Old Vine Zinfandel Port

[ColemanM]

So I am getting a 5 gallon frozen must pail on Friday. It's an OVZ coming in at 29+ brix. After press and racking, the approximate finished wine will be 3.5 gallons. I plan on fortifying this to bump it up to 20%. I am looking at proceeding with one of three options and I would like all of your help to figure which would be the wisest plan of action.

#1 suss reserve. Pull out X amount of juice from must and keep @40* ferment 29+ brix wine to dry, rack, fortify, add juice back. Sulfite. Age.

#2 acidulated water. Water it down (mr crews stated 3 liters and 30 g tartaric acid) ferment to 1.020 and fortify. Press off skins. Rack. Sulfite. Age.

#3 ferment it untouched. Ferment from 29+ brix to 6brix or so and fortify. Press off skins. Rack. Sulfite and age.
Any help would be very appreciated. Thank you.
Coleman.


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[ibglowin]

I would make sure your using a yeast with high alcohol tolerance first. Then ferment "as is" to dry. Treat this as a normal wine for the first year. Once it is clear, fortify using Pearson's Square formula. Then back sweeten with a can of Alexanders Zinfandel Concentrate to about 10% residual sugar. One can should get you there but if you are a little under add simple syrup to get you to 10%. You will need to rack this once more down the road. I would also do MLF as well in the after you rack off the gross lees etc. And OAK lots of American Oak! No Sorbate.

 

[ColemanM]

Would ec1118 leave out some of the benefits that say a bm45 or other yeast would give to the wine itself? Would it be possible to start with something like d80 then finish off with an ec1118? Just trying to make sure I have all the angles before it arrives. Thanks.


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[ibglowin]

BM45 and RP15 both will go up to 16% abv and maybe a little more. Just make sure you feed them properly and they should finish out just fine. I wouldn't mess with EC1118 even as a backup. If it gets stuck at 15.5% who cares. You have less to backsweeten.

 

[ColemanM]

Never mind. Some piece of trash stole my fed ex package from my doorstep. Oh well, $180 lesson learned. Sticking with kits I buy at a store.


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[Boatboy24]

Never mind. Some piece of trash stole my fed ex package from my doorstep. Oh well, $180 lesson learned. Sticking with kits I buy at a store.


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Are you serious!!?? That's terrible. Very sorry to hear. Did you ask the vendor if it was insured?

 

[Kraffty]

Wine thief no doubt.

Seriously check with your vendor, most automatically insure some amount.
Sorry to hear that but good luck,
Mike

 

[ColemanM]

I'm trying to get ahold of FedEx to see for SURE if they delivered it to the right house. However I did have that little voice in my head telling me to "go home", put the package in the house, then go meet the kids at the mall, so I am pretty sure it was stolen. The voice is never wrong. I have not yet contacted winegrapesdirect about the insurance, but I did order another bucket to tide me over while dealing with PayPal and fedex. Im on a mission and no little punk is gonna get between me and my 29.6 brix old vine Zinfandel!!!!


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[ColemanM]

So I ordered another OVZ and it came last Friday. Warmed it up on Sunday and added 2.25 liters of water and 25 g tartaric acid and rehydrated rock pile yeast. RP15 I hear it's also called. I tossed a heating blanket over it and by Monday night it was at 90*!! It hung around 85-90 for three days and is now in the upper 70's to low 80's. Starting SG from what I could gather was 1.130 and is currently at 1.038 and very slowly going down. It looks like the drop in SG dramatically slowing but it's hard to tell with the amount of solids in the sample must. I tasted it and lo and behold it tasted dang close to the 2011 vintage port I prematurely (at least 5 years) opened. I am hoping it will putter out around 1.020+ so I have time to fortify it, otherwise I will have to use sub par store bought brandy. If I had the money I'd toss in 1.2 gallons of Rémy Martin vsop. We will see where this ends up later next week but all I can say is, I wish I got the first shipment because I would have ordered another but they are now sold out that's my update.

 

[marino]

Where did you order the OVZ bucket? I couldn't see where you ordered...

 

[ibglowin]

If your making a port out of this why in the world did you add WATER……

That makes no sense whatsoever. You just diluted and lowered the ending ABV so now you will have to add more fortifier than you would have had to in order boost it back up.

 

[ColemanM]

Marino, I bought the bucket from winegrapesdirect. They send everything you need to ferment the grapes. Ibglowin, I added the water due to the fact that I will be adding @70+ brandy, so there is a lack of water and I was looking to bump a little in volume. The grape must looks like sludge, not a nice liquid wine with grapes.

 

[marino]

Thanks Coleman, just saw they were sold out. I was going to try your project. I really only got into wine making for the port

 

[richmke]

I still don't get why you are adding water. You will be adding a lot of brandy, which will increase the volume. Clearing will take care of the sludge look.

BTW: Option #3 is the classic way of making port.

 

[ColemanM]

I highly doubt the Douro Valley gets 29 brix gapes. Give me a few months and I will send you all a 167 that will make you crap your pants. As I stated before.... I should get about 3 1/2 gallons of finished wine and I will fortify with 70+ not 40 brandy. Less volume, less dilution. Thus my method.

 

[richmke]

What's 167?

Regarding Brandy: all the brandy I can find is 80 proof (40% alcohol). The only thing I can find at 150 proof (75% alcohol) is everclear (actually it is 190 proof here, but they make 150 proof where 190 proof is not allowed).

 

[ColemanM]

167 ml bottle.

 

[marino]

I've found 151 proof vodka. Can't detect the fusil oils. Do you think that's marry better? What about mixing the vodka with brandy?

 

[ColemanM]

Hmm, I like my drinks "neat" because I like to taste the grain, grape or what not. I have never really tasted a tasteless vodka. I tried an ever clear and it was ok, not sure if the vodka was a grain if it would interfere with the wine. Best bet would be to take a Zin and add some of the fortifier. If it meshes, good deal. But I think vodka of any type would add a bitter note. Not sure if I explained that very well.

 

[marino]

Yeah, I see what you're saying. I'm not saying the vodka was tasteless, just clean. I like my drinks clean too. I would use the aguardente they use in Portugal but it's not available so I use E&j brandy. I was thinking out loud with the vodka/brandy fortification idea.