Review and Rating: *** Chez Ray Rosso Grande “Kit” Wine, 2002

Posted by Ben in General, OtherDec 22nd, 2008 | No Comments Review: This is one of my earliest fermentation ventures, made from a kit Rosso Grande, now marketed by a firm called Cellar Classic.

The kit comes in the form of a bag of juice concentrate with tannins and other additives, along with required yeast, preservatives and the like. Although composed for six gallons, I made a five gallon batch, concentrating the flavors and adding more alcohol to the end result.

In the glass, it is dark magenta, virtually opaque. Looks like a young wine, despite its six years of age. Aroma has that sweetness which is characteristic of these kit wines.

On the palate, it provides a round sweet middle, brightened by a flash of everything cherry: black cherries, cherry cough medicine, cherry candy. The sweet cherry essence lingers for a bit, creating a modest finish. I'll give this three stars out of five. Not complex, but enjoyable. Doesn't need age, but I am curious about what age will do - it shows no bricking or thinning of flavor or anything that would suggest it is on the cusp of old age.

Lallemand Wine Yeast Guide

Posted by Ben in General, OtherDec 21st, 2008 | No Comments Lallemand has an excellent summary guide to wine yeasts here.

Yeast Comparison: Pasteur Red & Syrah

Posted by Ben in General, OtherDec 21st, 2008 | No Comments I'm in the process of putting together my yeast schedule for 2008 Brehm grapes. For the 2007 Chez Ray batch, I had an opportunity to ferment Stage Gulch Vineyard Syrah from Petaluma CA separately in Pasteur Red and Syrah yeast.

Here are my tasting notes as I consider which to pursue for this year:

Pasteur Red yeast:
Color: brick, lighter
Aroma: muddy, meaty
Palate: structured, old world, muted, grainy

Syrah yeast:
Color: deep, purple
Aroma: violets, bright
Palate: plum, lively, some layers

All in all, I would have to give the nod to the Syrah yeast if I needed to pick one. Although, truth be told, I do believe the Assmanshausen yeast may be the most interesting top-note yeast for syrah and zinfandel. Perhaps I'll mix that with a VQ15 or a BDX for the coming batch.

For most of the 2007 vintage, I mixed two yeasts in each bucket, punching the cap more or less straight down to stop the yeasts from intermixing too soon. That actually seemed to work fine for the most part. Good ferments, no stuck fermentations.

Seventh Annual Pittsburgh Wine Festival

Posted by James DeRosa in Events, GeneralDec 18th, 2008 | No Comments

The Best Book About Wine

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Why You Can’t Always Assume What Your Wine Is Doing

Posted by Scott Young in General, How To Make Wine, News, Other, Tips, fermentation, make wine, wine, wine making, winemaking, yeastDec 12th, 2008 | No Comments

With a number of batches of wine under my belt I subconciously must have felt that I could “sense” how my current batch of wine was progressing. I quickly found out that this was unfortunately not the case and here’s why!

I started working on a batch of white wine back in November and I made the mistake of rushing through the preparation so that I could just get it done versus enjoying the moment.

The one thing I didn’t cut corners on though was cleaning the equipment, which I had soaking in a pink solution overnight so I was good there.

I added all of the ingredients as I should except for the yeast …

The package suggested that I hydrate the yeast first but I felt it would be fine if I just sprinkled it onto the wine must (as other kits I had done said to do that so I figured I was good to go). 

I tested the S.G. and temperature and everything looked good.

I then added a brew belt to the primary and let things begin.

Now I typically judge how things are progressing with my wine by the yeast smell and the bubbling in the airlock and while there was definitely a yeasty smell after a few days I didn’t see much in the way of bubbling action going on. This was concerning!

I decided to leave the brew belt on for a few more days (due to the lower temperature in my basement) to see if that would help and it didn’t seem to.

Convinced that the fermentation was stuck I went to the local wine making supply store and bought more yeast in anticipation of having to start over again.

The guy at the store suggested that the wine was starved of oxygen so leave the lid on the primary unsealed to let oxygen in – this should help with the fermentation. He also clarified that you typically don’t have to rehydrate dry yeast with kits but you would have to with fruit wine since the since the juice wasn’t balanced for things like sugar levels or acid levels and therefore need a bit of a “kit start”. Thought that was interesting!

When I got home I decided to test the SG before I added more yeast fully expecting it to only have moved a little but was absolutely shocked to find out that the fermentation was completely finished! That’s right, it had feremented from 1.08 all the way down to 0.998 but had done it really “discretely”.

I absolutely couldn’t believe it! So just when you think you can sense how well your wine is doing, it’s best to get the real picture of what’s going on by double checking with some simple measurements like SG.

Certainly a lesson learned for me!

On a side note:

I had left the yeast packet in my jacket pocket and only realized this after I had put my jacket into the washing machine that was set to use warm water. Luckily I remembered this early on in the washing process and I can only imagine how my clothees would have smelt after being washed in warm water and yeast after 30 minutes …

*** Chez Ray Sangiacomo Vineyards Merlot, 2006, Carneros, Sonoma, CA

Posted by Ben in General, OtherDec 8th, 2008 | No Comments Review: The Chez Ray Sangiacomo Vineyards Merlot of 2006 is from Brehm Vineyards frozen grapes from Carneros, Sonoma, CA. The vintage was fermented cool, with Assmanshausen yeast.

In the glass, this merlot is light/medium ruby red - looking more like a pinot noir than a merlot. Aromas are fresh, clean and airy, like laundry flapping in the sunny breezes. Touch of ink - or is it Play Doh? Very pleasant.

On the palate, you first note a light, crystalline, high-pitched clean sweet berry. Just the faintest hint of tannins and acids follow. Finish is surprisingly long, given such a delicate start. Actually finishes with just a little touch of light milk chocolate. Three stars out of five on the Spirit of Wine scale.

***+ Chez Ray Lodi Syrah, 2003, Valley Oaks Vineyards, Lodi, CA

Posted by Ben in General, OtherDec 7th, 2008 | No Comments Review: This 2003 Chez Ray Syrah is made from fresh grapes from Valley Oaks Vineyards in Lodi, CA, fermented warm with Pasteur Red yeast, pressed at dryness.

Color in the glass is medium, rusty red, turning slightly toward brick at the edge. Aromas are modest, gutsy warm fruit, hint of oak, hint of vegetation.

On the palate, an even, clean, durable fruit middle is the first note, very nicely balanced with touch of oak, touch of tannin. Not a bunch of layers, not a bunch of depth, but the solid fruit throws off a clean, mineral tone that makes for a very complete sip. Finish is clean, fairly brief and fruit-dominated. Three stars on the Spirit of Wine scale, with a plus for balance.

Five years old and ready to drink now.

Question of the Week: Can You Use RO Water in Wine Making?

Posted by Scott Young in General, OtherDec 1st, 2008 | No Comments

I have a wine making friend and colleague (Greg) who I know through a local business group. He owns a local environmental company (Douglas Environmental Solutions) and he specializes in mold remediation as well as water quality.

At one of our meetings we discussed the use of reverse osmossis (RO) water for wine making as he makes wine himself and has access to this kind of water.

I’ve heard a lot of different opinions on water but here’s the general consensus. You could use tap water with wine kits but you risk having a chlorine taste in your wine. One thing you could do is let your water sit for 24 hours so the chlorine evaporates but then again you need to leave this open to the air so bugs could get in it. You could also filter your water but that’s a pain in the butt too. The best type of water to use is clean spring water as it has just enough trace elements in it that the yeast can use them as food.

The problem with RO treated water is that it’s “dead” so the yeast won’t have access to some minerals to act as food. I recently read that if you used RO or distilled water you could bolster the water with yeast nutrient so technically could use it.

You could use RO water to rinse your equipment (if you wanted to find a good use for the water) as RO limits adding bacteria or germs to the equipment after you’ve cleaned and sterilized it.

Here’s a good article that I found for you that can explain it in further details:

http://www.grapestompers.com/articles/winemaking_water.htm

Greg asked the author of the above article at GrapeStompers.com to clarify his position on water used in wine making and here’s what he said:

Using RO or distilled water to dilute a concentrate makes real sense to me as you are replacing what was removed. I don’t recall ever saying to add minerals to wine must as a general practice. I suspect the effect of using tap water is small unless your water is heavily mineralized with calcium.

Calcium can precipitate out tannins affecting taste and color. For example, if calcium carbonate is used to remove acid in grape must or wine, a lot of color and other flavors go down with the precipitate.  This is just like that soap scum you get around bathtubs in hard water areas and with real soap. Using un mineralized water makes sense, but I wouldn’t pay the shipping costs, just go to your local supermarket and get ozonized RO. I don’t know if chlorine (or now chloramines) will have any effect, as there is so much else that is oxidizable in the must, it will probably not affect the yeast.

BTW the best way to reduce acid and not affect the wine is to use potassium bicarbonate and then chill the wine to remove the potassium bitartrate as crystals (wine stone).

There are plenty of minerals (potassium, etc) in the grape juice to supply the yeast and the weak acids (tartaric and malic) buffer the pH, so the yeast stay within their desired pH range for fermentation.

With meads, these minerals are not present and pH control becomes more difficult as there are no weak acids in sugar or honey and leads often to stuck fermentations as the pH drops out of the operating range.  In this case, adding potassium or (less desirable) sodium carbonate  periodically during the fermentation to maintain a pH around 4 or above will cause the fermentation to finish in the same time range as wine. Beer also benefits from minerals as this can affect the after taste (dry, bitter, round, etc), but there are plenty of weak acids in most beer worts.

So I guess using RO water is that bad after all …

What type of water do you use in your wine making and what’s your opinion on the subject?

Leave your comments below!

- Scott “The Wine Making Guy”