You must develop about eight hundred grapes to get only one bottle of wine. If this isn’t an argument to complete the bottle, I don’t know what’s. — Nameless
Press on
In my final e-newsletter I had the glory and pleasure of writing about—and even showcasing in a brief video—the “massive picks” we did in late September. They had been actually the spotlight of this harvest season, and represented the “no turning again now” level in my journey (folly?) to develop into knowledgeable winemaker.
So what occurred when all of the grapes from these one-ton picks lastly made it to Magnolia, the customized crush facility the place I’m making this primary classic of economic wine for my very tiny Tiny Vineyards Wine Firm? Nicely, first they had been destemmed and crushed right into a fermenter, the place a day later they had been inoculated with yeast to begin them fermenting—all of which I additionally wrote about, and included movies on, in an earlier e-newsletter. Then they went by means of ten days to 2 weeks of fermentation to transform all their sugar into alcohol, with twice-daily punchdowns to extract coloration and flavors. I wrote all about that too, in one other earlier e-newsletter.
At that time the entire soupy mess wanted to be “pressed” to be able to separate the juice (now wine) from all of the skins and seeds and stems (pomace). These pressings had been intense to observe as a nonchalant-appearing forklift driver hoisted a full one-ton fermenting bin some twenty toes into the air above a gazillion-dollar Europress, and, upon discovering his goal, tipped the bin the other way up to pour the should into the press by means of a disconcertingly small opening. Actually messy overshots have occurred.
Then it was “urgent by means of the factions” or “tasting by means of the urgent,” whichever method you most well-liked—technological or organoleptic. In different phrases, you would observe the prescribed urgent protocol supplied by Europress, which steered growing the quantity of stress every time by means of a succession of a sure variety of “press-release-rotate-press-release-rotate” cycles (fractions) relying on what sort of wine you had been making. Or you would do it the old school approach and actually style your approach by means of these growing stress cycles, attempting to be delicate to each optimistic and adverse will increase or decreases in taste, aroma, tannin, acid, mouthfeel, and many others., till you felt that going any additional was now not contributing to your model.
All of the whereas the wine is being collected in what appears to be like like a large high-sided sheet pan immediately beneath the press. As this pan fills—and it does so surprisingly quick—the 150 gallons or so of wine out of your ton of grapes is pumped off right into a settling tank, the place it’s left for twenty-four hours to permit any gross lees (bigger suspended particles) to fall out of resolution. Then it’s pumped from that tank immediately into the barrels the place you propose to age it—in my case, for the following 15 months. And that’s it. Your harvest season is over.
Watch the enjoyable video beneath to see these last steps in motion.
