Harvesting grapes for home winemaking in Malibu.
Chardonnay grape harvesting for home wine making is fun, but a lot of work so plan on spending a full day picking, crushing, de-stemming and pressing the grapes.
Harvest Brix (sugar) and PH readings should be checked the morning of the harvest. There are many books available on this subject that explain this testing much better than I, so I won't go into that here. You can also check home Brew and wine making shops in your area for more information. www.homebeerwinecheese.com is in the Los Angeles area and they have everything you need for home wine making.
Harvest Brix (sugar) and PH readings should be checked the morning of the harvest. There are many books available on this subject that explain this testing much better than I, so I won't go into that here. You can also check home Brew and wine making shops in your area for more information. www.homebeerwinecheese.com is in the Los Angeles area and they have everything you need for home wine making.
We're lucky where we live because we have enough land to grow our own grapes... but you only need a backyard to grow grapevines. Once established they are an easy to manage.
Picking
Fruit of our labor... pardon the pun.
Pouring grapes in the Crusher - de-stemmer with the help of my brother-in-law, Richard.
Out comes slightly crushed grapes without their bitter stems.
My sister, Lynda, is stirring in Potassium metabisulfite, a common wine or must additive, in which it forms sulfur dioxide gas (SO2). This both prevents most wild microorganisms from growing, and it acts as an antioxidant, protecting both the color, and delicate flavors of wine. This dissipates over time... during the wine making process. There is a great article, Solving the Sulfite Puzzle" in Wine makers Magazine if you are interested. We try to keep our additions to a minimum.... and stay as bio dynamic as possible.
http://www.winemakermag.com/stories/article/indices/34-sulfite/634-solving-the-sulfite-puzzle
Nothing is waisted ... these stems will go in our organic compost.
Getting ready... cleaning the press...
Pouring a sanitising solution on the press... can't be too clean...
Press is assembled and the crushed grapes are poured in... the first juice (free run) gushes out... this is the premium juice.
Free run juice...
As the container fills we pour it in our stainless steel tank...
Oh yeah, I left out the part where everyone is pooped and want to be fed and sample some of the previous years wine.... The fun part!!!! Of course I was too tired to take pictures of that.Now you have a harvest dinner....
You let the juice settle over night keeping it cool... Then syphon it into another clean tank, add yeast nutrient, then in goes the yeast... Below is a picture of white wine fermenting.... It smells great. I'll post more on this part of the wine making process in my next post.
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