Quality vs Cost (grapes vs juice)

[JohnT]

I have always been a "from whole grapes" winemaker. I long time ago, I decided to give a kit a try and hated the results. I simply rules out the use of kits going forward.

Since then, kits have come a long way. I had the good fortune of tasting a number of them just a couple of years ago (the first kit I tasted in 20+ years) and was simply shocked by the quality.

Kits do make a good wine. I would actually prefer a great high end kit to a wine made from mediocre grapes but would also prefer a wine made from high end grapes over a mediocre kit wine.

 

[sdelli]

Yes.... Making wine from grapes is a bigger commitment. But i disagree with availability. I make high end wine from grapes all year round! It is called frozen must. In the last 60 days I have made Sangiovese, Barbera, and Super Tuscan all from Tuscany, Italy.... And my grapes this fall will be from the foothills of the Chalkhill AVA. My taste says if I am going to sit and drink a glass of wine.... It better have some good history! But like all of.... It is about finding your nitch and being happy with it!

 

[geek]

@sdelli what's the typical price you paid for a 6gal pail of frozen must and where you buy from?

I assume frozen must would be much more compared to a same size batch from fresh grapes.

 

[Kiwisholland]

I can get Lake County, CA grapes from my LHBS. Never tried them, but I wonder how they compare to Brehm and Wine Grapes direct frozen must.

I wonder if a LHBS in PA, can get better grapes from Cali than Brehm can?

 

[heatherd]

M&M sells frozen must all year long, and some are in the $120 range for 6 gallons. I have done this before with good success.
http://juicegrape.com/frozen_must_juice

I have also made a 12gallon (60 bottle) co-fermented batch of California Cabernet Sauvignon using one fresh juice bucket that was around $52 and one frozen must bucket from M&M that was around $120. You end up with a great quality wine for about half the cost of a high-end kit. The other nice thing about frozen must is that it's crushed and destemmed, so you just have to be able to press by hand.

If you don't have access to a fresh juice and grapes near you, you can replicate what I did by buying a frozen juice pail for around $75 + frozen must for around $120 from M&M. Yield is 12 gallons.

To be clear: frozen juice can be shipped and is available at all times of the year. That's in contrast to fresh juice and grapes, which cannot be shipped, and which is available only at harvest times.

Heather

 

[NorCal]

M&M sells frozen must all year long, and some are in the $120 range for 6 gallons. I have done this before with good success.
http://juicegrape.com/frozen_must_juice

To be clear: frozen juice can be shipped and is available at all times of the year. That's in contrast to fresh juice and grapes, which cannot be shipped, and which is available only at harvest times.

Heather

How much does it cost for shipping? I couldn't find anywhere on where it said that you cannot ship fresh juice or grapes on the USPS, any help there would be appreciated.

 

[heatherd]

NorCal,

I am sure USPS will technically ship fresh juice, but fresh juice and grapes would just spoil in the mail at room temperature; that's why (I have always assumed) all the locations make you come pick up fresh grapes and juice during harvest time. My retailer requires that I get there within a few days of the delivery of fresh grapes and juice, and a week is too long; they keep everything cool but not frozen.

Shipping frozen must and juice works because the stuff thaws a bit during shipping but doesn't have a chance to spoil. Once the delivery arrived, it took an additional day or two for the frozen grape must to defrost at room temperature, and come up to a temperature that was within the range of the yeast's liking. M&M also provides the brix/TA/pH for each must so you know what you're getting into; some vineyards will do that with the fresh grapes/juice but not all.

I don't recall the shipping being very expensive, but not sure exactly what it cost. May be worth adding something to your cart on their site to see it.

One thing I do not know, and maybe someone else already does, is whether any of this stuff is pasteurized. I wonder if the frozen items have been pasteurized to make them more stable for shipping.

Heather

 

[brottman]

What is the functional difference between a bucket of frozen must vs a bucket of fresh juice? What I'm hearing is that great wine can be made from frozen must, but is it better than you get from a bucket of fresh juice? The OG topic was to compare fresh juice buckets to starting from grapes, but now I'm interested in frozen must as well.

 

[Rocky]

Brottman, I have never tried frozen must but I understand that in the red varieties, the grape skins are included in the must. This would be a departure from a bucket of juice. I have used buckets of juice and added my homemade grape packs for additional body and taste. I have also seen that a 6 gallon bucket of must yields only 3 or 4 gallons of wine, likely due to the volume of the skins.

 

[jsiddall]

You can consider frozen must as equivalent to crushed grapes (once thawed). Juice buckets are very different because they don't include the skins.

 

[heatherd]

Correct. If you want to make wine from grapes, frozen must is something to also consider. At that point, you are getting a 6 gallon bucket of crushed and destemmed grapes and a bit of free run juice.

When I make a red, I am aiming for the most grape skins possible during fermentation. Fresh grapes and frozen must do that. So does adding a lug of grapes or a grape pack to a juice pail, just in a different proportion; you're starting with 6 gallons of juice and adding the additional grapes to that volume in the fermenter, so you'll likely end up with more finished wine going that route.

When making a white, those do not ferment on the skins. So fresh or frozen juice is the ideal situation.

Just depends on what you want to make, and what's available in terms of raw materials.

Heather

 

[brottman]

Thanks everyone! I've learned a ton from this thread.

 

[FTC Wines]

I just ordered 3 lugs of "fresh" grapes & a 6 gal pail of fresh must from Pardo Wine Grapes in Tampa Fl. Want to compare the difference. Lugs $46.50 delivered to Tampa via refer trucks, $70 per 6 gal refrigerated pail. Prices are a little higher than I see on this site, but the grapes are traveling 3,000'miles. Hope they arrive fast & healthy. Will follow up on this adventure. Roy

 

[Rocky]

Roy, the "pail" you ordered, is that straight juice or is it juice and crushed grapes? From the price you have shown, I am thinking it is juice only.

 

[FTC Wines]

Rocky, I believe it's juice only. Never did a juice pail before, so it will be interesting. Roy

 

[Rocky]

If you are planning to put three lugs of fresh grapes along with 6 gallons of straight juice, you are going to have a very nice wine. You should end up with about 13-14 gallons of finished wine. What variety is the juice and what variety are the lugs?

 

[brottman]

Now for the million dollar question. Why does actual grapes and even frozen must cost more than an equivalent amount of a fresh juice bucket? Surely the fresh juice buckets require just as much grapes and more processing. The economics don't make sense to me.

 

[FTC Wines]

Rocky, both the juice bucket & fresh grapes are Cab Sav. Thinking of fermenting & aging separately, then just before bottling in a year deciding whether to blend. Would like to see the difference in the two. Will be sure to leave at least 10 bottles of each so I can sample every 6 mo for a few years.
Bottman, I looked at the pricing more than a few times thinking the same thing. How can a 6 gal juice bucket cost 1/2 the price of fresh grapes. Only answer I can think of is mass production on buckets & higher cost to ship "fresh" grapes.
Time will tell, Roy

 

[sour_grapes]

Rocky, both the juice bucket & fresh grapes are Cab Sav. Thinking of fermenting & aging separately, then just before bottling in a year deciding whether to blend. Would like to see the difference in the two.

Be forewarned, I know little about this topic. Usually, the "ferment-separately-and-blend-later" strategy is a sound one, but it seems to me this case might be different. I could imagine that you won't extract quite as much beneficial stuff from the skins if you do the fermentation separately than you would if you combined them. Anyone know for sure or have thoughts on this?

 

[jsiddall]

I would tend to agree with @sour_grapes that you have the chance for better skin extraction if you ferment together in some way. However, you may want to consider keeping them separate by fermenting sequentially. Start with fermenting your grapes and after pressing use the pomice in the juice bucket for a second fermentation.

I wish I had a good answer as to why juice buckets are considerably cheaper than the raw material they are made from. I suspect that the quality (and thus cost) of the fresh grapes made available, including boxing and climate controlled shipping to keep them fresh, is more than the cost of dumping inferior fruit straight into a truck that heads to a giant commercial crusher/press/pasteruizer.

Regarding frozen grapes, the cost to freeze and store frozen, plus expedited shipping to prevent spoilage, adds cost that is often above the fresh grapes themselves.

With most things you get what you pay for and in this case I expect the juice buckets are priced lower to reflect the fact that they don't make as good a finished product as the other, more expensive, options.