Pressing the Rondo

The Rondo stopped bubbling so we decided to finally press it and transfer it to demijohns. We moved the must from the steel fermentation tank into the hydropress. We used the yellow buckets (sterilised) to collect the juice. After the juice stopped flowing on its own, Alex activated the hydropress. We collected one full bucket of juice. 

Very dark red. Nice scent. Bland taste. I tested the Brix and it came in at 9 but quite unclear. Specific gravity came in at 1.000. That shouldn't be. We transferred into two demijohns using the stainless steel funnel and a large glass measuring cup (all sterilised). The room temperature went from 20.7 to 21.8 while we worked. 

While cleaning up, we ran out of hot water, so we'll have another round of clean-up tomorrow. 

The weather yesterday was filthy and today lovely. Cool this morning -- almost nippy -- so we collected many of the vulnerable potted plants and transferred them to the polytunnel. The temperature hit 13.2C today compared with 16.5C yesterday and 18C for days before that. Unnatural.  

The vineyard is looking very colourful as all of the red grape vines have turned lovely colours. Curiously, the white vines remain green. 

The clear glass bottles arrived by courier today. The box was ripped and smashed but miraculously the bottles are intact. The green bottles and corks should arrive Friday.  Alex is next undertaking learning how to use the new equipment, especially the bottle washer and the heater. We won't be bottling for a while as we have to rack at least once, but I'm thinking of racking twice because the juice is quite cloudy. We'll see.

Making wine

Yesterday, we decanted and strained the Solaris must through cheesecloth in a sieve and squeezed all the remaining juice out of the grapes through the cloth. We measured specific gravity of 1.0075 so we don't have a long way to go. The liquid is quite cloudy so it will take some time to clarify in the demijohn. The tiny drops I tasted were actually quite good but strongly flavoured.

We had a lot more red must from the Rondo grapes so Alex devised a method of forming a ball in the cheesecloth and squeezing it in his hands. We pondered whether we should make grappa but thought better of it. 

Again the specific gravity read 1.0075 so we surmised we harvested a bit early. For next year, I have purchased a refractometer so we'll be a bit more scientific. Last year, our Rondo came in at 1.02 so we had a long way to go to get to .99. This year, we won't have as much alcohol content. The juice tasted much sweeter last year. This year's juice is a bit harsh tasting but the smell is lovely. 

So we have one demijohn of white and two of red. That's getting better already. Now we wait. The trouble is, we have forgotten from year to year what we need to do. I suppose I should take a course. 

Harvest time and making wine

 

Alex holding a small bunch

Hey, great news. We had our first grape harvest after 5 years of waiting on Saturday, September 19th. This is what it looked like. The bags seemed to work. We had a sort of double-blind comparison.  We bagged many but left some. The bagged ones were much nicer than the unbagged ones which seemed to have been largely picked by the birds again. Some of the ones that hadn't been eaten, looked like raisins. But we got a yield of three buckets from the 5 vines.

About 3 buckets worth from 5 Rondo vines

I think we really did not expect a harvest as we hadn't read up on how to use the equipment I had bought last year. Our starter kit contained 2 monstrously large plastic vats (when compared to the volume of grapes), some sterilizer, a stirring paddle, some tubing, a sampling pipette, yeast packet, bottle washer, and hydrometer and graduated glass test cylinder. It did not contain Campden tablets. Campden Tablets are sodium metabisulphate, which prevents oxidation and bacterial infection when bottling wine or cider. It provides long term stability to the brew. So we are going without them for the first phase. 

Sulfites comprise a range of sulfur compounds -- particularly sulfur dioxide (SO2) -- that are a natural by-product of the fermentation process. They work as a preservative against certain yeast and bacteria which will quickly destroy a wine if they start to multiply. But fermentation alone doesn’t produce enough sulfite to preserve a wine for more than a few weeks or months in the bottle, so winemakers add extra in order to keep microbes at bay. A well-made dry red wine typically has about 50 mg/l of sulfites. Wines with lower acidity need more sulfites than higher acidity wines. At pH 3.6 and above, wines are much less stable, and sulfites are necessary for shelf-life. 

I sterilised all the equipment per instructions I found online, and I washed the grapes and discarded any that were unsuitable. A few were mouldy, so I picked them off and washed the rest. I hope that's what one does. Alex picked the grapes off the stems and put them in the sterilized vat.

I had bought a book for beginner winemakers and at least we found a recipe and instructions. We crushed the grapes partly by hand, and then I used the flat end of my wooden meat mallet, sterilized, of course, to complete the press. We were going to use the apple press but were advised against that by the book. 

The specific gravity was 0.9 and the goal was 1.09, so we estimated the amount of sugar water required and got to 1.1 on the first try. We were pleased with that. I placed the lid on with the airlock engaged.  It's good to have the first try of winemaking on a small batch. 

I ordered Campden tablets for the next phase so hopefully, we will be okay if whatever contaminant doesn't destroy the must. Plenty of people don't use Campden tablets if they are producing wine with naturally occurring resident yeast. I've also now ordered a 5L demijohn for the next stage and a second of everything that could be easily broken per the advice of another knowledgeable blogger. So now we stir and wait. 

Perfect little packages and very sweet

Some were picked clean

A few weren't quite ripe

Some even unbagged were lovely