Oysters and wine

As we happen to own a vineyard and have shares in the Clew Bay Oyster Coop, this article was super interesting. It tells of a winemaker cooperating with an oyster farm to pair a white wine with oysters and donate the proceeds to clean up the bay. What a great idea. Maybe we'll have to 'borrow' it. 

Cooper Mountain Vineyards and Hama Hama Oyster Company Announce the Release of Oyster White LD. The image is 'borrowed' from them. Except they have paired only with the Pacific gigas oyster. I think we'll need two different wines, both white. One to pair with the locally cultivated Crassostrea gigas as well as one to pair with the much more flavourful European oyster, Ostrea edulis. I think I'll set to work on the research right away. 

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.