'Natural' wines

[Turock]

Boy, ain't that the truth John. We make alot of different wines---about 16-20 different ones. And all of them are so flavorful, smooth, and balanced. I want everyone to get to that point in their winemaking and the first step is good practices.

 

[nayrea143]

Turock, I could not more strongly agree on all of your above points. Take all of that into account! Too many times have beginners been lured into "natural" winemaking only to experience heartache in the end.

Amen to that!!!! Empty wine cellar here


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[PinoZ]

I've combined both methods and have good results. I innoculate with yeast packets and then let it run its couse naturally without adding sulphites. I rack 2-3 times, top off & filtwr with mini jet. Also the addition of oak spirals can add a bit of complexity. Bottle after 6 months and enjoy. Anyone else ever try this way?

 

[ed71]

Even though Im somewhat of a newbie to this group and winemaking this article sounds like something an organic vegetarian would come up with.

Sure organic grown veggies and fruit (along with organic fed animals) taste better. It doesn't mean you'll get high class quality silky fine tasting wine.

If one is meaning of "natural wines" as in the way the ancients made it, then most likely you'll end up with something similar to "inmate wine" or "prison wine" whereas scientific equipment are none at all and cultured wine yeasts dont exist. They simply rely on trial and error and with what they have.

And even then, the ancients had years and years of craft skills passed down unto them (very much like Master to apprentice type learning) in which to this day much of those same skills have been lost to our generations. I'm quite sure they could detect when fermentation was done and when a batch was to become spoiled or when it needed aging or when it was to be sold as vinegar or even when it was to be watered down to be sold to the lower ranks.

Its only been bout 3 centuries of the scientific method and the rest of 30k of the human race did they make mead, wine and beers naturally. Its actually nothing new....in fact the new one is the "scientific method". If they can build the pyramids without fossil fuels scientific discovered machines, then they can make wine naturally! (which they have been doing for several millenniums.....eh hemmm...of course, it never was perfect)

So one can say its not impossible. But why go that way when there is an easier way? A way without losing batches and making batches of vinegars?

 

[user 31015]

I say try it, like I did: after reading Katz's "the art of fermentation" (great fun) I made a wild ginger beer, and I also made a strawberry and a plum soda. The later two were lovely, the ginger beer? Well, let's just say that the wild yeast around here must have a thing for feet as ginger-soaked-socks is kinda what my ginger beer tasted and smelled like.

I used bought yeast for the other two sodas and they were much nicer.

Wild yeast can be amazing. I am thinking here of Belgian beer, in particular the "sour reds" which are open fermented and rely on local yeasts, I believe. Even so, those brews are fragile as changing local conditions changes the dominant yeast. I read one brewery was surrounded by orchards - these are dwindling and they fear for the quality of their beer.

So, try it yourself with a wild ginger beer and see what the local yeasts in your neck of the woods are like! It is interesting, cheap and easy to do. You might find that the local yeasts would really suit a type of wine you want to make, or you might not...

We also should remember that the ancients drank wine that bears little resemblance to what we drink today. As I understand it much wine was drunk young and low in alcohol. Fermentation was a way of storing water cleanly (very important) and preserving seasonal flavors and nutrition. Alcohol content and all the things we like about modern wine weren't so important, I believe, as having a liquid that didn't make you sick and tasted ok.

So if 4% fizzy fruit juice with a hint of socks is your thing, go 100% natural, you can absolutely achieve that. But if you are aiming to match what gets bottled and sold you better hope to be lucky enough to have a great local yeast and perfect fruit and conditions

 

[fizzerzz]

Well I have been making wine since I was 12 and I am also a Senior Scientist and I never add SO2 at the end of fermentation. OK, I have the occasional blown cork but rather that than feel the arrhythmia of my heart beat after a few glasses of SO2 treated wine. SO2 causes changes in lung and heart function- not good if you have existing heart problems or are an asthmatic. You don't need it.

 

[JohnT]

Well I have been making wine since I was 12 and I am also a Senior Scientist and I never add SO2 at the end of fermentation. OK, I have the occasional blown cork but rather that than feel the arrhythmia of my heart beat after a few glasses of SO2 treated wine. SO2 causes changes in lung and heart function- not good if you have existing heart problems or are an asthmatic. You don't need it.

What about simply reducing the amount you use? The legal max level in the USA is usually 350ppm. Why not simply bring the level down to, say, 30ppm? This way you wine can stay clear and not any blown corks.

 

[Turock]

Blown corks are due to too much CO2 in the wine or a refermentation. SO2 has nothing to do with it. It's always a mistake to suggest that SO2 is not needed. I mean, sure you can eliminate it, but I would drink those wines early because I guarantee that they will become oxidized, taking on the flavor of nuts at first, then moving to tasting like liquid metal. Back in our newbie days, we tried keeping the SO2 very low--we dumped more wine than you want to hear about.

It has been said that you can't start to taste SO2 until it reaches about 150PPM. The highest PPM any wine with the highest PH would need is approaching 100PPM. Wines with a PH of 3.4 only need about 32 PPM. So to suggest to people in an open forum with many new winemakers that they don't need to SO2 their wines is very misleading and will do nothing but give them more problems they don't need. Believe me---SO2 your wines to about 50PPM if you can't test and you'll be fine. All winemakers who can afford to do so should be SO2 testing.

 

[JohnT]

Blown corks are due to too much CO2 in the wine or a refermentation. SO2 has nothing to do with it. It's always a mistake to suggest that SO2 is not needed. I mean, sure you can eliminate it, but I would drink those wines early because I guarantee that they will become oxidized, taking on the flavor of nuts at first, then moving to tasting like liquid metal. Back in our newbie days, we tried keeping the SO2 very low--we dumped more wine than you want to hear about.

It has been said that you can't start to taste SO2 until it reaches about 150PPM. The highest PPM any wine with the highest PH would need is approaching 100PPM. Wines with a PH of 3.4 only need about 32 PPM. So to suggest to people in an open forum with many new winemakers that they don't need to SO2 their wines is very misleading and will do nothing but give them more problems they don't need. Believe me---SO2 your wines to about 50PPM if you can't test and you'll be fine. All winemakers who can afford to do so should be SO2 testing.

Turock,

I could not agree more, but wouldn't maintaining a decent level of SO2 make refermentation more difficult?

 

[Calamity Cellars]

Turock,

I could not agree more, but wouldn't maintaining a decent level of SO2 make refermentation more difficult?

No. So2 does not prevent or slow down fermentation.


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[Calamity Cellars]

The sensory threshold for so2 is ~2mg/l molecular.


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[JohnT]

I found this blurb ...

Sulfur dioxide plays two important roles. Firstly, it is an anti-microbial agent, and as such is used to help curtail the growth of undesirable fault producing yeasts and bacteria. Secondly, it acts as an antioxidant, safeguarding the wine's fruit integrity and protecting it against browning. Despite its chemical simplicity, SO2 can take on a few different forms in a wine. One form is called 'molecular SO2'. When in this form, it is around 500 times more effective in killing wine microbes than when in any of the other forms that it can take (Sneyd et al. 1992). Luckily for us, the desirable yeasts that undertake wine fermentation are more resistant to SO2 than most of the spoilage yeasts. So having some SO2 around helps give the desirable bugs a leg-up in their competitive dog eat dog world in which they co-exist.

As an anti-microbial, it is my understanding that it makes it more difficult for a refermentation to kick off.

 

[sour_grapes]

I think Calamity's point is that wine yeast have been bred to be tolerant in the presence of fair amounts of SO2, and therefore wine yeast can cause further fermentation. (Wild yeast, as you point out, will be toasted by the SO2.)

 

[Calamity Cellars]

I think Calamity's point is that wine yeast have been bred to be tolerant in the presence of fair amounts of SO2, and therefore wine yeast can cause further fermentation. (Wild yeast, as you point out, will be toasted by the SO2.)

Exactly. The only two ways I know to prevent it is true absolute sterile filtration or raising etoh levels above the toxicity point ie in a port.


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[REDRUM]

Even though Im somewhat of a newbie to this group and winemaking this article sounds like something an organic vegetarian would come up with.

Lol, far from it.

Sure organic grown veggies and fruit (along with organic fed animals) taste better. It doesn't mean you'll get high class quality silky fine tasting wine.

I agree. However I have drunk enough very good wine made without additives, or with minimal sulphur, to know that it CAN be done, and the results may be better. It is a bit of a fad at the moment though, and I'm wary about people rushing to jump on the 'natural wines' bandwagon just because there is a market for it. As far as I'm concerned this sort of wine is a complement to wines made using mainstream techniques, not a 'better' way of doing things. It's not something that would be easy to do when you're talking about large production volumes - but in my research a lot of professional winemakers (whose education often involves chemistry, microbiology and so on) are excited by experimenting with these sorts of wines in small batches and getting good results. People take different approaches, but in my experience 'natural' winemakers are not necessarily 'unscientific' winemakers.

The way the professionals tell it, to succeed going down this avenue you need to understand exactly what conditions your grapes are in - they need to be balanced in terms of acid and sugars (bearing in mind that acid, tannins and alcohol are preservatives in their own right, and grapes also have their own supply of sulphites), be free of disease, and fermentation needs to take place with as much care as possible to avoid unwanted bacterial infections.

Now, the risk might be too great for most home winemakers to avoid using cultured yeast strains, tweaking their wines with acid, etc. I used packet yeast and K-meta because I'm only doing one batch and don't want anything to go wrong....! But in future I want to experiment on a couple of buckets here and there... and if they go wrong, so be it!

 

[REDRUM]

And here's another article from the Wine Anorak website, with a bit of interesting debate in the commets section:
http://www.wineanorak.com/wineblog/natural-wine/natural-wine-a-primer

 

[pjmartin]

I did the same procedure last fall. I added yeast to a bucket of burgundy and no sulfites (wife is allergic to sulfites). Added nothing else, rack every 30/45 days, filtered and bottled around six months. Wife and other family members are happy with the wine!!!

 

[pjmartin]

I've combined both methods and have good results. I innoculate with yeast packets and then let it run its couse naturally without adding sulphites. I rack 2-3 times, top off & filtwr with mini jet. Also the addition of oak spirals can add a bit of complexity. Bottle after 6 months and enjoy. Anyone else ever try this way?

I did the same procedure last fall. I added yeast to a bucket of burgundy and no sulfites (wife is allergic to sulfites). Added nothing else, rack every 30/45 days, filtered and bottled around six months. Wife and other family members are happy with the wine!!!


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[nayrea143]

So I tried some of my natural wine yesterday and it tastes sooooooo much better then it did. It's improving. Not great but def better!!! I am planning on racking and doing a chromo test and ph test and getting a hydrometer reading on it when we press my Chilean grapes. Then I will prob add meta then and bulk age some more!!!


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[nayrea143]

I should prob add it is Italian merlot 6 gallon. Started the end of oct. And it has not been touched. No racking and no meta and no yeast. Eek


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