeast too !