Thursday, September 29, 2016

Sudden Wine Maker?

Although I live only one hour from Napa by car, this area is consider to be unsuitable for cultivating Cabernet Sauvignon.
However, when I saw the vine at a nursery, I couldn't resist the idea of harvesting Cabernet Sauvignon in my garden.
It was 10 years ago.
The tree kept growing but I never saw grapes.
I gave up the dream of grape picking and just enjoyed the leaves. Then, three years ago, the vine suddenly started to bear grapes.
This year, I trimmed excess leaves and immature grapes, and ended up with twenty clusters of healthy grapes.
Now there is only one thing I would do with them. Making wine!

I rinsed them lightly and destemmed them.
In a clean glass container, I crushed each grape by hand.
Liquid was clear at first, then soon started to catch pink color from the skim.
It smelled really green.
I covered the container with cloth, and kept it over night in a fridge (cold maceration?).

Second day, I took out the container from the fridge. No big change.

Third day, still nothing happened.
When I crushed the grapes it didn't feel very sticky (probably there weren't enough sugar), so JC added a little bit of sugar.
By the way, chaptalization (adding sugar) is banned for California wines.

Punching down the skins on surface to the bottom every day, and the forth day, it finally started to ferment!
I saw bubbles and I heard bubbling sound.
The color was deep purple.
It became to smell like flower.

It's been ten days now. It smells more like fruit.
Fermentation is slowing down but still continuing.

Next week, I have to move to the next step. But what should I do?
There is no barrel for this size and I don't have any wooden container which can mimic oak barrique.
JC suggested to store in a glass bottle and throw cinnamon stick in it.
I'm a little skeptical of this proposal, but maybe have no choice...


No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.