White Salmon Riesling

[winemaker81]

I am curious what nasty means.
At this point I tried a wild grape which turned to slush and yielded a sludge. Then a Marquette red which solidified and when thawed after a week yielded a fine sand, but tasted good.

The flavor turned very harsh, unpleasant. From what I've read, freezing may not harm the wine, but it can crystalize acid (not a surprise) and can damage some organic compounds, producing off flavors. This was 30+ years ago, and my main memory is rolling a sip in my mouth, then immediately spitting it out.

My friend's wine was ruined, well, from my POV. He drank it anyway, since it had alcohol in it. Early 20's guy, so this is not unexpected.

Something else to consider is that wine expands when it freezes so the bottle can shatter, or at least push the cork out.

Here's an idea for one of your tastings -- compare frozen and unfrozen samples of the same wine.

 

[vinny]

I would take a guess that other than crystalizing acids and precipitating out other compounds which is just going to unbalance a wine, the fact that alcohol doesn't freeze would leave an otherwise balanced wine flat. Whatever chemical bonds you have would literally break from a wine to alcohol and fermented grape juice. Upon thawing, how are they going to blend out? Without any notable change? I doubt it.

Just an off the top of me head thought, but I just can't see it being a good thing considering the complexity of wine.

 

[crushday]

Update:

I drove to Portland and picked up the Riesling juice from the freezer yesterday. It was pretty hot and it thawed enough to pour into the fermentor within a few hours. What wasn't thawed was loose "snow cone" ice that was easily stirred into a slush for easy pouring.

I checked the temperature this evening and the surface is 46 degrees. I plan to ferment in my wine cellar, which is thermostatically controlled to hold at 55 degrees. I'm going to pitch Fresco yeast when the surface temp gets 52-53 degrees. Going low and slow on this one and would be really happy with a steady 6 week ferment.

Oh, by the way: Brix: 22.1, pH: 3.11, TA: 6.5 g/L, YAN: 67

More updates to follow...

 

[crushday]

Update:

I have displacement from the yeast! Pitched Fresco last night... I leave for Minneapolis tomorrow to work for a few days in the Twin Cities. I'll be home Wednesday and I expect to see some animation in that orange lid...

 

[Jovimaple]

Update:

I have displacement from the yeast! Pitched Fresco last night... I leave for Minneapolis tomorrow to work for a few days in the Twin Cities. I'll be home Wednesday and I expect to see some animation in that orange lid...



View attachment 101499

You picked a good few days to be in the Twin Cities! It's been beautiful weather here for the most part. Hope you enjoyed your stay!

 

[Jeriatric]

You could trial chitosan products like oenobrett from Laffort, I know people who have used this and bottled dry wine unfiltered and un sulfured and not had issues. Im going to go this route later this year, ferment base wine dry and use Oenobrett, keep some juice as a reserve and low temp pasteurize to use as sweetner. That or simple syrup and hopefully no bottle bombs.
If you are being super cautious and feel like experimenting you can alway buy a pre made nutrient plate and try to grow some yeasties to see if there are viable yeast cells left. Other methods of checking would require a light microscope and a haemocytometer.
I have asked this to friends in Germany and they responded to always use the sterile filter.
The standard for sterile filtration in wine is generally accepted at 0.45micron. 0.2micron would remove bacteria also. This is membrane filters, plate and pad filtering is not considered sterile but that risk is not acceptable for commercial product.
Pads have a flavour and I usually recirculate a tartaric acid solution through for 10 - 15 minutes then run clear water through until you cant taste the pad flavour and acid. If the final closure is a cork then the water has to be chlorine free.

 

[crushday]

Update: June 18, 2023

Fresco yeast pitched on May 18 - one month ago. Technically it’s dry, but still kicking out CO2. I’ll monitor it this week - maybe rack next weekend.

After racking, I plan to just let it sit until fall at which time I'll sterile filter, back sweeten to taste, and bottle. I'll likely give it some time after back sweetening for the sugars to integrate into the bulk aging wine.

Here's pic:

 

[crushday]

Update: I decided to rack and get that done with. A fair amount of lees…

 

[CDrew]

How is the preliminary tasting?

 

[crushday]

How is the preliminary tasting?

Glad you asked! Flavor is full of bursting fruit and the nose if very floral. It's going to be a really good wine.

 

[crushday]

Update: Taste test - Wine has a well developed nose, even now. Flavor is great once you work through the sharp acid (pH tested at 3.13) that accosts the mid palate.

I'm considering bottling this wine dry, meaning not back sweetening. I don't like off-dry wines but wonder if a little sugar might tame the acid?

Will time smooth out the wine?

 

[winemaker81]

I'm considering bottling this wine dry, meaning not back sweetening. I don't like off-dry wines but wonder if a little sugar might tame the acid?

The sugar will soften the acid. Do taste testing.

 

[BarrelMonkey]

What @winemaker81 said... bench trial and add sugar as your tasting dictates. I recently did the same with my 2022 white pinot noir (pH 3.09, though in that case I ended up deciding that the base wine was nice without added sugar, despite the tartness). At that pH level, sugar in the 5-10g/L range won't read as sweet so much as adding texture/mouthfeel. An alternative might be to use some sort of gum arabic (Enartis citrogum; Cellar Science Liquibody). Maybe include one of these in your (blinded) taste test too?