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Beginning Questions (long)

Hi all -- I'm a homebrewer who's thinking about making red wine from grapes this fall. Needless to say, I have lots of questions. First -- no, I don't want to make wine from a kit.

Second, let me give you my impression on wine making from reading what I can find and let you correct any misunderstandings I may have. From what I can tell, turning grapes into wine is very easy. In fact, one seems to have to try hard *not* to turn them into wine. Some work is required to crush and destem the grapes and then to press the juice from the skins after fermentation. It seems that this is mostly a menial task, by which I mean even an unskilled person like myself should be able to do this adequately, if not efficiently. For smaller batches, it appears that one can get by crushing/destemming/pressing without the use of expensive equipment (I have questions about this later on). It appears that some artfulness comes in when deciding certain things like how long to leave the juice on the skins, blending, how long to leave the wine in contact with oak which I expect my informed stabs in the dark to be passable job at first and I'll get better at these sorts of things with experience. Finally, the difficult part in making wine is making sure it can age some length of time (even a couple of years) to ensure the wine reaches it's peak. This seems to be the realm of making sure pH levels, TA levels, and sulfite levels are appropriate and minimizing oxidation. None of this seems extraordinarily difficult, though I'm sure there will be hiccups along the way.

Third, I've tried to keep my questions limited to those whose answers are not readily available from a Google search (at least by me).

With that out of the way, let's get started with my questions:

  1. 5 gallons or 15.5 -- which is more reasonable to start with? As a brewer, I brew 10 gallon all grain batches, so both an extra carboy as well as a stainless steel keg would be useful to me if this wine thing didn't work out (which is always a risk for a new hobby). If I get a stainless steel keg, it'd likely be the yeast brink from Sabco (see:
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My concern with 5 gallons is that a carboy might not big enough for bulk aging Is this true? I'm afraid it might also just not be enough wine. My experience from brewing is that if I only have 5 gallons, I'm leery of testing the beer to see how it's fermenting and tasting, while with 10 gallons, I'm much more willing to check it's progress. And, with only 5 gallons of wine, I'm not sure I'll have the patience required to hold off on it when it's bottled. It'll be a lot easier to keep some portion of six cases of wine around for a few years than it will be to keep some portion of 2, especially when I'm so inexperienced at this.

My concern with a 15.5 gallon batch is primarily that it is a bigger initial cost outlay, and hence, a larger risk to take. So, what is the risk that I end up with 6 cases of plonk given that I've never made wine before? Also, if I get the yeast brink, I could use CO2 to transfer the wine (I have a kegging set up for my beer). Is this advisable (I'd hate to end up with gassy wine)?

  1. Regardless of which size I choose, I expect to ferment enough wine in some sort of large pail to fill not only the aging vessel, but also a small 1/2 gallon jug or two (as a brewer, something I have lots of) for topping off. Does one simply keep the 1/2 gallon jugs in the same condition as the large vessel at all times, blending them when racking to get the wine off the lees? Or is it better to put the extra wine in the refrigerator and simply pour to top up when necessary?

  1. In my first attempt, I'm mainly shooting for a wine which I'll be happy drinking and am not too worried about style. Be that as it may, I do have a strong preference for old world style wines over new world style. By new world style, I mean fruit forward, extracted wines with little structure. By old world style, I generally mean the opposite. I like my wines fruity, but I like very good structure which will stand up to food; Burgundies are my favorite. So, are there simple things I can do (such as adjusting the acidity properly or controlling contact with the lees) to steer my wine toward this old world style?

  2. What is the best way of pressing the skins without an actual press? I see a few ways of doing this: 1. putting the grapes in some sheet plastic strainer (like a paint strainer) and just pressing with some blunt instrument like an old wine bottle. 2. using a milk crate and plywood (stolen from looking at the past history of this newsgroup). 3. taking a 6 gallon bucket w/ spigot, a sheet plastic strainer, and another 6 gallon bucket (w/ no spigot). The way the third would work is on a very low table, put the sheet plastic strainer in the bucket w/ a spigot. put the skins in the plastic strainer. Then put the second bucket inside the first, on top of the grapes. One could then push down on the top bucket and let the juice flow from the spigot through a hose into the secondary fermenter.

Method 1 seems like a PITA to do and far too much work. The only problem I see with method 2 is that w/ a milk crate I don't know how or where the juice will flow. Method 3 is probably a bit more expensive (under $25 though), but you could presumably do a greater volume of grape skins at once and have a more controlled output into a carboy or something. One could also put a plank of plywood on top of the 2nd bucket and load up bricks or whatever on top to do all the pressing for you...

  1. Are some grapes more forgivable for first time winemakers than others? I have no idea at the moment what will be available to me, but I'd like to have some idea when I will know. I do know I have no plans on starting with Pinot Noir, despite the fact that it's my favorite grape because I expect it to be more difficult. I'll also stay away from Merlot, because to my tastes, unless it comes from around Pomerol, I tend not to like Merlot, except in blends. And I'm not a huge fan of Sangiovese. But what about Nebbiolo or Barbera? Syrah? Grenache? Cabernet? Cab Franc? I tend to like wines made from all of these grapes. And I'm certainly open to any suggestions here...

I think that's it for right now (and it's far more than one post should contain). Thank you in advance for any comments and/or answers; this group is a tremendous resource for those as ignorant as I.

Collin

Reply to
collin
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Good for you, It just takes a bit more patience.

True, very easy to make wine. A bit more difficult to make good wine.

If you are thinking about 10 or 15 gallons, I would not put all of my eggs in one basket. Make 2 or 3, batches of 5 or 6 gallons each. Pick grapes that will work together if you decide to blend them. That way you may end up with 2 or 3 styles that are nice or 1 or 2 that come out nice rather than one disapointment or you may end up with several batchs that blend well to make something better than any of the individual batchs. I recomend 6 gallon batchs as they rack into 5 gallon carboys with a bit extra for further racking. But keep the extra in the proper size container so it is toped as well. It you are making simular wines you can probably just keep all of them in a common blended jug.

All wine, including topping wine must be protected from air. Inotherwords, it must all be topped up. It does not need to be refridgerated. Just have a lot of different size carboys from your largest down to 1/2 gallon jugs. You can even have airlocks with rubber bungs that will fit individual wine bittles to save even the smallest amount. If you need to top up something with water, make it the small size jugs.

You are aiming for a very high quality wine that should probably be made from the highest quality grapes and aged for 3 to 5 years. The wine you describe is not a 1 year wine. We all shoot for this quallity. The commercial vineyards shoot for this quallity. Sometimes we are lucky and get it. Sometimes the comercial vineyards do too, but usually not with thier whold crop.

First you have to crush the grapes. Then you ferment on the crushed grapes. Then you press them. The best way to press grapes without a press is to rent one. The second best way is to use a straining bag and sqeeze them by hand a small batch (1 or 2 gallons) at a time.

Pick a wine that you like and then pick the grapes that make that wine. For instance, Merlot would not make what you describe. Some of the others might.

Reply to
Ray Calvert

Hi Ray -- Thanks for your response. It's much appreciated. While I had thought about doing two separate five gallon batches (of say, syrah and grenache), the intelligence of this approach was only obvious when repeated back to me. I think I will do this -- it splits the cost between a 5 gallon batch and a 15 gallon batch. More importantly though, it gives me the ability to experiment with some different things to see what I prefer.

As for style -- while I would love to make a world class wine on my first attempt (and I'll certainly try!), that's not exactly my goal. What I know is that at any price point, I invariably prefer French and Italian wine to, say, California wines -- even down to the case of lowly $3/blt vin ordinaire that's in my apt. right now. I know that $3 vin ordinaire is not world class wine. In fact, it's a bit thin and bitter (though w/ a bit of air, it's a steal at $3). But it has most of the qualities I'd like to aim for if I knew what I were doing. From what I can tell, a conservative price estimate on a homemade bottle of wine might be $10-15. For some, it may be quite a bit more. At that price range, I know I can find French wines I like more than California wines. While this may be all in the terroir, I suspect much of it has to do with the wine maker. Anyway, I guess what I'm getting at is that it would be nice to see a guide on how certain properties in wine (such as an emphasis on fruit extraction or on structure) require certain techniques. Ideally there's a site online that has this. If not, I'd certainly be willing to buy a reference book if it's particularly useful.

Anyway, thanks again for your advice.

Collin

Reply to
collin

If you find such a book, let us know as many of us would buy it.

The problem is that there are many, many techniques to do almost ever step in wine making. Some of these work well together and others do not. Consequently, someone will say, "Hey, I did this and it works great!" Someone else will come back and say "I tired that twice and it did not work at all!"

So much depends on the overall approach that you use. That can be a problem with trying to learn direct from a news group like this. Too many cooks. Each one can make a great wine using his own techniques but if you try to mix them too generously and without experience you may end up with a miserable wine.

Consequently I would suggest you pick up a book or two on wine making and learn the basic techniques from a single source. That way you will have a consistent technique. Then ask questions on a group like this to clarify points in your technique and as your experience grows , modify the technique.

I learned many years ago so my references are very dated. My favorites are C.J.J Berry's books. Simple and consistent. There are more modern authors out there and I will let others mention them. You are starting from Grapes and my original source on that was Cox's "From vines to wine". Probably not the best book and there are things in it I now disagree with but it is what I started with.

Ray

Reply to
Ray Calvert

Will do =). What I'm looking for is something akin to Ray Daniels's Designing Great Beers. This is a book without recipes and there are certainly no brewing techniques anywhere to be found, but Daniels's book will teach (almost) everything you need to know to make (almost) any beer style you want. I'd like something similar for wine.

But I guess I'll suffer by learning from experience. I imagine there are worse fates.

Collin

Reply to
collin

Ray Daniels' book is indeed a good reference. Besides technique much of your success will depend on the quality and ripeness of the grapes you can get. That said you could do worse that a review of Lum's great on-line winemaking book

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Also, for technical winemaking information try Modern Winemaking by Philip Jackisch. Good, basic winemaking technique can be found in both and can be applied to many types of wine that you might like to make.

Bill Frazier Olathe, Kansas USA

Reply to
William Frazier

Thanks for the suggestions. In scouring for info, I ran across Lum's book. Needless to say, I've printed it out and have read it already (though I expect I'll reread it a few more times). I've also printed out and read a free book from UC Davis. but I'll definitely check out the books you and Ray have suggested; I certainly have lots of time to read before I can actually make wine =).

coll> Ray Daniels' book is indeed a good reference. Besides technique much of

on-line

Reply to
collin

Making French burgundy wines from "native" grapes would be a challenge indeed. Try Daniel Pambianchi's book Techniques in Home Winemaking, A Practical Guide to Making Chateau-Style Wines.

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SG Brix

Reply to
sgbrix

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