In the cold light of the day after harvest, the grapes are not as good as I thought. I line up my tools; a plastic rice paddle and pyrex bowl for the crushing, a colander and some baby muslins for draining the juice, and my bucket, which is a basic item bought off the internet, still with its "Bigger Jugs" label in place.
Everything gets a good sterilising rinse, then it's time to give everything a good pounding. I didn't do badly on the harvest this year; the reject bucket only has a scattering of grapes along with the usual run of vine snails, spiders and stalks. I pull all the stalks, but leave the pits.
It's sticky, stenchy stuff, grape pulp. As usual, halfway through I feel I am wasting my time utterly; that nothing good can ever come of this muck. This coincides with my arms getting proper tired from the crushing. But nothing a quick votive to Bacchus won't get me through.
My bowl of the best of the best grapes with the cleanest darkest skin, with the sweetest and most even yeast bloom on them, go into a muslin doughnut, and into the bucket. This is enough to make alcohol, but it'll run too slowly and the alcohol concentration won't ramp up fast enough to avoid undesirable flavours, so I'll only let that run for overnight and tomorrow morning I will inoculate the bucket with a sachet of brewer's yeast I found in the bottom of the brew box.
The brix isn't bad -- at the top of "start wine" but I'd already decided to raise the sweetness while crushing, to improve the balance of acid/sweet on the nose. Plus I have some honey from a friend with a hive in her back garden, and how better to intensify the terroir?
The colour looks poor. Greyish peach with an undertone of green, like one of those sexy zombies that the internet loves so much. Never mind. Slam on the lid, wait for the magic.
Everything gets a good sterilising rinse, then it's time to give everything a good pounding. I didn't do badly on the harvest this year; the reject bucket only has a scattering of grapes along with the usual run of vine snails, spiders and stalks. I pull all the stalks, but leave the pits.
It's sticky, stenchy stuff, grape pulp. As usual, halfway through I feel I am wasting my time utterly; that nothing good can ever come of this muck. This coincides with my arms getting proper tired from the crushing. But nothing a quick votive to Bacchus won't get me through.
My bowl of the best of the best grapes with the cleanest darkest skin, with the sweetest and most even yeast bloom on them, go into a muslin doughnut, and into the bucket. This is enough to make alcohol, but it'll run too slowly and the alcohol concentration won't ramp up fast enough to avoid undesirable flavours, so I'll only let that run for overnight and tomorrow morning I will inoculate the bucket with a sachet of brewer's yeast I found in the bottom of the brew box.
The brix isn't bad -- at the top of "start wine" but I'd already decided to raise the sweetness while crushing, to improve the balance of acid/sweet on the nose. Plus I have some honey from a friend with a hive in her back garden, and how better to intensify the terroir?
The colour looks poor. Greyish peach with an undertone of green, like one of those sexy zombies that the internet loves so much. Never mind. Slam on the lid, wait for the magic.
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