Racking Wine

Measuring the specific gravity of the juice last Saturday showed that it was time to rack. Yeah! Wouldn't you think that would be the perfect pick up line? Hey baby, you want to come back to my place and rack? Who could resist.....once they figure out you're not some kind of weirdo masochist that is.

Ye Old Winemaker said that once the juice got down to 1.0 that it's time to rack. So the SG went from 1.3 down to 1.0 in just 3 days, and that seemed fast. But the juice was in the pfvs for 6 days which is normal so it's all good.

The kitchen (see mess above) was the perfect winery to perform racking, as you can see. This involved the primary fermenting vessels, secondary fermenting vessels, trash cans, trash bags, grape juice, grape juice and more grape juice. The only thing that didn't get covered in grape juice was the ceiling, thank goodness.

The saving grace in this whole event was the auto-siphon device to move the juice to the carboy. The first transfer I didn't figure out that I should raise the 40 pound pfv at least a couple inches above the other vessel. But after I got a nasty blister on my thumb, I figured I need height. And the cat stand, see to the left, was the perfect height. Now the crazy, I almost spilled it, event of raising 40 pounds up to that height was something to see. Grape juice, grape juice, and more grape juice. On the floor, on the walls, and on everything else. This new height worked perfectly. No more infinite up and down. The juice went from the bottom of the pfv smoothly to the next level....the secondary fermenting vessel.

I realized that there was a good amount of juice still left in the pfv so I took matters into my own hands. I raised the pfv up again, and squished grapes in the can while the juice ran slowly into the bowl. This "extra " juice was dumped into the subsidiary A/B buckets. Waste not, want not I always say. And anyway we only have 13 gallons of wine. Definitely no waste. More juice everywhere...counters, cabinets, and walls. More fun.

Now the beautiful juice is in the glass containers, secondary fermenting vessels, bubbling away. On it's way to being wine.

I think we'll celebrate with a unique wine......Mokelumne Glen Vineyards 2006 Lodi Dornfelder, Zinfandel. It did exactly what I love about wine. When it was first opened, it smelled like wine you wouldn't want to drink willingly. Then give it a couple of hours and it became tasty. Now today, a day later, it tasted like the best Zin in the world. Life is like an open bottle of wine. It changes, becomes complex, smooths out, and hopefully getting better with time.

Remember imbibe and enjoy!

It's Time to Make Wine!

We've harvested and now the berries are in the primary fermenting vessels (pfv's) (aka trash cans). We have about 20 gallons of juice in our winery (aka kitchen corner). You have to add yeast to the juice to get things going. So we bought already mixed yeast, Merlot yeast, so that we'd get the best fermenting results. The yeast was put in the day after we sterilized the grapes.

The grapes have to be punched with a puncher (aka manual dry wall mud mixer) twice a day. Once in the morning and once in the evening. Here I am punching the way-full pfv. The grapes float to the top. So in order to "mix" up the liquor and break the skins of any non-bruised grapes, I push them with the mixer back down to the bottom.

Initially, when we put in the yeast nothing happened. Oh no, this sucks....but the the next day EVERYTHING happened. The yeast started doing its thing big time. So much so that it oozed over the pfv rim in the middle of the night. In the morning there's grapes oozing down the sides of the pfvs like some over carbonated soda cup. Which I guess technically it is. I took the two extra food grade 3 gallon buckets we had and put the extras in those two. Now we have four pfv's. I'm not quite sure what I'm gonna do....either keep it as two batches or four. It all depends on how much I can get in the 5 gallon carboy for the next fermenting step.

With the help of the Ye Olde Winemaker I was able to figure out what tests need to happen to move on. We did an initial acid test and the test went great. .65% acid. Perfect. No adjustment necessary. Next I took specific gravity (sg) measurements every other day. The initial test measured around 1.1 give or take. When the sg gets to 1.0, it's time to move on. Shoot! This is so easy! Why didn't they say so. Yesterday all the buckets measured 1.0. It's now time to rack the wine.

We talked to a local household winemaker yesterday, asking him what he thought. And he said we should keep it in the pfv for at least two weeks to get the color. As you can see from our pfv above, the color is just perfect. The color of burgundy. Yum. So this week I rack the juice to the secondary fermenting vessels (sfv's). Stay tuned.

Yesterday was Winefest. Always a good time and I had a marvelous Malbec. Grand River Vineyards served a 2009 Malbed that was perfect. Light tannins. Tangy, but not too much. And easy to drink. It's a little pricey, as all Colorado wines are when you compare it to California prices. A good local wine. Try this.

Remember Imbibe and Enjoy!

It's Time to Harvest!

It's finally time. The grapes are at 25 Brix and tasting yummy. We are harvesting tomorrow. At a bright and early 10ish. It'll maybe last for one hour. Two hours, tops if we drink while we cut. Hey, it's noon somewhere!

Even at this late stage in the game of making wine, we're not quite sure as to what to do. After cutting off the grapes and sticking them in the bucket around your neck, it's still a little foggy.

We bought a wine kit from the Wine/Beer Making Shoppe in downtown Grand Junction and the guy was really helpful. Too helpful, really. After about 10 minutes of the most minute detail of everything you have to do to make wine, I went into this glossy-eyed, blank stare of a phase. I just couldn't keep up. Geez, I should brought a notepad and took notes. So I looked like I was paying attention. And he finished with "Ok, so now you know everything I know. Have fun." Meanwhile, I don't know squat.

We get a book with this kit. I'm one of those dorky people who likes to read the book first before jumping into most things. So I devoured the book one day when I'm voluntarily trapped on a flight from Grand Junction to my next work gig. I read through the whole thing. Not too bad, it's small. But after all that, I still don't know stuff.

Like what do we measure to go to the next step after we've put the grapes in the trash cans (I mean primary fermenting vessel(PFV))? How do we know when to take out the juice from the PFV and move it (I mean rack it) to the secondary fermenting vessel (aka. car boy)? Same thing on the SFV wrt to measuring stuff. Ok, now when do we bottle?

I'm sure it'll all become clear when I start really doing it, but for now I'm somewhere way out in the middle between a winemaker and a grape picker. Hopefully, I'll make it to winemaker before I need to do something serious. I do not want vinegar.

But for now I think I'll drink a glass of 2008 Dancing Bull Zinfandel, winemaker's reserve, for only $6.99. A little much for drinking alone, but it has a strong jammy flavor that makes it nice to drink without food. No problem.

Remember imbibe and enjoy!

Refrac.....what!

I was told that we need a refractometer even if we weren't going to make wine. Now that we're making wine we REALLY need this thing. This thing measures brix.

I give a blank stare. Right. Sure. Brix. Uh-huh.

So I leave the winery and find myself a computer to google all these things that I must know.

Brix. "Symbol Bx is a unit representative of the sugar content of an aqueous solution. One degree Brix corresponds to 1 gram of sucrose in 100 grams of solution and thus represents the strength of the solution as a percentage by weight." Hmm. Okay. Hmm. Bottom line, it is the measurement of sugar in the grape.

Ok. Now we're getting somewhere. What's the Brix supposed to be for Malbec? More google. Well, some say 22. Some 25. Some 26. After reviewing about a dozen of totally unacademic articles, blogs, and chat room responses, I think between 25 and 26 should work.

The refractometer measures the Brix of the grape. When the measurement is at that magic number of 25 or 26 (whatever), we should pick. Okay, now that makes sense....sort of.

I order one of those refractometers (see above) from our neighbor who owns a hydroponic supply store in town. Funny, a number of those stores sprang up after using medical marijuana became legal. Hmmm. That aside. Finally, the expensive, needed device comes to our doorstep.

It comes in this official looking case which I guess makes it worth the 100 bucks alone. The refractometer allows us to measure those Brix with just 2 or 3 drops. What's not to love? The directions say I should go out in the vineyard and pick a representative sample and mix them together.

I pick out 4 precious grapes from four rows and squish them together in a cereal bowl. Maybe I should of squished them right on the glass because getting any drops out of the bowl is pretty impossible. Thus, I take my handy, mostly clean right index finger and dip it in the bowl. I bring my saturated finger to the refractometer glass and spread it around. This does not look scientific. I close the plastic cover on top, bring the refractometer up to the light to see....something. Nothing. Nothing.

I now review the one page of directions that came with the case. Seems alright. I do it again. Nothing. Bummer, I'm starting to run out of precious grape juice. Then I notice something different on the actual refractometer versus the picture. There is a dark , peel off cover on the clear plastic cover. For protection I guess.

Okay, now I do it again. I put my eye to the eye piece and hallelujah, I see something! What do I see, it's all blurry. I focus the lens and see the bluish half on top and clear on the bottom. Yeah! What's it say? 21.5 Cool. We have time.

How much time? I have no idea. I'll check it again next week.

Meanwhile, I think I'll indulge in Sterling's 2008 Vintner's Collection Meritage. It's a yummy blend of cab sav, merlot, cab franc, petit verdot, and malbec. And quite a bargain at only $7.99. Go get yourself some.

Remember imbibe and enjoy!