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crushday

grape juice artisan
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I'm thinking about a blend for 2025 consisting of Cab Franc Blanco and Sauvignon Blanc. To create the CF Blanco, I would crush and press immediately. Some pigmentation would leach into the juice, which would be ok. I'd do the same with the Sauv Blanc - crush and press immediately.

It's well known that Cabernet Sauvignon has Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc as its parents. So, this blend makes sense to me and I would name the blend, "First Date".

What do you think?
 
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I didn't research it but I never heard of CF Blanco. Unless you wanted to make a rosé or blush you could always do a whole cluster press. I just pressed a whole cluster carbonic maceration batch and use my basket press. I didn't want to take a chance on puncturing the bladder.

Also, are you thoughts to ferment separately or do a field blend?

I wouldn't change the name though, pretty cool.
 
I didn't research it but I never heard of CF Blanco. Unless you wanted to make a rosé or blush you could always do a whole cluster press. I just pressed a whole cluster carbonic maceration batch and use my basket press. I didn't want to take a chance on puncturing the bladder.

Also, are you thoughts to ferment separately or do a field blend?

I wouldn't change the name though, pretty cool.
Fred, for the CF Blanco, I’m making up a name. Years ago, I made a wine kit named Pinot Blanco. That wine was made from Pinot Noir that was slow pressed and it was a white wine. Delicious…

I have time to consider logistics…
 
What do you recommend. I have a small basket press but I prefer my 80L bladder press.
Sorry, I missed the part where you previously made white pinot from a kit so you obviously didn't press whole clusters in that case!

Pressing whole clusters with a bladder press should give better juice, but I have no idea if home scale bladder presses are up to the job. (I help to make white pinot noir and blanc de noir at a winery and we use a bladder press, but obviously on a larger scale). I seem to recall someone posting here a while back that they pressed whole clusters in their small bladder press, but I don't know if they commented on yield and quality. I don't think a home scale basket press would be successful for whole cluster.

For my white pinot, I crushed (using my hand crank crusher-destemmer) and loaded immediately into my #30 (~7.9 gal) basket press. You can stop pressing when the juice gets too dark and/or a bit bitter tasting. I seem to recall from your pictures that you have a nice crusher-destemmer (with rubber rollers?) which should result in less tearing of the fruit and so cleaner juice that is less impacted by the skins. But even if your initial juice is pink, a lot of that color will drop out during fermentation and aging.

There is also the issue of scale - even if you can use your bladder press for whole cluster I'm guessing you'll need multiple cycles (depending on how much you want to make of course). My rule of thumb is that a 5-gal bucket holds about 20lb grapes, so by that reckoning your 80L/21gal bladder press will hold about 80-85lb grapes. For a juice yield of 150gal/ton, that's only about 6-6.5 gal juice per press load (and that 150gal/T may be optimistic...)

So to answer your question, I guess I'd be inclined to crush/destem and load into the bladder press in cycles - ie just crush enough for one press load, press out the juice and then repeat as needed.
 
Sorry, I missed the part where you previously made white pinot from a kit so you obviously didn't press whole clusters in that case!

Pressing whole clusters with a bladder press should give better juice, but I have no idea if home scale bladder presses are up to the job. (I help to make white pinot noir and blanc de noir at a winery and we use a bladder press, but obviously on a larger scale). I seem to recall someone posting here a while back that they pressed whole clusters in their small bladder press, but I don't know if they commented on yield and quality. I don't think a home scale basket press would be successful for whole cluster.

For my white pinot, I crushed (using my hand crank crusher-destemmer) and loaded immediately into my #30 (~7.9 gal) basket press. You can stop pressing when the juice gets too dark and/or a bit bitter tasting. I seem to recall from your pictures that you have a nice crusher-destemmer (with rubber rollers?) which should result in less tearing of the fruit and so cleaner juice that is less impacted by the skins. But even if your initial juice is pink, a lot of that color will drop out during fermentation and aging.

There is also the issue of scale - even if you can use your bladder press for whole cluster I'm guessing you'll need multiple cycles (depending on how much you want to make of course). My rule of thumb is that a 5-gal bucket holds about 20lb grapes, so by that reckoning your 80L/21gal bladder press will hold about 80-85lb grapes. For a juice yield of 150gal/ton, that's only about 6-6.5 gal juice per press load (and that 150gal/T may be optimistic...)

So to answer your question, I guess I'd be inclined to crush/destem and load into the bladder press in cycles - ie just crush enough for one press load, press out the juice and then repeat as needed.
When you say multiple cycles can I assume you are referring to deflating and rotating the drum? The wineries I help out on occasion do 3 cycles and the pulp is really dry. I break up the pulp and do a second press, athird doesn't produce that much more wine so I don't bother.
 
When you say multiple cycles can I assume you are referring to deflating and rotating the drum? The wineries I help out on occasion do 3 cycles and the pulp is really dry. I break up the pulp and do a second press, athird doesn't produce that much more wine so I don't bother.
I just meant cycles of crush-press, crush-press etc instead of crushing all at once and then pressing in batches
 

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