Making Repairs

The 2017 Icepocalypse has, so far, not materialized. In fact, some of the ice is melting today. The power is still on, and while we can't do anything outside, we can get plenty of winemaking done inside.

A patient brought me 30# of blueberries. The circumstances of the acquisition are suspicious but I didn't ask too many questions.

I already have a straight blueberry and a blueberry rosé in the carboy, so some of these berries are going into a quickie blueberry lemon wine.

This wine will be a quick, early drinker. It is not even worth a chapter, it's pretty cookbook. The rest of the morning was spent remedying various wines which have gone off the track.

Another patient gave me a huge batch of Arkansas Black apples. I pressed them off and made a straight juice, no water, Arkansas Black wine. The wine had been cleared, stabilized, and satisfactorily backsweetened, but it still had a musty smell which kept me from putting it in a bottle. Then I stumbled across this slide deck from Dominique Delteil detailing the use of Noblesse to clean up various problems in wine. The apple got 1g of Noblesse and astonishingly, it is much better. It's more "appley" with a longer finish and little to none of the mustiness it had before. Now I just have to clear it again before bottling.

The problem with the 2016 Blueberry wine was acidity. A pH of 3.07 might be fine for a Sauv Blanc but this wine was like eating a blueberry Sweetart. I've never used any post-ferment KHCO3, but this wine needed help. We bench trialed KHCO3 additions and landed on 1.5g/L. I treated the whole batch and cold stabilized it. Today I racked it; the pH is 3.37 and it is much smoother. I'm not yet sure that I didn't kill the aromatics and make it flabby.

The 2016 Syrah was made from California grapes. This wine has a couple of issues. First, it ended up too light. I should have cold macerated it. But for a light red it will be fine. The bigger problem is a lingering bitterness. The only thing I can think of is that maybe I overpressed it. I fined a portion with bentonite and albumin and it worked as advertised, the bitterness is completely gone! I treated the 5 gallon batch last weekend and today I racked it off the lees, with a plan to bulk age this until next fall. I have 8 gallons, and I intend to bottle some and use the rest for blending with elderberry and Chambourcin.

The biggest problem is the 2016 Lemongrass Mint wine. It developed a slight off odor during fermentation which seemed to improve with splash racking. However, a month later the smell was back, worse than ever. I suspected a H2S problem. I tried the usual splash racking and sulfites, no joy. I then treated it a month ago with Reduless which initially didn't seem to do a thing. I was one step from pitching this wine when today I went back to recheck it and lo and behold, it was much better! Not perfect, but improved. I racked it off the Reduless and dosed it with Noblesse to try to finish the cleanup. My last trick was going to be ascorbic acid and copper, but I may not have to do that.

The rest of the 2016 wines are coming along nicely. I have one more batch of elderberry rosé and that will be about it. It's a good thing, too, because I'm out of carboys and airlocks.

We have one more wave of freezing rain tonight, but we are no longer in the "crippling" zone and based on the appearance of our roof, I'm thinking we dodged a bullet.

I hope I don't need this

Fig Wine and Kansas City Cellarmasters

It is unlikely that my first fig wine will be entered in any wine competitions. But earlier this week I entered 6 bottles in the Kansas City Cellarmasters 2017 Wine Classic. From 2015, I submitted my blackberry, EB, lychee, lemongrass mint, and elderberry blush; from 2014, I sent the elderberry. Fingers officially crossed. 

Several months ago, Barb informed me that she had more figs than she could use. She kindly vacuum packed them and shipped them from Texas frozen. She has a white variety. I combined them with a small number of Chicago Hardy I grew in the greenhouse for a total of 6.5# of fruit.

The fruit was minced in the food processor.

I combined with 7.5 pints water, 0.2g Lallzyme EX, 1.3g Booster Blanc, 2g Opti White, 1/2t tannin, and 1kg sugar.

The pH was 6.06, adjusted to 3.64 with 1.5t tartaric and 0.5t citric acids. SG was 1.088. I used K1-V1116, my go-to yeast. I used some old energizer and nutrient because on the day I pitched the yeast I was feeling lazy. I fermented to dry in only about 5 days. I strained the fruit out, hit it with Kmeta, and moved it to carboys at 1.000. It is still fermenting, and I'll let it go another couple of days, then rack off of the gross lees and reduce the head space. 

I can tell already, this won't be a stellar wine. It's all about managing expectations.

2016 Wines - Chapter 11 - EB

Saying "Elderberry Blackberry" is awkward. I just call this wine "EB." I just today sent the 2015 EB to the Kansas City Cellarmasters 18th Annual Wine Classic. I like the 2015 version a lot, but now I've probably just jinxed myself out of a medal.

So it was time to make the 2016 EB. This time I changed the ratio from 40:60 to 30:70 and bumped up the fruit quite a bit, 12# of elderberries and 28# of blackberries.

The elderberries were simmered to reduce the green goo, and a few bananas added for body.

These were added to the blackberries...

...and everything was thawed, treated with Kmeta, and gently crushed. To this I added 1 cup heavy toast American oak chips, 6# sugar, Opti Red, pectic enzyme, and Lallzyme EX. The inital pH was 3.30, and I'm aiming for a smoother lighter red here, so I added 6 tsp of calcium carbonate. The SG was perfect at 1.090. Then it got a 3 day cold soak for the pectic and Lallzyme to do their thing.  

I used K1-V1116 on this wine, but now I'm regretting not using 71B. The ferment was extremely fast; it hit 27.4C and after only about 4 days was down to 1.008, so I pressed.

From 5.75 gal of must I ended up with 4 gal of free run and 1 gal of pressed wine. There is a lot of sediment however, and I expect to lose another gallon with the first racking in another week or so.