Jumping in feet 1st

Ess-Sea vineyard · Aug 21, 2023

Hey everyone! My name is Steve, and am greener than grass seed to wine making. 4 years ago, I planted my first Valiant vines, and now have an abundant crop, with the intention of taking them to a local cellar, to do the wine making for me. Low and behold, he is no longer accepting fruit, as he is trying to sell his business. So I made the decision to go all in and purchased a 3 gallon wine making kit. This year will be my first attempt at wine making, and don’t want to mess it up. Any advice I can get, other than clean equipment, will be very much appreciated, as I also have 3 Edelweiss vines planted, and 2 Concord vines. Any recipes that you may be willing to share will also be appreciated. Thanks and look forward to future discussions.

winemaker81 · Aug 21, 2023

Welcome to WMT!

You're actually in good hands -- dozens of folks on this forum have jumped in head first, and most of us survived and are thriving!

I wrote a post a while ago that briefly describes the general winemaking process. It will take you 10 or 15 minutes to read, and will give you an overview of what needs to happen. You may also find the Wines ... In Detail posts useful as I documented my efforts with pictures.

After that, download the MoreWine red and white wine manuals -- the link is in my sig. Skim the red wine manual first. Don't try to read it intently -- there's WAY too much information, and in that direction lies madness. Skim it a couple of times to get a better feel for the process, reading more in-depth each time.

Navigate to the beginners forum and read the threads that sound interesting to you. There's a tremendous amount of information in the chit-chat, and you'll pick up more than you realize right now.

You will have more questions -- start a new thread in the beginners forum. I suggest a lot of reading up-front, as the more you learn, the more you'll get from the answers to your questions.

sour_grapes · Aug 21, 2023

Welxome to WMT and good luck!

user 52843 · Aug 21, 2023

winemaker81 said:
Welcome to WMT!

You're actually in good hands -- dozens of folks on this forum have jumped in head first, and most of us survived and are thriving!

I wrote a post a while ago that briefly describes the general winemaking process. It will take you 10 or 15 minutes to read, and will give you an overview of what needs to happen. You may also find the Wines ... In Detail posts useful as I documented my efforts with pictures.

After that, download the MoreWine red and white wine manuals -- the link is in my sig. Skim the red wine manual first. Don't try to read it intently -- there's WAY too much information, and in that direction lies madness. Skim it a couple of times to get a better feel for the process, reading more in-depth each time.

Navigate to the beginners forum and read the threads that sound interesting to you. There's a tremendous amount of information in the chit-chat, and you'll pick up more than you realize right now.

You will have more questions -- start a new thread in the beginners forum. I suggest a lot of reading up-front, as the more you learn, the more you'll get from the answers to your questions.

Welcome from another beginner. I have already learn d a lot following the advice of members posting to the forums. Good luck to you.

ChuckD · Aug 21, 2023

Welcome. Start that new thread and run your plans by the group before you start.

Wine making can be as simple or complicated as you want… we can help keep it simple for your first time.

Rice_Guy · Aug 22, 2023

welcome to WMT
Edelweiss is an interesting grape. One can make a Riesling like wine. First of all it will fall off the vine if you push it to pick at 17 brix. You have to pick early, ,, I picked Edelweiss yesterday. Nice flavor and good yield. Late picking also can make bitter flavor notes and foxy flavor. ,,, Sulfur flavors are easy to produce. You have fixes as: feeding high nitrogen as staggered nitrogen (Fermaid O); or using a no H2S yeast; or fermenting slow at 10C.
My impression is Valiant will be like concord, I haven’t grown Valiant . Concord can make church wine. By itself the tannins are low/ poor flavor so I wouldn’t run it on the skins. (ought to recheck steeping with high Fermaid to see if flavor is better)

You need hardware to make wine. Used carboys are available if you watch Craig’s list. Crusher is useful if you have 20 plants to process at once. I am smaller and manage to destem with a milk crate and run through a snow cone machine to crush. Good luck.