We took over this vineyard earlier this year, and have been learning everything we can as fast as we can. The local winery we thought was going to buy our La Crescent ended up having too much already. And while we found some other buyers, we were going to lose money on the deal getting the grapes transported. Since we'd planned to start making and selling wine next year anyway, we decided to keep the grapes for ourselves and make this our trial run. We figured this would be a good way to get one under our belt, learn, make the mistakes, and experiment without the pressure of having to please a consumer. I ordered a tank, crusher, small press, etc. But it took some time to get them shipped, and the grapes sat on the vine too long. We lost a lot of fruit to shelling, but it ended up being as much as we could handle anyway.
Our harvesters were slow, and I was gathering and transporting all the bins in our Gator. At about 3pm, they were gone, we were tired, and we had about a ton of grapes sitting in the empty "winery" garage. All the winery equipment was still sitting at the foot of the garage wrapped up on pallets. But by about 9pm, we were finally crushing and pressing. I ended up doing most of that, because my wife was busy sorting through trying to cull the bad stuff that came in. At 2:30am, we were pretty delirious, and decided to get some sleep. I sprayed the bins with SO2 to try to protect them overnight. Fortunately, it got down to about 50 degrees that night, so I think that helped keep them fresh enough. We finished up by early the next evening, and had about 100 gallons in the 525L tank, plus 15 gallons that I froze in corny kegs to experiment with later in beer/wine hybrids. We learned a LOT- the hard way- about how logistics will need to work next time.
The grapes had sat so long on the vine, they were at 24.5-25 brix. I'd read that La Crescent can get very acidic, and our juice was at 3.07 pH and about 12 TA. SO2 levels were about 35, since I was adding it to the must during the crush. After one failed attempt to get fermentation started, I diluted the must to 23.5 brix/1.010 SG, and got it going on the second try with 71B, which is supposed to lower acidity during fermentation. It took off big, and had a very vigorous primary. It's been in a closed tank with an airlock, and I recirculated the must every day until it got down to 1.005 SG.
Now three weeks later, primary has finally ended. A few burps still pop up from time to time, but it is DRY - .992 SG. We like wine to be dry, so I'm fine with that. TA came down to about 10.5, and pH is up to 3.2. I don't taste/smell any burnt matches or eggs, so I think it's still clean. But being so dry and so acidic, it's abrasively tart, almost bitter.
We want to experiment, so we know the best route for next year. I want to pull off a few portions and condition them separately in smaller vessels.
These are the possible variations for conditioning we are looking at:
1. Malolactic to mellow the acid and give it some complexity. Not usually used with a grape like La Crescent, but why not?
2. K carbonate to lower acidity, with the wine conditioned off the lees
3. K carbonate to lower acidity, with the wine recirculated on the lees
4. One of the above, eventually adding hop oil and carbonation. Another winery in the area has done this, and we really liked the results.
So, questions...
1. With the acidity so high to begin with, should I have added K carb before fermentation? I had one winemaker friend tell me to always wait until after, and another later tell me to always add it before.
2. I dumped the initial sediment from the must out before fermentation. In brewing, we'd call it a trub dump. Now that primary is over, do I need to dump the yeast sediment ASAP, or keep the wine on it? I'm confused about that.
3. Do you think any of the options above for experimentation are a waste of time? I don't have enough vessels to do all four, so I need to scratch one option.
4. Since I'm still waiting for one secondary vessel to arrive, and I'm wanting to do malolactic on some of it, I haven't added SO2 to the full batch since fermentation began. There's barely any left now, like 4ppm. Am I playing with fire waiting? pH is very low, alcohol is high, and it's in an air-locked vessel. I'm thinking it should still have enough CO2 on top from fermentation, and nothing can get in from the air lock.
I know this is a lot and a long post, so thanks for reading this far. And thanks in advance for any insight.
Our harvesters were slow, and I was gathering and transporting all the bins in our Gator. At about 3pm, they were gone, we were tired, and we had about a ton of grapes sitting in the empty "winery" garage. All the winery equipment was still sitting at the foot of the garage wrapped up on pallets. But by about 9pm, we were finally crushing and pressing. I ended up doing most of that, because my wife was busy sorting through trying to cull the bad stuff that came in. At 2:30am, we were pretty delirious, and decided to get some sleep. I sprayed the bins with SO2 to try to protect them overnight. Fortunately, it got down to about 50 degrees that night, so I think that helped keep them fresh enough. We finished up by early the next evening, and had about 100 gallons in the 525L tank, plus 15 gallons that I froze in corny kegs to experiment with later in beer/wine hybrids. We learned a LOT- the hard way- about how logistics will need to work next time.
The grapes had sat so long on the vine, they were at 24.5-25 brix. I'd read that La Crescent can get very acidic, and our juice was at 3.07 pH and about 12 TA. SO2 levels were about 35, since I was adding it to the must during the crush. After one failed attempt to get fermentation started, I diluted the must to 23.5 brix/1.010 SG, and got it going on the second try with 71B, which is supposed to lower acidity during fermentation. It took off big, and had a very vigorous primary. It's been in a closed tank with an airlock, and I recirculated the must every day until it got down to 1.005 SG.
Now three weeks later, primary has finally ended. A few burps still pop up from time to time, but it is DRY - .992 SG. We like wine to be dry, so I'm fine with that. TA came down to about 10.5, and pH is up to 3.2. I don't taste/smell any burnt matches or eggs, so I think it's still clean. But being so dry and so acidic, it's abrasively tart, almost bitter.
We want to experiment, so we know the best route for next year. I want to pull off a few portions and condition them separately in smaller vessels.
These are the possible variations for conditioning we are looking at:
1. Malolactic to mellow the acid and give it some complexity. Not usually used with a grape like La Crescent, but why not?
2. K carbonate to lower acidity, with the wine conditioned off the lees
3. K carbonate to lower acidity, with the wine recirculated on the lees
4. One of the above, eventually adding hop oil and carbonation. Another winery in the area has done this, and we really liked the results.
So, questions...
1. With the acidity so high to begin with, should I have added K carb before fermentation? I had one winemaker friend tell me to always wait until after, and another later tell me to always add it before.
2. I dumped the initial sediment from the must out before fermentation. In brewing, we'd call it a trub dump. Now that primary is over, do I need to dump the yeast sediment ASAP, or keep the wine on it? I'm confused about that.
3. Do you think any of the options above for experimentation are a waste of time? I don't have enough vessels to do all four, so I need to scratch one option.
4. Since I'm still waiting for one secondary vessel to arrive, and I'm wanting to do malolactic on some of it, I haven't added SO2 to the full batch since fermentation began. There's barely any left now, like 4ppm. Am I playing with fire waiting? pH is very low, alcohol is high, and it's in an air-locked vessel. I'm thinking it should still have enough CO2 on top from fermentation, and nothing can get in from the air lock.
I know this is a lot and a long post, so thanks for reading this far. And thanks in advance for any insight.
