Icebox wine

[nicklausjames]

I'm expecting some chilean grapes in the next few weeks and was thinking of making some into dessert wine. My understanding is this can be done by freezing the grapes and than pressing. Does anyone know the temp to freeze at and for how long? Also any recommendations on a good yeast for this? The grapes will be sauvignon blanc.

 

[JohnT]

OK,

The idea you have here is to make an ice wine. The idea is to partially freeze the fruit in order to remove some of the water (the ice is left behind in the press). This is supposed to raise the all over sugar content of the wine to be a level that the yeast can not fully consume before it dies off. The result is a wine with a high residual sugar content, but low yield so it tends to be expensive.

FYI, The juice is normally pressed before yeast is added. The juice is then warmed up and then fermentation is kicked off.

Most of the time this is done with whole fruit. I do not know of anybody that has had success with this when starting with juice.

Have you considered making a port instead?

 

[sour_grapes]

He seems to be starting from grapes.

Sorry, I do not know the answer to your question, viz., what temperature or how long. Just googling around, the answer seems to be 15 to 25 F.