LAst year I made Cab and it came out nice, but lacked body, and was lighter in color than I had wanted. This year I would like to change both of those things. This is what I was thinking, please offer advice. I was going to cold soak for 48 hrs with dry ice, but then I have been reading about extending the maceration. Perhaps I only need to do that rather than cold soak. - of course I have heard of both being done for Cab. If I do cold soak, do I need to protect the must from O2 as I would have to do for extending the maceration? Any other advice? thanks marco
Most times you can only do so much with average grapes. I would bet your grapes last year weren't that good and you probably did a pretty good job of making the wine. If the grapes were good leaving the wine on the skin for as little as 5-6 days would produce a pretty good wine without any effort. I wouldn't stress out about it.
Bob
snipped-for-privacy@veriz> LAst year I made Cab and it came out nice, but lacked body, and was
Forgot one thing. I would add 50ppm SO2 before cold soaking. that's approx 1/4 tsp of meta per 2 crates of grapes. I would add a little more if the ph was over 3.8 but I always add tartaric acid to get the ph down to about 3.3 before fermenting a Cab which makes 1/4 tsp plenty,
Bob
snipped-for-privacy@veriz> LAst year I made Cab and it came out nice, but lacked body, and was
If it were me, I would add SO2 after crushing if cold soaking based on pH level up to 40 ppm. Biggest thing I think you can do when cold soaking though is protect must from oxygen exposure. Seal it off best you can. I buy 1 gallon drinking water jugs from the market and drop those into the must rather than dry ice. Mostly because they have strong plastic containers and screw tops and I don't cold soak for more than 24 hours. I don't actually cold soak red wine but do cold soak some white wines.. I think the SO2 dissipates pretty fast and won't impact yeast after 24 hours.
In Bordeaux, by the way, they blend Cabernet Franc with Cabernet Sauvignon to add color. Up to as much as one third is blended in.
My understanding is long skin contact at end of fermentation phase increases tannin but not color and excessive contact may actually reduce color.
Another option out there.. Wine Labs, sells a pectinase enzyme, last I recall from their catalog a couple years ago it was called "Rapidase Ex-color". It doesn't add any color thats not present in the grapes obviously, "..but aids in extracting pigments and stabilizing them in wine." I've used it a couple times on Sangiovese. Don't anymore. It certainly softened and broke down skins more than usual: however, since I didn't do a side by side test can't be sure pectin had any affect at all.
I freeze the one gallon water filled jugs prior to throwing them in with the must. Probably obvious but left out that part in previous message. Good luck..
I won't comment on the OP's question since I already did in another thread, but was just wondering why you cold soak whites, Jim Hall? Does this give a more golden color or what, and if so is this a desirable thing in white wine?
It is widely believed that cold soaking white grapes for a period of time after crushing and sulfiting increases the varietal characteristics of the grape in the finished wine. Unless you can get temp down and maintain below
50 degrees F, it should be limited to not more than overnight soaking. Obviously don't cold soak if you suspect grapes are still coated with sulfur from late or excessive spraying. Some grape varieties are commonly put through this process and others aren't. Chardonnay is often cold soaked because the varietal character is inherently so low that it almost always needs to be enhanced. Sauvignon blanc is often soaked, but gewurtztraminer, semillon and muscat varieties usually are not.
you could also try to add some tannin you can do both cold maceration works very well, keep the S02 level a little higher than you normally would. Just make sure you warm it up so fermentation starts quickly, after 48 hrs you should not need to protect the must from 02, in any case since you are using dry ice that should give it adequate protection. Just mix the must to keep temp constant say twice per day.
After primary is complete, keeping air out is a problem otherwise your ferment may go volatile, best to fill the tank or container with (another) wine and seal, if you are very good MLF wont start and you may need to adjust with S02 so this will not happen. Possible to press off skins after 3 weeks, although you should taste depending on what you consider full bodied
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