How Fresh Juice Buckets are processed

[Ajmassa]

I did some digging to find out how this juice was actually making it to the bucket and details of the process.
I was already pretty certain that some So2 was added and now confirmed it. But also confirmed they do NOT contain yeast except for Chile FRESCO juice buckets. Musto’s website gets pretty detailed.
Regina/Pia have a concentrate process very similar to flash detentè- but the fresh juice pails do seem pretty straight forward from the site and info printed on the bucket.


Regina California
Fresh Pressed Grape Juice
http://reginagrapejuice.com/products/index.html
All of our fresh pressed juices begin at the crusher in our juice plant and winery. Once crushed and removed from the skins, the fresh juice is shipped for a short ride in refrigerated tanker trucks to our adjacent juice cellar. Here the juice is tested, blended, and carefully recorded by our enologist, then stored in computer controlled stainless steel refrigeration tanks. Along with our fresh pressed varietal juices, we offer a selection of varietal juice blends, generic red and generic white blends, and the option of ordering custom blends made to your specifications.


Toro ***** Chilè
Fresh Juices

Grapes are selected at their optimum levels during the Chilean harvest each year. The grapes are then hand picked and crushed, de-stemmed and macerated in cold temperatures. Once the colour has been reached, the juices are pressed and filtered out to remove all seeds and pulp for a more clear product. Juice is cooled to -10C/14F to preserve its integrity. They are packaged and shipped to their North American destination.

Musto Juice Q&A
http://www.juicegrape.com/guide/articles/About_Grape_Juices.
This site answers a lot of questions too. They are 100% adjusted for acid. It also says the readings may be misleading and acid will raise during the ferment. “This may be related to the acid source used in making adjustments.” they say. And I know for sure the Regina buckets list right on the side that it contains specifically citric acid. I assume they have their reasoning for adding citric. And I guess the amount (TA) isn’t as proportionate to the strength/ph that we are typically used to for wine. (And explains why my pre ferment adjustments a couple times in the past could not correct a TA without completely jacking up the ph or vice versa)
Other smaller suppliers who offer their local juices are up front about the juice. Presque Isle Wines for instance say they handpick the grapes, press for quality not quantity, add some So2 and chill- not adjusting any acid or sugar or blending at all.
If you’re making wine from fresh juice pails it is without a doubt beneficial to know all these specifics. And you really don’t need to mess with anything. I made em for years without any concern at all because it was so easy. You don’t need much winemaking knowledge to make a juice pail. You could probably never even take off the lid, set in the corner for 6 months then bottle and have a 50/50 shot to have something drinkable by the next season. But to make something worth bragging about I think this info is helpful.

 

[Chateau Joe]

My buddy and I picked up our pails of Toro Chilean juice Saturday. I wasn't very happy, after I got my juice started I went to clean my pail and I found a small smudge of grease on the inside of my pail . I'm going to let it continue and will monitor it carefully.

 

[RonObvious]

We picked up a pail of Chilean Syrah from them 2 weeks ago. We checked the pH, TA, and Brix and found that it needed both sugar and acid. Before adjusting, the juice had a slight cough-medicine flavor. After bringing the pH into proper range with tartaric acid, the cough-medicine flavor disappeared. Added a pound or so of sugar to bring it up to about 23 brix. Then it tasted GOOOOOD!

 

[heatherd]

I did some digging to find out how this juice was actually making it to the bucket and details of the process.
I was already pretty certain that some So2 was added and now confirmed it. But also confirmed they do NOT contain yeast except for Chile FRESCO juice buckets. Musto’s website gets pretty detailed.
Regina/Pia have a concentrate process very similar to flash detentè- but the fresh juice pails do seem pretty straight forward from the site and info printed on the bucket.


Regina California
Fresh Pressed Grape Juice
http://reginagrapejuice.com/products/index.html
All of our fresh pressed juices begin at the crusher in our juice plant and winery. Once crushed and removed from the skins, the fresh juice is shipped for a short ride in refrigerated tanker trucks to our adjacent juice cellar. Here the juice is tested, blended, and carefully recorded by our enologist, then stored in computer controlled stainless steel refrigeration tanks. Along with our fresh pressed varietal juices, we offer a selection of varietal juice blends, generic red and generic white blends, and the option of ordering custom blends made to your specifications.


Toro ***** Chilè
Fresh Juices

Grapes are selected at their optimum levels during the Chilean harvest each year. The grapes are then hand picked and crushed, de-stemmed and macerated in cold temperatures. Once the colour has been reached, the juices are pressed and filtered out to remove all seeds and pulp for a more clear product. Juice is cooled to -10C/14F to preserve its integrity. They are packaged and shipped to their North American destination.

Musto Juice Q&A
http://www.juicegrape.com/guide/articles/About_Grape_Juices.
This site answers a lot of questions too. They are 100% adjusted for acid. It also says the readings may be misleading and acid will raise during the ferment. “This may be related to the acid source used in making adjustments.” they say. And I know for sure the Regina buckets list right on the side that it contains specifically citric acid. I assume they have their reasoning for adding citric. And I guess the amount (TA) isn’t as proportionate to the strength/ph that we are typically used to for wine. (And explains why my pre ferment adjustments a couple times in the past could not correct a TA without completely jacking up the ph or vice versa)
Other smaller suppliers who offer their local juices are up front about the juice. Presque Isle Wines for instance say they handpick the grapes, press for quality not quantity, add some So2 and chill- not adjusting any acid or sugar or blending at all.
If you’re making wine from fresh juice pails it is without a doubt beneficial to know all these specifics. And you really don’t need to mess with anything. I made em for years without any concern at all because it was so easy. You don’t need much winemaking knowledge to make a juice pail. You could probably never even take off the lid, set in the corner for 6 months then bottle and have a 50/50 shot to have something drinkable by the next season. But to make something worth bragging about I think this info is helpful.

AJ, thanks for putting this research together!

It's interesting that Toro *****'s juice spends time on the skins before press, and the others seem not to. I wonder if that yields any greater body/tannins. It would be an interesting experiment to make the same varietal from all these different juice sources to understand the impact of the differences in how they're sourced, harvested, and processed.

Some juices are fresh and shelf-stable, but not concentrated. Those are the ones like Presque Isle's Australian juices and there may be others:
Presque Isle Wine Cellars is proud to be importing high quality fresh Australian juice for the fourth year in a row. The Australian juice is aseptically packed and enzymed with no yeast added. It is kept at just above freezing from harvest until it is sold. Thanks to the aseptic packaging and temperature control the juice will maintain freshness and stability for months on end.
http://www.piwine.com/order-australian-juice-for-wine-making.html
I'm trying these for the first time this year, and they're a nice addition of fresh juice in between the spring and fall harvests, as they're pre-ordering now and shipping in June. @Johnd you may want to add to your frozen fall must repertoire. I ordered 2 Chenin Blanc and 1 Cabernet Sauvignon, which are $75.00 each + $22.00+/- shipping each (to me in MD). I'll get a lug of grapes to add to the Cab juice.

 

[Ajmassa]

AJ, thanks for putting this research together!

It's interesting that Toro *****'s juice spends time on the skins before press, and the others seem not to. I wonder if that yields any greater body/tannins. It would be an interesting experiment to make the same varietal from all these different juice sources to understand the impact

I tried. But I’m now much less inclined to accept all that as fact then from when I posted. Ive come across so many contradicting pieces of info. Bare with me here.
Firstly, I actually interpreted Regina’s writeup different. It doesn’t specifically say they cold macerate but it does say “once the juice is pressed and remove from skins...” - I assumed that included some maceration. If not then they gotta be using some other technique to get all the color extraction. Who knows.
And then I actually spoke with someone from Musto over the phone. I asked specifically:
“Why do the Toro ***** pails say they contain “grape must, wine yeast, wine tannin and tartaric acid- while website says no yeast added and insinuate acid adjustments are done with something other than tartaric?”
The answer I received was this:
“The print on the bucket is only there to say what is naturally contained within the juice- the tannin, yeast, and tartaric. And the term ‘grape must’ is just the juice derived from wine grapes in this case. The Toro ***** Chilean juice is untouched. The ONLY thing added is a small amount of Kmeta before packing and shipping.”
I take this response with a boulder of salt. I pointed out the conflicting info but she was adamant. I also wasn’t sold that I was speaking with the correct person. In customer service I requested someone who could answer specific processing questions but only spoke with that initial person. There was confusion and I needed to really break down the question for them. And it seemed like they weren’t able to answer until I kinda started putting words into their mouth with possible reasoning.
The website also prompts you to call an M&M rep if you feel acid is low. I read between the lines and think the juice is adjusted- and not with tartaric- messing with the ph/TA proportions- so adjusting to typical levels will throw it off balance - prompting a phone call for advice instead of a routine acid addition tutorial.
In the end I think I somehow know less than I did before. I also sent a detailed email before I called. Hoping for a nice response that will connect some of these dots for me.

 

[mainshipfred]

I tried. But I’m now much less inclined to accept all that as fact then from when I posted. Ive come across so many contradicting pieces of info. Bare with me here.
Firstly, I actually interpreted Regina’s writeup different. It doesn’t specifically say they cold macerate but it does say “once the juice is pressed and remove from skins...” - I assumed that included some maceration. If not then they gotta be using some other technique to get all the color extraction. Who knows.
And then I actually spoke with someone from Musto over the phone. I asked specifically:
“Why do the Toro ***** pails say they contain “grape must, wine yeast, wine tannin and tartaric acid- while website says no yeast added and insinuate acid adjustments are done with something other than tartaric?”
The answer I received was this:
“The print on the bucket is only there to say what is naturally contained within the juice- the tannin, yeast, and tartaric. And the term ‘grape must’ is just the juice derived from wine grapes in this case. The Toro ***** Chilean juice is untouched. The ONLY thing added is a small amount of Kmeta before packing and shipping.”
I take this response with a boulder of salt. I pointed out the conflicting info but she was adamant. I also wasn’t sold that I was speaking with the correct person. In customer service I requested someone who could answer specific processing questions but only spoke with that initial person. There was confusion and I needed to really break down the question for them. And it seemed like they weren’t able to answer until I kinda started putting words into their mouth with possible reasoning.
The website also prompts you to call an M&M rep if you feel acid is low. I read between the lines and think the juice is adjusted- and not with tartaric- messing with the ph/TA proportions- so adjusting to typical levels will throw it off balance - prompting a phone call for advice instead of a routine acid addition tutorial.
In the end I think I somehow know less than I did before. I also sent a detailed email before I called. Hoping for a nice response that will connect some of these dots for me.

AJ, I'm glad it's you doing this and not me. I'll just be the lazy one sitting around waiting for your updates.

 

[Ajmassa]

I am a professional time waster. I get sidetracked/ caught-up/ hyper-focused etc.. very easily. Something shiny coming along is all it takes. But I am determined to know the deal with the buckets.
The only 2 I’ve used are the Toro ***** in spring and the Regina in fall. I assume buckets of frozen must are less blurry, no? And no different than if they were grapes, with some k-meta and nothing else I’d think.

 

[stickman]

AJ, you definitely have persistence. My impression after reading all of the information you obtained is that the labeling may be a legal issue. They don't know from harvest to harvest if an adjustment will be needed, so to avoid constantly changing the label, they just put the typical ingredients that would be used during an adjustment.

 

[jburtner]

What do you get if you press a red grape without maceration? Or very little maceration? Rosè?

How could we design a process for making red juice buckets?

Crush destem, enzyme, cold macerate, press. You’d have to keep it cold to prevent spontaneous fermentation. Big questions - How long, how cold, which enzyme? Kmeta - yes.

Or the dreaded - pasteurization. We hope not.

Keep it simple.

Any other viable options?

Cheers,
Johann

 

[stickman]

I think for a low tech operation, you would do a cold soak around 45F for 48hrs or so using something like EX-V, then pump off most of the free run juice to a cold holding tank. The skins with just enough juice for processing would be heated quickly to 160F in a jacketed agitated vessel and held for 30 minutes or so, then cooled quickly and sent to the press, and the press juice would then be combined with the free run and maintained cold for packaging. This way the amount of juice that is heated is minimized, and any yeast and microbes would still be present and viable.
For the aseptic packaged case, the juice would either be flash pasteurized, or injected with Velcorin (Dimethyl dicarbonate) to avoid using heat.
You would have to play around with all of the parameters to get the process dialed-in.

 

[jburtner]

Very interesting to compare the potential production methods for these products.

Thank you for all the info!
Cheers,
jonathan