Montepulciano grapes and juice for newbie

[TheRooster]

I found a place where I will be able to order juice buckets and grapes in central FL. I have only done a handful of kits, some dragon's blood, and some fruit wine but never juice buckets or grapes.

I was thinking of getting two six gallon buckets of Montepulciano juice as well as 36 lbs of Montepulciano grapes. My wife and I would have to destem, crush, and try to press by hand this year. But, if I ferment all of it together, I'm hoping for a better end product. Thoughts? Recommendations?

We were initially considering two buckets of "Chianti" juice and some sangiovese.

Thank you in advance for your help. This forum is fantastic!

 

[Boatboy24]

It is a great idea. 36 lbs will be a cake walk to destem/crush with two people. Put the grapes into paint strainer bags, and mash with a potato masher. You don't need to pulverize them, just enough to break them open. You'll need a larger fermenter, obviously. Get a 20gal BRUTE trash can and lid. Pour the juice in there, and add the bags of crushed grapes.

When it comes time to "press", just remove the bags (with sanitized hands, of course) and squeeze the juice out of them. Don't put too much into a single bag, or it'll get challenging to squeeze them. 3 or 4 bags should keep it easy.

Have you thought about malolactic fermentation?

I did this with my first juice buckets last spring and am pleased with how they turned out. It's about as close as you can get to "all grape" without going all grape.

 

[TheRooster]

Thanks for the fast response! I want to try mlf, and have been reading up on it. Recommendations on yeast, mlb, and oak for Montepulciano? I love Montepulciano d'Abruzzo (or any dry Italian red) but understand that it is sometimes blended with sangiovese. However, I am sure that this batch will turn out fine this year without it (I hope)!

 

[Boatboy24]

If it were mine, I'd use BM4X4. Here's a link to a good pairing guide. Note that BM4X4 is an improved strain of BM45. Montepulciano isn't specifically written up in this document, but you can see recommendations for similar wines and go from there. For Malolactic bacteria, I've used only Bacchus and VP41. I've been happy with both.

I just had a commercial vino nobile de Montepulciano a couple days ago at my parents' place that was excellent.

Edit: I guess it'd help if I actually included the link.

http://www.morebeer.com/public/pdf/wyeastpair.pdf

 

[TheRooster]

Thanks for the link! BM4X4 looks like a great choice.

Time to start thinking about oak!