Another Noob Question

Comercial wineries generally blend after the wine is made. There are several reasons for this. First, the different graped do not all ripen at the same time. That is a tough one for them to over come. Next, gapes are not always the same each year. If they a blending Merlow and Cab.S. , one year that may need 85% C.S. and 15% Merlow. the next year it may be 78% to

We as home wine makers have more options than comercial vinyards. We frequently can get our fruit at one time so we could blend the juice.

I prefer making the individual wines and then blending them. I frequently do this with different fruit wines or blend fruit wines with grape wines or mead.

Ray

I hope I don't start a flame war over this issue. I think that the opinions that yeast strains impart flavour are over stated.

However, different strains do have their own optimum temperature ranges and their own optimum pH ranges and their own tolerance for alcohol. If the yeasties are happy, they will bring out the best from your fruit. This is the source of your flavour - and of course the oak you use, if you are using or aging in oak.

My advice would be that instead of looking at the propaganda about such and such a yeast imparting blackberry - blah blah blah and another yeast imparting cherries - blah blah blah, just decide before hand your fermentation temperature and pH and desired alcohol content and choose your yeast accordingly.

Ray is absolutely correct. Commercial wineries and many home wine makers blend finished wines. This may not always be practical, however, if you are working with smaller batches. You shouldn't feel constrained by this; if you want to try blending in advance of fermentation, go for it. There's no significant downside.

The flavors created by the yeast are going to be more apparent earlier in the wine's life. As the wine ages, the differences between the various yeast strains become less significant.

Greg G.

John,

I agree with all the above, especially the diminishing importance of yeast choice, but let me add:

Although we can more precisely "engineer" a blend after the component wines are fermented, I prefer not to. My personal experience has been to harvest my four red varieties as they ripen, and ferment them all together. Ditto the two whites I blend. Partly out of expedience, partly in the belief that the conpenents "marry" better, and partly in the romance of annual variations in the vintage. Essentially my blends are field blends, but I will hold back on a variety if it's too bountiful for my style, or draw off some juice as a Saignee. Does it make a technicaly better wine? Probably not, but it keeps me from overthinking the process, and I look foward to the differences each year brings.

I might add that I've adjusted the number of each variety, and the size of each's crop to hit a certain balance. This process continues still, as I plan on increasing my Cab S. plantings.

Both ways work, but the safer way is to blend after fermenting, unless you have a prior model to follow.

HTH

Once you have experience with particular vineyard's grapes, you can reasonably well anticipate how they go together. Some commercial wineries blend grapes before fermentation on certain varietals which are known to complement one another year after year.

Gene

Mike McGeough wrote:

This also eliminates "Odd Lots" - the leftovers after blending if you blend individual wines and do not use all the wines in your blend.

Ray, however, did bring up a good point - not all varieties ripen at the same time. For me, Merlot ripens about one ferment before Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon ripens about one ferment after Cabernet Franc. By "One ferment" I mean about 10 to 14 days difference and this is the usual amount of time I do primary fermentation.

This works out well for me as I can ferment seperately and do not have to have multiple primary fermenters going on at the same time.

A lot of commercial winemaking decisions are based not only on taste but also on "Logistics"

gene wrote: