Vistors to the Vineyard

Fellow viticulturists, Brian Bakeburg and his wife Orla, who moved to Ireland from South Africa and planted a vineyard in Mayo in 2023, came to visit. It was a beautiful day and we had a lovely time trading ideas and getting to know each other. We love showing people what we've done here. 

 

Harvested Rondo this morning

Big difference in a few days

We decided to harvest the Rondo regardless of the sugar content. I was pleasantly surprised that the Brix reading was 20.6 or SG 1.086. Our yield from the 5 vines was about 2 1/2 bushels, close to what we got from all the Solaris. We were lucky as it started raining after we finished and brought the gear up to the shed. 

Two vines had lots of very nice grapes and three had mediocre bunches -- small and/or shriveled. The grapes weighed 41.2 lb or 18.7 kg, not far off the 2023 take of 20 kg. After destemming, we were left with 31.6 lb (14.3 kg) of grapes. But there was little juice even after crushing more grapes by hand. The Brix of the must was encouraging at 22 and SG 1.090. The pH was 3.0. 

We discussed what to do and decided to mix sugar water to an equivalent SG or slightly higher. I mixed 1 kg of regular granulated sugar in 4 litres of boiled water. The SG was 1.095 which would result in a potential ABV 14%. 

We had to wait for it to cool then added in the yeast mixture. After letting the yeast get going in the sugar water, Alex added the mixture to the must. We sealed the lid and will now await fermentation. Wait and see. 

Ghost was with us the whole time, supervising as usual, and the donkeys came down to keep us company as we worked. 

Solaris bubbling has slowed down a lot.

Fermentation

 

The weather had turned quite cold but the fermentation is doing well in our temperature-controlled room in the shed. 

Rondo still not ready

A Brix reading of 15 by refractometer

I took Brix readings of the Rondo grapes this afternoon and the results are not encouraging. The first reading was just 15° Brix (SG 1.060) and the second was 19.2° (SG 1.080). 

The Brix measurement of a liquid fluctuates according to temperature. The Brix of a cold sample will measure higher than the same sample at room temperature. Therefore, our Brix is likely lower than my readings taken at 13.9C degrees as the device is calibrated to 20C. 

The highest temperature yesterday was 15.7C and today it's not made it past 14.2C with a northerly breeze. The temperature dropped to 12.1C overnight. With the days getting shorter, no sunshine and cold temps, it's not looking like we'll get into the 20s. We'll have to harvest and fortify with sugar. Not sure how to do those calculations so I've a new thing to learn again this year. 

Brix can be expressed as a percentage of sugar in the liquid. For instance, if a juice measures 20° Brix, that means the juice is 20% fermentable sugar. Although defined specifically as percent sugar (sucrose), all dissolved solids in the juice affect the Brix measurement.

How much sugar should you add to grape juice that already has 15 grams sugar per 100 ml, to ferment to make wine? When sugar ferments, roughly half becomes alcohol and the other half becomes carbon dioxide. So your 15g of sugar will make approximately 7.5 g of alcohol in 100 g (100 ml) of wine, giving a wine of around 7.5% alcohol. If you want to make a wine with 12% alcohol, you will need another 9 g of sugar per 100ml. You can get technical with molecular weights and so on or you can get a hydrometer and just add enough sugar to get a sensible starting gravity.

The Pinot Noir grapes are tiny hard balls not even close to veraison, so I think that's a fail for this year. Who knows what next year will bring.  At least the Solaris is bubbling away, which is very encouraging for the fermentation. My yeast was still good. 

Even the cat doesn't want to be outside today. 

White Seahorse Solaris Wine

Destemmer-Crusher makes the job easy

It's a good thing we're not doing this commercially. We knew it was going to be a bad year. We picked a week later than last year and had less than half the yield, only 51 lbs (23 kg) of grapes by weight compared with 53 kg last year. It yielded almost 6 litres of must. The sweetness is perfect with Brix of 21.8 and pH of 4, so nice acidity. 

One refractometer has a Specific Gravity scale and the Brix equivalent in SG was 1.090. The SG reading by hydrometer was 1.089, so the scales are equivalent. Good to know. 

The destemmer/crusher worked better than expected and took just a few minutes to process all the grapes. Unfortunately, not all the grapes were crushed. They also did not all get pressed as there were a few whole grapes in the dregs, mostly small ones, but still a waste. 

I dissolved ~5 g of Venoform Nutrisal yeast nutrient in 160 ml of 50:50 mix of must and room temperature boiled water (no chlorine which kills yeast) and added 5 g of Young's White Wine Yeast. We went off to have some lunch and when we returned the yeast was bubbling nicely, so I mixed it into the must.  

We filled a 5-litre demijohn and fitted a bubbler. We had a small 1-litre bottle and the must volume didn't quite reach the neck so I mixed 6 tablespoons caster sugar with 1/2 pint boiled water and topped off the small jug. It too is fitted with a bubbler. Now we have to stir them every day for the next 5 to 7 days until the first stage of fermentation is complete and we prepare to rack. 

In the meantime, I'll keep checking the Rondo.  The weather is supposed to turn and it has already gotten very dull. Not very hopeful for this year's red. 

The Chardonnay do not have any clusters that I could find and the Pinot Noir are nowhere near ready to pick. Surprisingly, the Albarino vines are looking better than they have in the past. 

I heard from a friend in the Azores that yields are way down there as well. C'est la vie. 

For good measure, and so we wouldn't have to clean the equipment again, we pressed some delicious apple juice from our own apples. 

By the way, White Seahorse will be our white wine label. We have Red Boar Cidre, and Black Swan reds as well. 

Demijohn and a small bottle of Solaris

To read the SG, I had to remove the foam

Proving the yeast

Hydro press at work

Crusher destemmer output

Spent stems in the bin for the compost

Harvest day

We were supposed to sail off on the evening rising tide and overnight on Aleria in Clew Bay, but my Brix readings of the Solaris juice prompted a change of plans. Alex double-checked my readings and had two readings of 18 and 24. So instead, we spent the day harvesting. We got it all done in one day. Tomorrow we start the winemaking. The Rondo will have to wait. 

Some observations. 

• Some of the nicest grape bunches were those that were left uncovered indicating that the kites were doing their job. 
• The green mesh bags were okay but a pain because the strings kept getting tangled up in the vines and grape bunches. We may ditch the bags next year.
• The grapes in the white bags did the poorest -- the smallest, least healthy-looking bunches. I'm going to throw away the white bags.
• The grapes on the vines closest to the hedge at the top looked like they'd been eaten by birds along the far edge. We may add one more kite. 
• No signs of mildew this year. Several vines had clusters with evidence of Botrytis. We'll need even better management of the leaf canopy next year. 

Our yield was better than expected. We picked three bushels which we will weigh tomorrow. 

Alex suggested trying vino verde with this year's crop. Every year, we learn something new. So why not?

One of the bigger clusters

Possible Botrytis cinerea

Variable size grapes

Pretty cluster

Small but sweet

Donkeys kept us company

Lots of mesh bags collected, a real pain

Three bushels, more than expected

Solaris is ready for picking

I checked the Brix today after a week of sunshine and was surprised by the results.  

Rondo:

Brix 18, SG 1.074

Brix 13, SG 1.050

Solaris:

Brix 22, SG 1.090

Brix 21, SG 1.087

Brix 20.8, SG 1.085

It's time to pick the Solaris but the Rondo can wait. 

Indian Summer in Ireland

A high-pressure ridge is parked over Ireland this week and we are experiencing summer, finally! It is warm and sunny, dry and calm. I hope the sun will help raise the sugar content of the grapes for this will be the latest harvest by far. 

Time off for apples

 

It was a rainy and blustery morning, so we processed the apples we picked earlier in the week. We used the crusher destemmer and the hydropress, then bottled the juice and pasteurized it by heating it for 30 minutes at 85C. It is delicious! 

Just about done with the bagging

 

We are probably only about a week away from harvest and we are desperately bagging the Solaris grapes as they mature very quickly. It's surprising how fast they've come on. Intervals of rain alternating with intervals of sunshine have produced magic. But many of the Solaris bunches have only partial fruit with a lot of duds. I have to look up what caused that. I remember reading about it. There were no birds in evidence again suggesting that the kites are working. Let's hope because bagging is a pain in the arse. 

Hens and chicks caused by cool weather during flowering. 

The Chardonnay have no fruit that I could detect but almost every vine of Pinot Noir does. However, they are so far from mature that I expect it would take another month to harvest them. We have a NW wind coming tonight and it will bring cold temps. Not conducive to grape ripening. Aside from that, the vines look like they are going to sleep already. Also not conducive. Oh well. Concept disproven for now.