Making wine

When wine drinkers become wine-makers

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 13:45:42 -0800

Sacramento is an important hub of the California wine industry, with wineries located in the Delta, Galt, Lodi, Yolo, and up and down the Foothills. These Wineries produce some great and unusual wines.

Sooner or later, a percentage of people who enjoy these wines tend to move toward making wine on their own.

As their taste palate increases for a better red or white wine, they tend to turn to home wine making. Do it yourself home winemakers often draft friends and fellow enthusiasts to help them. You bribe them with lots of other libations _ but only after the picking, crushing, pressing, and cleanup.

For this first of many articles on making wine, here's some background.

Commercial Winery:

The No. 1 one factor in making commercial wine is funding. There are considerable costs for: federal and state permits and filing process, winery construction (state permits, building location, building plans, building codes); purchasing or renting winery grape crushers, presses, containers, chemicals, yeast and grapes; . For cold room environment for fermenting and cold stability, pumps, hoses, filters, bottles, corks (and corker), labels, capsules, and storage facility to store all of the wood barrels or cases of wine.

Cost for Laboratory analyses, alcohol federal taxes, and state taxes.

Enough already, Let's us get back to the subject on making wine.

The best wine can be made from the best grape. This has been told and told again from old time winemakers, grape growers and academia.

From my experience and expertise, it takes a great winemaker to transform any wine grape variety into the best wine possible. And at times not just the grape, but what type of wine are you producing. Does the type of wood barrel create this extra ordinary wine, or just a few more days on the grape vine (I will discuss grape hang time in later articles)?

From the last week in July thru Mid-November, grape growers are out in the vineyards testing the grape for the proper Brix [sugar] (glucose, fructose, sucrose), using what is called a handheld refractometer. This instrument looks like a small telescope, which if you look inside you will see a scale of numbers reading from zero to thirty five (some handheld refractometer have higher scale). Located in the front of this instrument is a glass prism with a clear plastic hinge lid. Lifting the plastic lid and adding a drop of grape liquid, then slowly lowering the lid. Hold it up to sunlight you will see the amount of Brix [sugar] (glucose, fructose, sucrose) is in the grape.

When the winemaker decides at what Brix [sugar] is needed the grower or winery will schedule to harvest the grape.

Brix (Balling):

18.0 - 20.0 - normally for sparkling wine

20.0 - 21.5 - light fruit white or rose

22.5 - 23.5 - big white wine aged in wood barrel

23.6 - 24.5 - red wine great for aging

26.0 - 29.0 - late harvest, port(s), heavy red

Other United States Wineries and European Countries use either, Baume, Specific gravity to measure sugar in grape must, juice, and wine.

Winemaker will either use a commercial purchase yeast culture, or use wild yeast from the winery vineyard.

Note that when the winemaker has mention of wild yeast is used at the winery; the winery is using yeast that has been produced from all of the red pressed pomace. Pomace is then transferred back to the winery vineyard, either spread between the grape rows, or turned into compost, then spread. Next year, as the grape start to develop on the vine the yeast cells start to develop on the grape.

On a scientific (research project) note, when every winery throughout California is fermenting, yeast cells travel up and down the state with the pervading winds.

White and Rose wines are stemmed / crushed, and pressed. Transfer to container (glass, stainless steel, wood barrel), SO2 (sulfur dioxide) added and settled over night at around 60F(15.5C).

Next day rack (pump) clear liquid (must) into another container, add yeast (note if

fermentation does not start, move(if possible) to warmer room to start. Then move back into 60F(15.5C) room for primary fermentation

Carbonic Carbonation: whole red grape clusters are put into a fermenter with small amount of fermented yeast. The yeast cells ferment within the grape to produce a fruity wine. French call this "Nouveaux", first wine of the year.

Red wines are stemmed / crushed SO2 added (no SO2 added for wild yeast), some winemakers will cold soak at 60F (15.5C) the must (skins, seeds, and liquid) for one to a week to extract more color from the grape).

The must is transferred back to its fermenter at fermentation temperature of 80F

(26.5C), yeast strain added.

Some winemakers will wait longer before harvesting red grape varieties, this is called hand time. Some winemakers believe this gives the final wine quality. Yes, if the winery owns the vineyard, but costly for an outside grape grower. As the grape grower rely on the cost of grape tonnage.

This first of many articles are of the making of wine, your comments on any of these articles are for the readers to educate them on the winemaking and eventually tasting.

I would enjoy your comments on any subject, or on any other winemaking subjects

on grape, winery problems you would like to share.

Corks and screwcaps

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 07:49:36 -0800

When there were about 1,000 wineries in California and 2,000 throughout the United States, the cork industry was able to meet the "closure" demands with high quality corks.
Now with the number of wineries doubling or quadrupling, the cork industry is struggling to meet the demand _ at least with the high quality corks.
In 1997 the magazine Practical Winery & Vineyard surveyed the cork matter. The authors _ Michelle Bowen, Paul Wagner and Terry Tiff _ included these cork categories:

Grade A -very little porosity and no defects.
Grade B - more porosity and minor defects.
Grade C - moderate porosity and larger defects.
Grade D - ugly but functional.
Grade E - critical defects.

Because cork suppliers can't keep up with the demands for Grade A cork, there's no doubt that inferior quality corks are being used.

And here's the problem: As wine seeps into the more porous corks and stays there, that creates a bigger air gap inside the bottle. More air leads to quicker deterioration of the wine.

The lower grade cork with holes (from cork tree insects), channels, cracks, and heavy porosity, contributes to the "cork taint" (TCA or trichlorolanisole) and mold spores.

The wine industry is moving to use technical corks (agglomerate, composite cork), synthetic closures and screw caps.

Large wineries have used an aluminum thread cap with polyethylene liner for over 50 years. This type of closure works well with some wines _ mainly sweet wines fortified with alcohol, and for wines consumed within two years or less. Beyond that two-year time period, there's not much research.

Screw cap wines should be stored upright, not laid on their side like those with a natural cork. Corked wines need to have the cork in contact with the wine so the cork does not dry out.

Some wineries use metal (iron) screw caps with a polyethylene liner. The problem with the metal screw cap is rust, which weakens the liner. This causes the iron to come in contact with the wine, which extracts the iron back into the wine bottle, turning the wine black.

This brings us to the plastic closure. Synthetic closures and screw caps are recommended for wines that will be consumed within 5 years or less.

When I make a wine, such as a cab, from the best ingredients, I'm going to use a Grade A cork.

FARINIAS CONSULTING

Ernie Farinias

8258 Andalusian Drive

Sacramento, California 95829

(H) 916-681-6241

Email: ErnieFarinias@aol.com

A winemaker's winemaker

Tue, 20 May 2008 13:59:13 -0800

Hi, everybody. I'm Ernie Farinias and I'm going to blog about making wine.

Why me? I've been making wine for nearly 40 years. When I started I was actually too young to legally drink it.

For most of those years I was at the University of California, Davis, where I had many titles over the years: staff research associate, winemaker & cellarmaster, winery manager and safety coordinator. Unofficially, I was a developmental engineer and an extension enologist in the department. I taught a lot of people how to make wine. And I can teach you, too.

Even though I do no have a degree in viticulture or enology, I have worked with many of the pioneers of winemaking. When older UC Davis staff retired or left, I was promoted and received new duties as assigned. Each of these experiences gave me more knowledge. I read all of the winemaking, wine chemistry, and wine microbiology books I could find in the department.

As department winemaker, I made wine, must and juice for classes and student research projects. I assisted the students in how to make different styles of wines. Assisted oak barrel companies on the effect of non-toast vs. toasted oak in barrels, and its effect on different grape varieties. I also performed analysis of wines during different stages of aging.

As cellarmaster, I taught students the art of blending and refining wines, how to sterilize the bottles, corks, filter (sterile) the wine and bottle it.

As vinegarologist, I produced wine vinegar for the department for their use. I consulted with commercial vinegar producers, wineries, and other personnel on questions of how to start the vinegar process, and problems. I oversaw 18 laboratories for the safe use and storage of many hazardous chemicals

As a university extension instructor I have taught classes on weeknights and weekends for individuals who cannot attend traditional classes, such as "Step-by-Step Winemaking." It's a hands on class for beginning winemakers. "Introduction to Wine Analysis" teaches students to analyze wine.