2016 Wines - Chapter 3 - Catawba Rosé

I don't care for the name "Pink Catawba." Therefore this wine shall be known as Catawba Rosé.

Three years ago Lisa and I picked Catawba and Vignoles grapes from the Books vineyard a mile down the road. I pressed the Catawba off right away using an old apple cider press loaned to me by a friend. The pH was 2.93, yet somehow it fermented, and I spent the next 12 months trying to correct a foxy, unbalanced wine. I tamed the foxiness with some infusion of passionfruit and grapefruit, and I finally loaded it with enough sugar to barely balance the acid. Now it is drinkable, but it is not a relaxed wine. It is a strong, muscular, busting-at-the-seams wine, almost too much for a table wine. It is a wine which needs to just chill; that's why we drink it with an ice cube in the glass.

I think the Books have had a couple of not-so-great harvests recently, but this year we got the call to come pick again. Lisa couldn't go, and the picking window was very short, so I went out late in the evening as the sun was casting long shadows already. I took three buckets and filled two with Chambourcin, one nearly with Catawba before it got too dark to see. As thanks, I took a 2014 Elderberry and the 2015 Lychee.

Catawba foreground, Chambourcin in the back.

When I tasted the Catawba grapes it became obvious to me why they probably need some skin time. The pulp has all of the sweetness and foxiness. The skin not only has the tannins and color but also a taste character and complexity which I have to think will help the wine. So we made Catawba Rosé.

We destemmed all of the grapes by hand and gently crushed. I was a little disappointed in the final volume, which was about 2.5 gallons of must before pressing.

Use your feet!

The pH was originally 2.86. 4t of calcium carbonate brought it up to 3.41. The original TA was 0.75% and the SG 1.082. That night we also added 3t of pectic, 3g Opti White, and k-meta. It was left to macerate at room temp for 24 hours.

By the next day the native yeast had battled through the k-meta and we had some fermentation. I pressed off 1.5 gallons of nice pink must, and pitched a starter of QA 23. It was a struggle to keep the temperature down, it was a vigorous ferment.

The ice bath.

By day 5 the SG was 1.003 and I racked to carboys. The color is unexpectedly that of apple cider. Our final volume will likely be just north of 1 gallon. With tweaks, this should be a nice little batch of rosé wine.

Thanksgiving

For the first time in ages, all of the Pierce kids, Allie, Jake, and Adam, home at the same time.  Betty and Jake's friend Charli came, too.  It was a great Thanksgiving, and yes, it did involve a little wine and a little food.

We bottled Joe and Barb's loquat wine.  This wine is very interesting.  The fruit comes from Joe and Barb's loquat tree to the north of their house.  Jeanna and Charlie helped pick the fruit, and Barb carefully packaged the frozen loquats and shipped them so that they arrived in perfect shape.

When thawed and fermenting, loquat wine smells unmistakably like amaretto.  That is why some recipes call for the addition of almonds in the secondary.  The amaretto smell fades however, and by the time this wine was a couple of months old, unfortunately, the smell was gone.  I was left with a decent wine which was very troublesome to clear.  Time did the trick, and finally, at 16 months, it was ready for tweaks and bottling.

The tweaks were centered on restoring that amaretto smell the loquat had early on.  I bench tested almond extract and backsweetened, but finally settled on simply flavoring it with a tiny bit of amaretto liqueur...just enough to pick up the smell and hopefully no extra bitterness.  I figured that it was justified since after all, amaretto is Italian.

 

We also finally got around to my 5 gallons of white catawba.  This was hand made straight from grapes from the Books vineyard down the road.  This wine was challenging, however, because by the time Lisa and I got there to pick the ends of the rows, the grapes are a little past their prime, as the pH was a ridiculous 2.93.  What I should have done was adjust the pH right at the beginning.  I didn't know better, and I forged ahead, pressing the grapes and fermenting off of the skins for a straight white wine.

It was sharp!  So I tweaked.  In an effort to get some balance, I backsweetened it a lot.  I also gave it a tropical twist with a slight infusion of passionfruit in an attempt to counter the foxiness.  In the end, it came out pretty good.  It won't be a wine for pasta meals.  More likely a wine for spritzers and spicy Asian food.

We experimented with food as well.  We had the usual Pierce Thanksgiving dinner with turkey, dressing, strawberry jello, and 7-layer salad.  With the leftovers, we tried a new breakfast idea.  Leftover stuffing is pressed into a muffin tin to make a thick crust. Then an egg is cracked into the center.  We topped with leeks and cheddar cheese.  Bake for about 20 minutes or until the egg white is cooked.  Excellent.  Happy Thanksgiving.