Archive for the ‘Wine Making’ Category

I know of a few fly anglers that also make their own wine. Jack Keller is one, and so is Ernie Kalwa, the Captain of the Fly Fishing team (The Osprey’s) that I used to be a member of. Not sure which one of us ties the better flies, but I know it’s not me! Although I do enjoy doing that. Today and yesterday, I had two good days to combine my two hobbies. And one advantage a home winemaker has if they’ve brought a fish back to eat for dinner is that wine selection is not difficult. Whatever is there! For me, the bottle of Liebfraumilch was a good pairing with the baked trout and rice I made. And on top of that, the fly that I caught the trout on yesterday was made with hair from my Maltese dog named Rudy. You can read about the afternoon fly fishing here.

Winemaking activities included racking and degassing. The maple wine I started on May 5 is expelling lots of co2 gas still, even though the fermentation is complete. The specific gravity was at 0.996 yesterday when I racked it – it’s cleared nicely on it’s own since the last racking on May 28th. It has a very interesting taste – I just had very teeny sip of it, and could taste maple candy – but without the sweetness. I’m looking forward to seeing how this will age a few more months.

I started three wine kits two weeks ago – a Chamblaise and two Vieux De Roi. All are four week kits – I generally use 8 week kits for red wines but I wanted some Vieux De Roi and it was only available at the time in the more economical priced version. I noted that these two kits in the instructions called for 14 days in the primary fermenter. Anyhow, these three kit wines were racked and degassing is on going in all of them before I add the fining agents.

Then there is that potato wine! I’ve had a few interesting questions and comments about that. Like, “what does it taste like?” Yesterday, I racked and checked the specific gravity which was 1.002. It does taste a bit sweet – I’ll have to check my records on that one, but otherwise it is pleasant. I am reluctant to describe its taste just yet as it was only a very small amount and not quite what I expected or can really identify. The demerara sugar certainly has left it’s mark though.

The other day, I was snooping around some “stuff” I had and discovered two more wine kits I had forgotten about! They were purchased about September of 2007, just before I headed off to Grande Prairie, Alberta for the Canadian Fly Fishing Championships. I guess I had meant to start them upon my return, but totally forgot I had them. Both are Cru Select RQ’s: a Montepulciano Cab Merlot, the other Unoaked Chardonnay. I’m hoping and believing the juice will be fine but I will use fresh yeast when I start them, probably in about two weeks from now.

So there’s another connection between fly fishing and winemaking. One can get in the way of the other at times! Actually, it wasn’t the fly fishing that distracted me from these two kits back in 2007…

Have you ever looked at your airlocks popping up and down as carbon dioxide gas is being released and wondered just how much co2 you might be responsible for generating? There was an interesting discussion started by a user “Dhorton” at the WineMakingTalk forum who was wondering if there was any concern in regard to co2 amounts in their apartment as a result of making wine at home.

Apparently, since Dhorton began making wine, their smoke/carbon monoxide detector was activated a few times. I imagine the detector detects carbon monoxide specifically, and there could be a number of reasons for false alarms including humidity, dust and even bugs getting into the unit. But to a new winemaker, I can understand the concern seeing all these carbon dioxide bubbles coming up and wondering if the quantity is enough to affect the air inside.

An engineer, “Kiljoy” who admits to having too much time on his hands responded to the forum thread and figured that one gallon of wine with a specific gravity of 1.09 would release about .07433 lbs. of carbon dioxide per day over a 14 day fermentation period. The calculations then went on to show that this was a negligible amount, even in a small apartment.

Later in the thread, a link to a blog post that discussed carbon dioxide emissions by breweries was posted. In that post, Pablo concludes:

“Maybe this doesn’t sound like much, but let me put it in perspective: in 2004, Americans drank 23.974 billion liters of beer, resulting in 1,491,182 mT of CO2 emissions. Global beer consumption in 2004 was 150.392 billion liters, resulting in 9,354,382 mT of CO2 emissions. For a little something more to think about, the US emitted a total of 1,446,777,000 mT of CO2 in 1996. Now, keep in mind that this is based on an assumption of a brix value of 12. The average beer may be a bit weaker than that. Feel free to plug in your own assumptions to see what you get. Either way, the CO2 emissions from brewing are not negligible.”

Well, it seems to me that Pablo’s logic might be a bit off if he is suggesting that the brewing industry alone is responsible for this. Bare in mind that we are talking about emissions from the fermentation of organic material that contains sugars. I could be wrong, but I think that there would still be quite a bit of CO2 even if it wasn’t used in the brewing or winemaking industry – as the stuff rots it would likely release plenty of CO2. Humans release CO2 in their farts after eating organic plant material so either way – fermented or digested, or left to rot, CO2 will likely be produced. I’m just not sure if it would be in the same quantities – does simply rotting matter convert sugars to CO2? What I’m saying is that this plant material would release CO2 in time, whether it’s fermented or not.

In my opinion, trying to put some blame or pin global warming causes to include brewing or fermenting is a bit much. I don’t think home winemakers have anything to worry about, even if they do put great stock in theories about CO2 emissions and global warming.

I recently wrote about the homemade maple syrup wine that I started on May 5, 2009. On May 14th, I racked it to a carboy with the specific gravity at 1.016.

Since then, it has begun to clear nicely and the colour is very interesting. It’s a very autumn or fall looking colour – the colour of some maple leaves after they have turned their colours at that time of the year. It’s hard to describe exactly, but perhaps vermillion .. or light cinnamon might be descriptive enough.

Although the SG was 0.997 last week, it is still showing signs of fermentation with lots of CO2 rising through the wine and the airlock continues to bounce every so often.

I’m going to let it continue doing what it is doing for another couple of weeks, then measure the SG, rack and likely add sulfite.

About a year ago, I had a friend who “makes” wine at a local store (in other words, my friend pitches the yeast and then helps with the bottling – all the work is done by the store) give me a bottle of a Gewurtztraminer that he had “made.” The bottle was 375 ml in size. I know some folk who will bottle some of their wine in these small size bottles, and I do the same at times. However, a comment on Jack Keller’s blog got me to thinking a bit more about when and why I choose 375 ml over 750 ml, and when I might even select magnum size bottles.

Jack’s comment:

“A preface. I do not put all of my mead in 375 mL bottles, even though I know many do. I only fill two 375 mL bottles with each mead, and these are for tasting to see if the mead has aged enough to drink. I enter full, 750 mL bottles in competition unless 375 mL bottles are actually required, which they rarely are. You do as you desire.”
~ Jack Keller (Scroll down to the May 22nd, 2009 entry)

Personally, I’d never give anything less than a 750 ml bottle of wine as a gift if I’ve made wine from a kit that makes 23 litres of wine. It just seems “chintzy” to me. However, there are times when I do consider a 375 ml bottle for both gift purposes and my own use. I have my own arbitrary thoughts about it and as Jack says, “You do as you desire.”

First, I seldom bottle into 375 ml or magnum size bottles. Most of my wines and meads go into 750 ml. But then, most of my wines are 23 litre (5 Imperial gallons). I like the standard 750 size, and corking them is easy. Corking the 375 ml bottles with my Portuguese floor corker is a bit awkward – I need to put a block of wood over the bottle stand in order to give them enough height to be corked. And that means I also need to hold them steady. As well, obviously there are more bottles to be filled when using 375 ml.

When I do bottle into 375 ml size bottles, it’s when I’ve made 3 or less gallons of a particular wine or mead, or when I’ve made something exceptional and I’d like to be able to give away as many as possible to friends and clients while still keeping a good amount for myself. For example, a few years ago I made a 5 gallon batch of blackcurrant wine that turned out to be like heaven. That went into 350 ml bottles – and many were given away. The recent Kiwi Melomel that I made was 3 gallons, and it too turned out exceptional, so I have all of it in the smaller size bottles.

As far as magnum size bottles, the only time I can think of that I’d consider bottling into those would be if I was making wine for some special event where there was a corkage fee for bringing my own wine instead of purchasing the wine provided by the venue. If I were trying to save costs, then reducing the number of bottles that needed to be opened might be a time I’d think of magnums.

But then, that’s just another advantage of home winemaking. You can choose whatever size of bottles you’d like to use for whatever your purposes or reasons are. One caution though: smaller quantities might be more susceptible to temperature changes when aging your wine. Just as wine in a 5 gallon carboy won’t be as susceptible to temperature variations while aging as much as wine in a 750 ml bottle will be, wines in 375 ml bottles will be more susceptible than that in 750 ml bottles.

When making wine at home, the usual expression that is used to describe this is “home winemaking.” When making beer, folks will often refer to “home brewing.” In actual fact, “brewing” technically speaking refers to steeping something with heat. Think of “brewing a cup of tea.” Recently, I’ve seen some websites refer to making wine as “wine brewing.”

When folks make beer at home using a simple beer kit containing malt extract and yeast, and no heating is required, it’s not really a “home brew.” The brewing has already been done and all the home beer maker needs to do is add water to the malt extract. When a home beer maker purchases all the necessary ingredients, whether it is a kit form or not, and is required to heat any of the ingredients like the hops and barley, then technically that person is “brewing” beer.

Winemaking is often referred to as “vinting.” Therefore, a home winemaker is a home vintner.

Not that I’m fussy about technical labels, but it does seem weird to me to see making wine referred to as “wine brewing.”

From looking at my referrer logs and some of the questions on other website forums and blogs, there seems to be a good deal of interest in the use of potassium sorbate in home winemaking. Some of the answers I’ve seen to the questions show that there is a lack of understanding about what exactly potassium sorbate does, and when it is required.

For example, one “expert” recently responded to a question about potassium sorbate, suggesting it was necessary to add it to all wine to prevent a malolactic fermentation in the future. At a reasonable rate of addition to keep yeast from reproducing and starting a new yeast fermentation, it is still possible for lactic acid to reproduce and renew a malocatic fermentation. Indeed, winemakers are warned to not add potassium sorbate to wines that have had a malolactic fermentation in case the lactic acid bacteria become active again. Wines that have been sorbated and then undergo malolactic fermentation will end up with a very unpleasant geranium smell.

When I first began learning about how to make wine at home, I had the mistaken impression that potassium sorbate killed yeast. This is what some of the literature says or implies. However, this is simply not true. What it does do is inhibit yeast reproduction.

With this in mind, we can better understand when potassium sorbate is required and when it is not.

However, if you are new to winemaking and are following instructions of a recipe or a wine kit, and it says to add potassium sorbate to your wine, I would recommend that you do so until you have more experience and know for sure that your wine has fully fermented to dryness. Ignore for now the rest of what I’m going to write, and follow the instructions to the letter. I do not want you to have corks exploding out of the bottles due to a renewed fermentation going on after you’ve bottled your wine! Neither do the makers of the wine kits, and they don’t know for sure that you’re going to ensure your wine ferments fully, or that you know how to read a hydrometer, or that other issues might arise during the fermentation process causing the wine to not ferment fully and have just about all of the sugar consumed. That is why they instruct you to add potassium sorbate.

Having said that, what is the argument against using potassium sorbate when it is not needed? Some people claim that it can leave a “bubblegum” taste – sometimes referred to as a “wine kit” taste. I personally have never detected this, and scientific literature suggests that potassium sorbate is taste neutral. Even if it is taste neutral, I’d prefer to add as few additives as possible, so if it’s not necessary or the risk is very low, I don’t add them.

So now that we know what potassium sorbate does, when is it required and when may it be omitted?

First, it is not required when fermentation has been complete, ie. it has fermented fully dry with only a trace or zero amount of residual sugar. As long as there will be no back sweetening, there is nothing in the wine for the yeast to begin consuming to turn into alcohol and carbon dioxide. So even if there are still some viable yeast cells, they can’t do anything as far as starting up a renewed fermentation goes.

You SHOULD add potassium sorbate when:

1. You’re new to home winemaking, and you’re following instructions.
2. You’re wine is off-dry to sweet which means there is more than a trace amount of residual sugar.
3. You’ve fermented your wine dry, but you are going to sweeten it with a sugar based sweetener before bottling. This includes honey as a sweetener as well.
4. If you’re unsure.

You should also consider that potassium sorbate works better with the addition of sulfite.

For advanced winemaking, the higher the alcohol content, the lower the amount of potassium sorbate that is needed to inhibit yeast activity. In other words, if you add the amount of sorbate that comes with your wine kit accidentally before you add the yeast and ferment it, there is still a very good chance the yeast will not be affected much by that amount of sorbate and will probably reproduce and ferment your juice into wine. Of course, it’s best to try not to have accidents in the first place. But I did read recently the account of a winemaker who thought he had ruined his wine kit by accidentally putting sorbate into the juice instead of yeast. The faulty advice given to him was that his kit was ruined – however, it was not ruined and when he added yeast, they did their job fine.

The British Columbia Amateur Winemakers Association has published an article by Bill Collings which states:

“Assuming that proper levels of free SO2 are maintained and the pH’s are within the desired ranges, sorbate additions can be determined by the estimated alcohol of the wine. The following table is based upon the percentage of alcohol in the wine:”

% alcohol sorbate addition
10 0.20 g/l
11 0.17 g/l
12 0.135 g/l
13 0.10 g/l
14 0.07 g/l

Source: Potassium Sorbate

For those making non-kit wines, this is a handy guideline to have when the addition of potassium sorbate is required.

We didn’t see fireworks, but we got a lot of “home winemaking” accomplished, the “wee man” and I. Here in Canada, it is the “May 2-4″ long weekend where the Monday before or on the 24th of May is a holiday to celebrate the Queen’s birthday. It’s not really Queen Elizabeth II’s birthday, but rather Queen Victoria’s day of birth. Traditionally, the holiday is celebrated with fireworks in the evening, and in the past, the Town has had a fireworks display about ten minute drive. Tonight, we drove up there but there was nothing. Many were confused about this year’s May 2-4 long weekend because it came so early. Some were thinking that it was next week that the holiday weekend landed on.

Perhaps the Town was confused too. Or maybe the recession cut into celebrating Her Majesty’s birthday this year. Regardless, the “wee man” David and I did not see fireworks this evening.

When I first learned how to make wine, the wee man wasn’t around. But ever since he could walk, he’s been trying to help me. If you check out this post over here, you’ll see photos of him, taken almost 4 years ago. He and I had a little “adventure” together, driving down from Orangeville to Beamsville, Ontario, when I picked up some Baco Noir must from a vineyard. Back then, he called grapes, “wine juice berries.” He was cute and a great little fellow back then. Today, he’s still cute and a great little fellow.

I decided to get the Dry Mead I had started in 2006 bottled today. That meant cleaning and sanitizing bottles, of course. I think David might grow up to be a home winemaking expert – he sure seems to enjoy sharing in all the tasks that need to be done. “Can I help make wine, Dad?” He doesn’t call me “Daddy” anymore. It’s “Dad.” He’s grown up, don’t you know!

I had about 30 bottles soaking to get old labels off, and then I sanitize and clean them using the water pressure thingamajigger that screws onto a faucet. And I have my sulphatizer beside it on the counter. The bottle tree is a few steps away, so David and I have a little routine. I clean and sanitize the bottles, hand two to David, and he puts them on the tree so they will drain and dry.

When the bottles are (mostly) dry, he helps bring them out to the kitchen where we line them up on the floor. While this, and the bottle sanitizing is going on, David is singing about “teamwork.”

It’s his job to count the bottles to make sure we have enough. As I fill the bottles, he colours the labels that get printed off. When the bottles are filled, he washes his hands and inserts the cork into the floor corker – always a step ahead of me – and I cork the bottles. We get things done in no time! Then it’s time to glue on the labels, and we’ve got a “teamwork” routine for that too.

Personally, I find the home winemaking task of cleaning bottles to be the least enjoyable part – but when I’ve got a helpful wee man helping me out, it does become a lot of fun!

Naturally, at 6 1/2 years old, there are other things he’d like to do including kicking soccer balls and learning how to dribble basketballs. So, we did take a little break and spent some time in the sunshine doing that together. And then he left me to my own devices to bottle the Kiwi Melomel that I started January 2, 2006. I had made three gallons and decided to bottle them into 375 ml bottles. It’s delightful! Although I think next time, I might add a bit more acid blend to it.

The only short size corks I had on hand were some synthetic corks distributed by Vineco. I don’t like them. I had three of them bend on me when trying to cork bottles, a few went far to deep into the bottle just because they slide that way, and well.. I don’t like them. But it’s what I had this evening. Ah well!

I have some work to do tomorrow, carrying cartons of mead to the basement. I know David will want to help with that too! I bet in about 20 years, I’ll be getting a phone call, “Dad! Come try this Kiwi Melomel I’ve been aging for three years!”

I’ve mused and written about trying to make Maple Wine at home. About a week ago, I mentioned that I had managed to get 1 Imperial gallon of dark maple syrup – the cost was $45.00 Canadian, and made locally here in South Western Ontario. It was fresh! Made just this past spring. But I was wondering what I would do with it to turn it into wine.

I basically followed John Gorman’s recipe – just added water to the gallon of syrup. But I made a mathematical error and added a touch too much water for the beginning specific gravity target that Gorman suggested: 1.120 to 1.130. My beginning specific gravity was lower – and I can’t believe I forgot to record it in my log book. But I did forget. But it was around 1.080, I do believe.

Basically, I poured the maple syrup into a primary fermenter, then added water to bring the level up to the 13 litre mark. I should have stopped at 12 litres. I then pitched EC-1118 yeast after I had rehydrated it along with 2 1/2 teaspoons of yeast nutrient. It’s been fermenting in the primary for the past week.

Today, the SG was at 1.016, and I racked it into a 3 gallon carboy. It’s a golden brown colour, and has strong aroma of maple syrup. Of course. I’m looking forward to seeing how this turns out. I’ll be sure to let you know!

Not only those who enjoy home winemaking, but even commercial wineries often debate the pros and cons of a variety of closures for wine bottles. Of course, cork has been traditionally used but today, there are a wide variety of closures available including synthetic, screw cap and now even ones made from glass by Vino-Lok. What’s the argument against cork? Mostly it’s been because of wines ruined by something called “cork taint,” usually referred to as the presence of TCA. Many believe that cork closures and how they are made and processed are a major contributor to TCA in wine.

But of course, there is even debate on this.

One of the arguments against non-cork closures is the belief that cork breathes while screw caps, synthetics, and of course glass, do not. The very slow transfer of small amounts of air through the cork closure is often cited as one of the ways wine ages – and why over time, SO2 levels decrease in bottled wine.

But does cork actually breathe? Dr. Richard Grant Petersen, Ph.D has written a two part article which appeared in Appellation America. Dr. Petersen postulates that it is virtually impossible for cork closures to breathe due to the fact that cork cells are 14 sided, and points out that sparkling wines that contain high pressure inside due to carbon dioxide don’t lose carbon dioxide through the cork – so how could air at much lower pressure pass through a cork closure (properly sealed of course) into the wine bottle?

It makes for an interesting article that home winemakers might want to have a look at.

Part 1 – “Please Stop Telling People That Corks Breathe

Part 2 – “Corks Do NOT Breathe”

Won’t get into the details – but an interesting, challenging, and tough week. Thanks to my family who where there for me. It meant a lot. More than I can say.

Hey, did I ever mention that I have an awesome 20 year old son named Alex who is a drummer in a Rock ‘n Roll band? Wise, Young & King is their name, and these guys are “GOOD!” That is, if you like the sounds of classic rock – and WY&K write all their own material. I’m listening to one of my favorite songs right now that has a LOT of meaning to me. I think this song was written especially for me sometimes. Or.. especially for “US.” It’s called “Angels Cry.” You can have a listen to it, along with a few other of their songs, here. Tell me what you think. They are all awesome, but of course, I’m especially proud of that drumming sound….

I was going to provide an update on my earlier Maple Wine that I started. My math must have been wrong, when I was checking the SG and adding water – I’ll write more on that when I go over my notes.

This evening, I discovered I had forgotten to add the Isokleer to the Liebfraumilch. I was wondering why it was still cloudy. This was an inexpensive kit wine that I wanted to make and bottle fairly quickly – six weeks to bottle – so I’d have some available for a special event that is/was to occur next weekend. Things are up in the air – we’ll see. Maybe. I don’t know.

I am still undecided as to how I will proceed with the “Special Wine” I’ve been carefully making and taking care of. Trying to decide when I will blend them together to age – or let them age as they are now, and blend later.

I always wished things could be perfect – even though I’m a realist and don’t expect it – but striving for it is good, no? Trying? Hoping? Mediocrity is something I’ve never settled for.

Ok.. back to Wise, Young & King!