Steps in making wine

The first step in making wine is planting the vines and tending to them for five years before expecting a harvest. You lose your first measly harvest to the birds because you decided to wait one more day for the sugar to increase around year 4. You get a small but encouraging harvest at year 5. Now finally in year 6, there are plenty of grapes because having learned your lesson, you've protected them from the birds using raptor kites flying above, shiny CDs hanging among the grape clusters, a scarecrow, and a metal heron standing tall below. Perhaps you wrap them in mesh bags or cover the whole vineyard with mesh. Finally, the day comes when they test ripe enough measured with a refractometer. We have finally experienced that pleasure. 

This is my new list of steps to making wine so I don't have to start from scratch next year. We have decided not to use Campden tablets or any chemicals in the process. We will use them only for the sterilisation of the equipment.

1. Harvest grapes - we found that needle nose anvil shears or Cultivation Scissors are the handiest
2. Rinse grapes and let them dry and sterilize all equipment
3. Press grapes to release juice called must (by hand, by Moulin, or by fruit press)
4. Measure specific gravity (SG)
1. Pour some juice through a sieve into the testing cylinder
2. Drop hydrometer into the liquid so it floats
3. Read the SG
5. Pour red crushed grapes into a sterilised brewing bucket
6. Cover the bucket and leave for 24 hours
7. Make yeast starter
1. Boil water and allow to cool
2. Dissolve 1 tbsp sugar in 1/2 cup of water
3. Add wine yeast to the sugar solution 
4. Cover and allow to bubble for about an hour
8. If SG <1.010 consider adding sugar.  Make sugar syrup with filtered boiled water to compensate for SG (see next post for calculations)
9. Add sugar syrup and yeast starter to grapes
10. Cover the bucket and leave at room temperature (or on a heated pad if necessary)
11. Stir bucket daily, pressing grapes down into the liquid as they rise
12. After 6 days, pass juice through muslin cloth in a sieve - squeeze all juice out of grapes
13. Measure SG
14. Pour the juice into sterilized demijohns - fill as much as possible to reduce contact with air.
15. Dissolve sugar in cool boiled water to compensate for SG (see next post)
16. Add sugar water to the wine in the demijohns and set aside at room temperature to settle and ferment for several weeks.
17. Use the plastic tube to siphon the wine into clean glass secondary fermentation containers. The purpose is to separate the wine from the sediment as it ferments. Called racking.
18. Continue racking for 2-3 months until the wine runs clear.
19. Run the wine into bottles using cleaned plastic tubing, leaving space for cork and a half-inch more
20. Insert corks or screw caps
21. Store upright for the first three days
22. After 3 days, store bottles on their sides ideally at 55 degrees F (13 degrees C).
23. White wine ready to drink after 6 months. Red wine should be aged at least 1 year.

The price of some wines

A customer of the new Nusr-et restaurant in London was shocked when he received a bill for more than £37,000. Salt Bae's restaurants are notorious for serving £700 steaks and £200 burgers. And yes, they ordered the Golden Tomahawk for £850 (was there really only one main course ordered?). But what sent this customer's bill soaring was the wine. First a 1996 Petrus for £9100, 2 bottles of Petrus 2003 for which they paid £19900 and 2 bottles of Dom Perignon Rose for £1620. There were 4 guests at the dinner after all. That's a lot of wine for 4 people. Even the Norwegian water was super pricey. And it's all just made that restaurant famous! 

After all, Chateau Lafitte-Rothchild 2010 goes for €13070 a bottle. Château Mouton Rothschild 2005 a mere €11530 a bottle including VAT. On Google, 6 bottles of 2003 Petrus can be obtained for the bargain price of €24430, if you can source it. Château Margaux 2005, 1er cru classe Bordeaux, feels like a steal at €6,790 incl. VAT for a case of 6 bottles. That's €1,131.67 / Unit. 

Of course, the 15% service charge accounted for almost £5000. I hope they got what they paid for. 

I think I will investigate the second wines of Bordeaux. An explanation on Millesima.ie:

'Second Wines : Key Points

"Second Wines", typical concept of Bordeaux, do enjoy the same terroir and the same care as their elder siblings. The main difference lies here in the age of the vine. Replanted parcels, dedicated to produce the "Grand Vin" in a few years' time, will be used to create the Second wine. It offers a different interpretation of a wine by its producing estate. The know-how remains identical, whether considering the process followed in the cellars, maturing methods or bottling. In great vintages, such 2nd wines enable to assess and enjoy the style and quality of great names from Bordeaux at more affordable rates.'

Vineyards in Denmark

Maybe we are not so crazy. I had no idea there were vineyards in Denmark. Whereas we are Europe's westernmost vineyard, they are touting being Europe's northernmost vineland. Since 2000, they have been making wines in Denmark. There are four key regions: Jutland, Funen, Zealand and Bornholm.

We started in 2015 in Mayo. There are vineyards now in counties Dublin, Wicklow, Wexford, Waterford, and Cork. We are not yet producing thousands of bottles, but hey, it's a start and you never know. 

Sediment settling

 

Day 2 and the sediment is already settling and the juice clarifying. This stage is called racking. Why I don't know. But from here, we will use gravity to siphon the liquid from the top and leave the sediment behind. One does this usually about a week into the racking. Then again until it's as clear as you want before bottling. 

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. 

Extra-tropical cyclone Sam

Hurricane Sam barreled across the Atlantic as a category 4 storm. Fortunately for us, it started to weaken in the colder waters north of Bermuda and was stopped from a full assault on Ireland by the high-pressure system that's been sitting over us for some time. 

But that did not stop the bands of heavy rain from coming down on us. It's also unusually warm. Suddenly, all the windows in the house steamed up -- from the outside. That means the humidity and temperature in the air outside was much higher than inside. Very strange phenomenon. 

What is all this going to mean for the vineyard? Not sure. But I certainly am grateful this did not happen before harvest. Thankfully, there's very little wind or the vines would have been whipped around and possibly snapped as they are still fully in leaf. 

And I managed to get most of the grass cut and removed before the rain. Thank goodness. It's going to take a long time to dry out from this. 

Our grapevine for eating grapes Vitis Vanessa is in the ground in the polytunnel next to one of the supports. It will grow deep into the earth there and get moisture from the surrounding ground so I won't have to water it. It is hardy and self-pollinating but will mature sooner in the polytunnel than outside. At least that's the theory. 

A Canadian-bred, early dessert variety, Vanessa is well adapted to cooler climates like ours and is one of the hardiest of the seedless grapes. It will succeed outdoors in the warmest areas against a south-facing wall but may do better and ripen earlier if planted undercover.  

• Site: Sheltered and warm
• Soil: Any reasonably fertile, well-drained soil
• Position: Full sun
• Pick: Late September
• Keep: A few days
• Hardiness: Hardy
• Pollination: Self-fertile
• Uses: Eating, juicing

Purchased from Future Forests.

Grape on the right in the black sleeve (no bottom)

Wildflowers took well on the south side of the tunnel.

Solar panels to mitigate climate change

A very clever French vineyard has installed solar panels overhead in their vineyard to shield the vines from heat in the summer and insulate them from extreme cold in the winter. The panels rotate to allow more exposure on darker days. The panels don't just shield the grapes. They shield the ground beneath them reducing temperature around the vines. Of course, the solar panels also produce energy output on sunny days while the crops grow beneath them. 

Apparently, this is being experimented with in other agricultural applications as well. Sun’Agri, the company developing the technology, processes weather data and determines when to shade the crops and when to rotate the panels to give the crops more sunlight. The panels deliver power to the grid which powers about 650 homes in the vicinity.