What is a harvest without a few brix? Well for us this year we cut off all the grapes but our neighbors grapes are ripe with brix and we're ready to help them pick, even if they don't want us to help.
What is brix you ask? Brix. It’s a word uttered almost hourly by grape growers and winemakers during the peak weeks of harvest season, and it represents the most vital bit of information on the progress of the grapevine’s maturity. Brix is a scale measured in units of degrees, used to indicate how much sugar has developed in the juice of maturing grapes on the vine.
Because sugar content of the juice is what will be converted to alcohol during fermentation, this measurement tells the winemaker when the optimal time is to pick the grapes for harvest. If the grapes are harvested too soon, when the Brix number is low, the juice will ferment to a low alcohol level, producing a thin, acidic, unappealing wine. Waiting too long, and picking the grapes at a Brix number too high, indicating over-ripeness, will produce a final product that is heavy with alcohol, giving an unpleasant impression of heat on the palate.
Our neighbors grow Cab Franc and their brix range is between 26 to 28 degrees. Malbec has a similar brix number. Although digging around the internet, I saw some brix as low as 22 and some as high as 28.
The grape grower uses a hand-held instrument called a refractometer to measure the Brix level in the juice. Grapes are picked off the vine and the juice is squeezed onto a glass lens. Sunlight passing through the juice on the lens is viewed through an eyepiece on the opposite end of the refractometer, seen next to a graduated scale of Brix numbers. When temperatures outside get hot, sugar content in grapes start to soar, so careful attention is paid to Brix numbers everyday. Typical Brix levels for grape picking range from 20 to 26 degrees.
I'm looking forward to having this fun next year.
Remember imbibe and enjoy!
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