Less is more? Your approach to wine making?

[NorCal]

I’ve found that there are two types of winemakers. Ones that have a regiment that they stick to regardless of the situation and ones that whose baseline is do nothing and only do things based on the situation. I’ll explain.

Winemaker #1 - Wants the wine to be dictated by the grapes. The belief is the ideal wine is to do nothing. Only when the grape dictates it needs something will the winemaker make an addition. If commercial yeast and mlb are used, they are carefully selected to compliment the grape. Oak is only a background accent and not perceptible. Any blending is done to round the corners of the wine, not to change its direction.

Winemaker #2 - Wants the wine to be what they make it. Regardless of the varietal, shape of grapes, what the desired end result, will use 50ppm SO2 preferment, fermK, same yeast, same mlb, an enzyme every ferment, always sacrificial oak chips, saignee for good measure and their favorite oak: heavy toast French…you get the idea.

Certainly there is a spectrum and I’d say most are in between these two extremes. On a Scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being winemaker #2, where do you stand?

 

[winemaker81]

The two value system with a sliding scale in between makes perfect sense, as there are too many choices to try to spell them out.

I rated myself as in the middle, as neither approach describes me. IMO, the wine is mostly dictated by the fruit and the situation, with my desires and experience shaping it. My approach will vary widely from wine to wine, where one may use #3 and another may use #8. The fruit, the yeast, and the MLB (if using) are living things and they will be what their growing conditions dictate.

 

[Jusatele]

Great Question
and one that takes reflection
I think the more you get into it the more you will arrive in the center.
Having lived in CA for the far side of 30 years I have made friends with people in the wine industry, in different places in the industry.
Growing, making, marketing, one thing you learn is that each batch is different, the soil it is grown in, the yearly influences, the equipment the vineyard owns. All that effects the wine. One friend's wife is a negociant, she travels each year up and down CA advising how to blend so wines vineyards get a consistent product year to year.
I guess what I am saying is that Wine maker has to learn his personal chops to use, but remember that each year his product starts from a different base because of differences he can not control.
That means reflection on the question is needed. But the end result is defined by the answer. Living in the Pacific Northwest I make a lot of fruit wines and that approach is totally different than a grape wine.
Grape wines, I am an amateur, but I have asked a lot of questions and get decent results by reacting to what's going on.
Fruit wines, now those are a lot closer to letting the wine do whatever.
Hybrids, I really can make a great 1/2 grape half fruit wine.
I can not really answer the question except with each batch of wine.

 

[wood1954]

I grow Marquette grapes and try to make my wine in the vineyard. I have thin soil (12”) on top of hardpacked sand. I try hard to fertilize and water and leaf pull etc. I hand sort all my clusters while they hang so when I harvest I don’t have to sort again, so I don’t add so2 at crush. The juice at harvest is light on flavor and tannin, high on acid, so I do use tannin and MLB and barrel aging to add flavor. I take what the vines give me and tweak it a bit. If I only fermented on yeast, racked and bottled I would have undrinkable wine. Living so close to northern limits of wine grapes certainly makes it difficult. I can only imagine how now nice it would be to live in a warm climate. Compare this to woodworking, suppose you wanted a bench for your dining room table. You could cut down a tree ,split the log cut it to length set on two stumps and have a bench or you could mill and dry the log into boards, properly cut and join, polish, varnish and make a beautiful bench. Both are benches, both could be beautiful but only one would really be more elegant and more desired in your house.

 

[ChuckD]

negociant

Wine Merchant… Made me look it up!

 

[Rice_Guy]

For your 1 to 10 rating scale I am a twenty.

I do projects as take a readily available dark juice and make a “big red wine”, OR divide a bucket and run five different fermentation temperatures OR try several sorbic acid tests to create bubblegum flavor for training club wine judges.

BUT then, Twenty years ago I described my job as making mistakes so the big line wouldn’t . . . . The question is like; “do you follow a recipe?” OR “do you all at what is in the garden and cook?”

 

[ChuckD]

For your 1 to 10 rating scale I am a twenty.

I do projects as take a readily available dark juice and make a “big red wine”, OR divide a bucket and run five different fermentation temperatures OR try several sorbic acid tests to create bubblegum flavor for training club wine judges.

BUT then, Twenty years ago I described my job as making mistakes so the big line wouldn’t . . . . The question is like; “do you follow a recipe?” OR “do you all at what is in the garden and cook?”

And we are all better winemakers for it… thanks David.

 

[MiBor]

I believe I am a #10, but that's not by choice. I live in Michigan and good grapes are hard to come by. I don't make country wines, only grape wines from Vinifera varieties and the best choice here is to go to one of the very few businesses that bring California grapes and buy them in the fall. When we get those grapes they're refrigerated and most likely have been picked a couple of weeks prior, so not very fresh. The additives at crush are usually required.

So when I do find good grapes I want to make the best possible wine out of them and that involves additives, testing and tweaking, etc. I dislike the situation, but that's the way things are. Nobody here brings any other kind of grapes (Chile, Australia, Italy, Spain) only juice buckets, and local grapes are not worth my time and effort. I keep saying that I've never had a really good wine made out of Michigan grapes and that still stands, even after trying countles wines from most of the wineries in the state, including those in the Traverse City and the peninsulas, Powpow area and Lake Michigan Shore.

 

[ChuckD]

I believe I am a #10, but that's not by choice

Me too. It’s a burden I’ve learned to live with.

 

[winemaker81]

I keep saying that I've never had a really good wine made out of Michigan grapes and that still stands, even after trying countles wines from most of the wineries in the state, including those in the Traverse City and the peninsulas, Powpow area and Lake Michigan Shore.

I had the same problem with NC grapes after I moved here. That's why I switched to kits 25 years ago.

At this point I still haven't found NC grapes I like, although that's mostly due to not currently knowing any vineyards that sell in home winemaker quantities. However, I'm pleased with the F-A hybrids purchased from @VinesnBines.

 

[BarrelMonkey]

I opted for 3. I want my wine to be driven by the fruit (and, by extension the terroir and winegrowing practice) but will select yeast and nutrients (and, if necessary, acid addition) to nudge the wine in a particular direction. But I'm never going to try and make a cabernet sauvignon-style pinot noir or vice versa.

I've also come around to the idea that making wine on the home winemaker scale may need a bit more intervention than on commercial scales. Last year I used FT rouge for the first time in my 2023 Syrah, combined with heating my primary fermenter to try and enhance extraction. I probably wouldn't have needed to do that if I was working with a ton of grapes in an S-bin.

 

[Jusatele]

negociant also means someone who has a developed palate and helps to blend wine for a consistent result
But yes she is also a wine merchant

 

[Jusatele]

Mibor
even in Oregon we can get local grapes, or source from national vendors. some of my best results I get from a company that sells frozen grape must with the skins in it.
My best old vine zinfandel I do every year is frozen must source from Lodi, the company I use to source it only sells frozen grape must.

My favorite wine to make is a Chianti, I know it gets no resect but with a Steak, nothing compares. I source my grapes here in Oregon but I have to rush to eastern Oregon when they are picking and am not guaranteed the best grapes

 

[Jusatele]

I do wish that I could make a wine without fining agents, but I do not have the facilities to do such, my space is very small and my carboys are precious for that reason, so bottling is usually done way before a vineyard would. I usually have a wine at the end of a season that ages 6 months or more after fermentation and racking until the wine is well settled. But soon I have need for that carboy. This year it is a Malbec. I am about to make planes for this years wines and I walk past that carboy and just smile as I know my best wines are allowed to settle and age in bulk

 

[MiBor]

even in Oregon we can get local grapes, or source from national vendors. some of my best results I get from a company that sells frozen grape must with the skins in it.

@Jusatele you have options in Oregon that winemakers in the Midwest can only dream of. I've had many Willamette Valley Pinot Noirs and some of them were really world class wines. The quality and character of those wines is hard to find in any other Pinot Noirs produced in the US, and many other places. Those are the grapes I would want to make wine out of. If I was closer, within driving distance to that area, I would go there, make friends, build relationships, whatever it takes to get some of those awesome grapes and make wine with them.

There is nothing like that in Michigan, or anywhere in the Midwest. Most of the grapes grown here are cold-hardy hybrids or a few vinifera varietals that never manage to ripen well. The wines made out of them are just not great. They are good with food, even drinkable on their own with a little bit of added sweetness to offset the sheer amount of acid that comes with cold climate grapes, but they are not great.

I don't make wine just to make wine. I want to make great wines, big and complex reds and sophisticated whites that are unmistakably mine. I experiment with grapes, juice, frozen musts and kits, or combinations of them, and I also experiment with different fermentation thechniques and additives. Sometimes I'm successful, other times I'm not. I've thrown away a lot of wines I wasn't satisfied with, but I also made great ones that people still talk about years after tasting them.

A few things became painfully obvious to me in the course of my wine adventures, but the one that stuck out the most was that I needed great grapes to be able to make great wine. I prefer fresh grapes, but frozen musts are a close second to that. I may use frozen musts and juices more in the future, since I can get them at any time and make wine during seasons other than fall.

 

[Jusatele]

MiBor
In that quote you did, I was referring to the good grapes we can get here and we still look elsewhere for grapes
,
And I do buy cases of Pinot Noirs here locally each year, Sometimes I take a chance on a early release that seems a bit off knowing that set back a few years it will be great.
My Chianti is about 80% Sangiovese sourced from here but I get my cab to blend in from CA. So I am crushing the base and adding the blend. I find a lot of my grapes are from CA.
A local company, Wine Grapes Direct, is a great source nationally, the only benefit I have i I can go to their warehouse, and save shipping cost.
Fresh grapes can be hard to source to here. generally a lot of vineyards do not want to sell to you unless you are buying in bulk. How we get around that is by organizing bulk buys using a local wine and beer hobby store to set up buys. Pinot Noir grapes are popular in the bulk buys. Sangiovese grapes not so much so you have to find other methods to get it in grape form.
Those buys can be what is more popular to buy and so I buy my Cab grapes in a frozen must with the skins in it.
I started making wine in Louisiana and that was almost impossible to find good grapes in the 1970s, I made a lot of wines from table grapes until my vineyard matured and then I did not have great grapes because they did not love the climate.
I think we all have difficulty sourcing . I have a very difficult time finding old vine Zinfandel grapes. I am a huge fan of the style. In the last few years I can only find frozen must.
From reading your post I know you have a drive to make good wines. I can say I do not make wine just to make wine also. But I make a lot of wines that are considered table wines. I can say I have learned more about making wine from those wines than any other way. It is like a beer such as Miller Natural Lite, where in that beer can you hide a mistake? and such is a simple white blend table wine. In fact I learned how to get the oak complexities in a wine without ever using cask by making table wines. I do not even want to admit how many bad batches of wine I have done.
It is a great hobby
I do not know how I could ship Pinot Grapes from a bulk buy and get them to you fresh. But I can say sourcing frozen must with the skins still in the must is a great way to get great wine must.

 

[Rice_Guy]

do not know how I could ship Pinot Grapes from a bulk buy and get them to you fresh. But I can say sourcing frozen must with the skins still in the must is a great way to get great wine must.

Wisconsin Home Vinters does a club purchase every year. They come as fresh grapes in lugs. It takes some hunting and commitment to the vineyard to set it up but more than one vineyard has been willing to sell. ,,, in ton quantities.
Grapes are a commodity.

 

[distancerunner]

Right bank. Left bank.
Chianti. Super Tuscan.
Pinot Noir.
Every one of them can be done in a different style.
There are a lot of choices.

We start by selecting the grapes we want to work with nine months before they'll arrive on the dock. We decide what style we want to make. Then we research how the pros do it. From there we formulate a plan.

We use the tools available to make the wine in the style we want. Sometimes we're successful.

BUT!

Maybe the numbers aren't good. Maybe the flavors we're tasting at the crush don't reflect our goals. Maybe we end up making something else.

The grapes largely dictate what we will do with them. But we work them to get what we want.

Does that make me a ten? Or a two?

 

[Rice_Guy]

??? HUMM a new use for grapes ???
https://www.fooddive.com/news/futur...il&utm_source=rasa_io&utm_campaign=newsletter

Practically speaking a lot of the flavor the US identifies as chocolate is the vanilla in milk chocolate. Now how much vanilla should I put in the black currant chocolate? I have settled on 3.5% sugar with a label name of “dark chocolate” ,,, should I ignore the black currant (polyphenols) which is about 30% of the mixture ,,,

Making wine is really cooking