Preparing to Grow some Grapes

Vineyard installation got underway this weekend in the back pasture. We finally fenced out the cattle a couple of weeks ago. Last week I brought home 4000' of high tensile 12.5g wire, 14 9' fence posts, and 14 earth anchors. Amazon had wire vices. A1 Rental had the auger and earth anchor driver. My good friends Bob and Shawn proved invaluable.

The earth anchors went in surprisingly well. Twice they stuck, but a 1" galvanized 6' pipe allowed us to get those last two all the way in.

It doesn't turn very fast, but it has a kick

We haven't had much rain, so there was a bit of a hardpan which made digging the post holes slow going at first. But once through the top 12" the auger chewed through the moister soil easily. 

Stretching the top wire proved to be a challenge. The first two methods were ineffective. But Bob earned every bite of his grilled cheese sandwich when he came up with an improvised wire reel using a garden cart. 

The wire went up easily for the last 6 rows.

Bob and I tamped in the posts at 65 degrees. We attempted installation of the tiebacks using the inline wire strainers. It turns out we were missing an important tool. 

You can't install a vineyard without this

The inline wire strainer ratchet can be found at Orscheln's for $6. On Sunday I made the lower part of the tiebacks in the workshop, then moved out to the vineyard to finish up.

The soil analysis came Saturday in the mail. The pH is 5.5. I need a lot of lime and a little potash, phosphorus, and nitrogen. I hope to till these in next weekend so I can hang the lower wire before it gets too cold.

A special thanks to Bob and Shawn for helping Saturday. My winery is open to you both any time.

2016 Wines - Chapter 6 - Pinot Grigio

I bought two things from St. Louis Wine and Beermaking, Syrah grapes and a juice pail of Pinot Grigio.

I hope the wine is as awesome as the label on the bucket

This wine started with some crazy numbers. I rechecked twice, and repeatedly got pH 3.01, SG 1.088, TA 0.4%. I didn't tweak the juice, but added K-meta, OptiWhite, and some pectic, then pitched QA 23. My plan was to ferment this as cool as possible, under 20C. However, I pushed the temp down before the yeast really got rolling. So two days later it was still puttering along around 1.078. I let it come up to 23C to get the yeast going, then put it back in the ice pack bath, keeping it down around 21-22C. With that help it steadily dropped to 1.006 on day 8, when it got racked to a 6.5 gallon carboy.

I don't know yet if I'm a fan of juice pails. There was relatively little interaction with this wine - it was a little too easy.

2016 Wines - Chapter 5 - Syrah

We got swept up in the moment 2 weeks ago at St. Louis Wine and Beermaking and bought a juice bucket of Pinot Grigio and 3 lugs of Syrah. Doing so further violates our "locally grown" winemaking precedent, but extending our winemaking boundaries requires sacrifices.

We crushed and destemmed at the shop. The volume would have required splitting the batch, so I picked up a larger fermenter. Once home, we added a small dose of Kmeta and took some measurements. SG was 1.102, pH 3.65, and TA 0.5%. We added 30g of tartaric acid, 6g Opti Red, and 12t pectic enzyme and let it macerate overnight.

The following day we pitched RC 212. This yeast is supposed to have higher nutrient requirements, but usual step feeding with Fermaid K resulted in an uneventful, steady fermentation. Temperature peaked at 29.4C. By day 6 it was down to SG of 0.998. On day 8 Jake helped me press.

We got just under 9 gallons. After racking off the gross lees I expect about 8 gallons. We'll MLF with CH16, give it some oak, and age this for a year.

2016 Wines - Chapter 4 - Chambourcin

I'm not going to lie, this wine has me a little nervous. It is my first red from grapes and first MLF. But I did not chose this wine or these grapes, they chose me. Thank you, Books Vineyard.

Lisa and I destenned the grapes by hand the day they were picked, then gently crushed them. We got 6 gallons of must. The original numbers were 1.082 (~20 brix), pH 3.01, TA 0.85%. Just tasting the grapes, I would not have guessed that the acid was quite so high. I treated with a small dose of Kmeta, then 5t pectic enzyme, 5g Opti Red. The pH came to 3.55 with 10t of calcium carbonate. Then 2 days of cold maceration.

After the must warmed, I pitched a starter of Montrachet. Fermentation took off, and the wine seemed to color up nicely. I step-fed Fermaid K. By day 7 it was down to 1.000. I needed the bucket for grapes the following day, so we pressed.

We got 3 gallons of free run and almost 2 more gallons with pressing. The plan is to let the wine go completely quite, rack off of the gross lees, then pitch WLP675 which arrived last week.

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.

Blue Apron and Some Homemade Wine

Is this cheating?

We received our first shipment of Blue Apron last week. We signed up for the two person plan, with which you get three different meals. Our first dish was cheesy grits and shrimp. My only complaint was that we needed a second green onion. Tasty!

The second dish was a corn, tomato, ricotta pasta dish which I thought was decent, not excellent.  The third was Asian chicken with bok choy and a cucumber-ginger salad, my favorite of the week.

We supplemented with a little tomato salad

Each of these meals has about 15 minutes of prep work and 15-20 minutes of cooking time. The portions are almost perfect for us, but we could use slightly less in the way of carbohydrates. I like the fact that we end up with meals and ingredients we otherwise wouldn't try.

Is it cheating? Not in terms of cooking. It is cheating in terms of shopping, and I'm fine with that.

We had two very nice homemade wines this past week. The 2014 elderberry blush continues to taste like the best wine I've ever made. I have about 3 bottles left and when it is gone, there will be sadness. We also tried the lychee wine. The first pour is not impressive, but after some time it opens up, and it turns out to be a very nice wine. Thankfully I have plenty left; for some reason we didn't drink much this summer. Hopefully it ages well and the supply lasts until next summer. 

2016 Wines - Chapter 2 - Blueberry

I'm tickled with last year's blueberry, my only disappointment being that I only have 1 gallon. This year, I made several adjustments to the recipe and we made a 3 gallon batch.

Planning this batch required more mathematics than is typical. I wasn't sure what the yield of pressed blueberries was expected to be. I originally estimated 18# of blueberries for 6#/gallon if I got the water addition and the final volume right. I will spare the details, but my calculations indicated that I should get 1 gallon from 12.8# of berries. Because I have plenty, I bumped to 20# of berries, which were thawed and hit with K-meta. To hit 3 gallons, 1.44 gallons of liquid was required. Of this, 36 ounces was Alexander's Merlot Concentrate. This stuff is 68-Brix-sweet-goodness and I imagine it would be tasty on ice cream. In the wine, it should be an improvement over Welch's. The remaining 1 gallon and 20 ounces was water. It was all left in the bucket overnight to finish thawing.

The next day the blueberries were gently crushed. 550g of sugar brought the SG from 1.062 to 1.080; I didn't want to overshoot, as a further increase was expected as the fruit releases sugar. I added 3g Opti-Red and 3t pectic enzyme. The pH was 2.91 and increased to 3.37 with 4t of calcium carbonate. The must was left at room temp to macerate for another 24 hours.

After 24 hours on the pectic enzyme, the numbers had changed somewhat.  SG 1.072, surprisingly. I bumped to 1.085 with another 390g of sugar. The pH dropped back to 3.01, so with another 2t calcium carbonate it came up to 3.27. It was good looking, great smelling must. I pitched a starter of Montrachet and we soon had a nice cap.

Unfortunately despite perfectly timed step feeding, this wine struggled to get to 1.022 where it stuck. I pitched K1-V1116 on day 7.

By day 8 it was at 1.012 and dropping. I was tied up the following night, so I pressed it and moved it into carboys.

The volume will be spot on by the time we account for losses from racking. I'm excited about this wine!