Opinions needed on Marquette winemaking

[wood1954]

I have 36 gallons of Marquette must fermenting now, 2 days into it. I’m wondering if anyone has pressed Marquette after 2 days. I’m thinking of pressing my 12 gallon bucket tomorrow and making a lighter wine and adding the pressed grapes to the remaining 24 gallons for a richer wine. Any experience would nice to hear.

 

[berrycrush]

Are you trying to make a sweet wine?

 

[wood1954]

No dry

 

[winemaker81]

@wood1954, that should work fine. The second wine will definitely be more robust.

 

[JimmyAdams]

Go for it. Did you destem? i have tasted a light marquette, petite pearl, frontenac pet nat and it was amazing. served chilled.

 

[wood1954]

I ended up doing a traditional ferment and mlf, unfortunately the wine caught a bug and I’m not sure it will be drinkable. The last time I smelled it I had a cold so I’m not sure it’s ok or not.

 

[willsmithiscoming]

Oh friend,
You better not drink it, for your health

 

[Vern]

When you indicated that the wine caught a bug, what is the bug? This may help many of us in the future.

 

[wood1954]

I’m not sure, I had it tested for brettanomyces and it wasn’t that. I left it on a lot of lees without so2 while it underwent mlf. It smelled very bad but tasted ok. I think it smells ok now which leads me to believe the smell came from the stink bugs that I didn’t realize were in the grape clusters. I picked out a few dozen while the grapes were fermenting but they may have been the problem. I’ve read that their smell goes away after a few months. I plan on bottling some of it next week if it still smells I’ll be dumping all 23 gallons. This year I’ll be declaring war on the stink bugs and inspecting every cluster.

 

[Vern]

Thanks for the update and good luck. I have stink bugs in my house and they stink. Can't imagine what they taste like in wine. Hope all works out well.

 

[wood1954]

Update on the wine: it turned out very nice I think it will age well, looking forward to drinking it in a couple years. It’s crisp and has more fruit than 2020 but smoother as it went thru MLF.

 

[BRossi]

Has anyone blended Marquette with Fortissimo? This is a cheap CA wine in magna bottles that is a sweeter profile. I wonder if it would smooth out a higher acid profile on Marquette.

 

[wood1954]

Not me, but I’ve tried adding sugar to fermented Marquette and didn’t like it. MLF really does mellow out Marquett. In the past I’ve used potassium bicarbonate to raise the ph and ended up tasting it in the wine , on the positive side potassium lowers blood pressure so it’s not a total loss.