Rondo must is fermenting

We started destemming and crushing this morning at about 1100h. We had about 20 kg of grapes which yielded 14.8kg (14.8 l) must, finishing at about 1430h. It's fab to have the shed to work in as opposed to being cramped in our tiny kitchen in the house. 

Alex sterilised his new clean room boots and proceeded to stomp on the grapes after lunch. It actually made the nicest must. We followed the same procedures as with the Solaris. We measured Brix of the mixed batch while preparing the yeast and nutrient mixture, then measured the specific gravity and sampled the juice. The taste was surprising. Quite dark and cloudy. 

Rondo Harvest

Brix target: 22-26

Brix reading Sunday 17 September 2023: 22

Grape Yield: 20 kg

Hand de-stemming was completed 18 September

Must yield: 14.8 litres

Must Brix: 20

Must SG: 1.084

VenoFerm Nutrisal (Diammonium phosphate) nutrient 9g in ~ 100 ml 50:50 boiled water and must

Oenoferm Terra Yeast reactivated in nutrient solution for 15 minutes. 

Fermentation started at 1615 on the 18 September 2023 @ Room temperature 20.5C.

The Brix is a little low for red wine but Thomas Walk prefers to start with a lower sugar content and have healthy grapes than to wait for a higher sugar content and risk disease. As we did have some loss due to mold, I'd say it was the right decision overall, as the vast majority of the grapes were lovely, big round marbles with lots of juice. We should get to about 11.2% ABV. 

As the red must is fermented with the skins, we didn't hydropress at this stage. That will happen at the next stage. 

Things are starting to be familiar now. We've done this before and it's slowly coming back to us. 

We had several downpours today so we are very glad we harvested yesterday. 

Happy Birthday to Alex's mum, Meike who would have been 90 today but left us almost two years ago. Remember to take the Angel's share, Mammi!