In the past , when I was living in the UK, I dabbled in home wine making. This covered a period of about 15 years and many happy evenings and sorrowful mornings.

So, while all the principles and techniques are known to me, a question is this; As I prefere a full bodied red is it better to ferment the pulp on the grape skins or without?

Answers on a postcard

Thanks

Simon

I've been having fun making my own wine for the last 8 or so years. I didn't know too much about it when I first started, but practice has turned that around.

I usually start with about 150kgs of grapes and crush them with skins on ( I have a proper roller/crusher which makes the job quick and easy). The old chap next door has been involved in this process for most of his 90 or so years and naturally loves to provide advice...his method was to leave the skins in the pulp and even included a lot of the woody stalk, but I found that the tannin content was much too high and the result was a really "rough" red wine. I tried his way for the first year, but decided that I might be able to do better. I went from pressing about half of the pulp and discarding the solid residue...the result was a much smoother wine, but seemed to lack much body. My next trick was to crush about 10kgs of peaches, nectarines and plums and add the lot to the original mix...I have a 250 litre wine vat and I made a circular (wooden) insert which sits on top of the pulp and keeps it all just below the liquid level. Every day or so I drain off about 10 litres of the brew from the bottom of the vat and then pour that back into the top. Every now and then, I give the whole vat a good stir and remove anything which looks wrong. After six months (give or take a week or so), the whole lot is decanted and the residue is pressed and the liquid stored seperately. I filter the main brew, using those cheap coffee filter papers and leave it to sit for a while...the stored wine, from the last pressing can be added if you need a bit more bite. So far, everyone who has tried my wine has given it a big tick!

To get back to your original question...it would seem to be dictated by your expectations...the extra tannin produced by the skins will give a wine more 'muscle'...but some folk look for that...I prefer the smooth version.

One of the most important lessons I've learned over the years....NEVER store or age your wine in plastic bottles and never use chemicals to enhance the taste. My basic recipe is 150kgs of grapes, 12 to 15kgs of sugar and nothing else!

Sorry for the long winded answer Simon, but I hope it helps even if it is on a huge postcard.

Bazz

Thanks for the response Bazz and long winded is not a problem when the info is good. I knew about the stalks from bitter experience (no pun intended) in China, it seems to be common practice there to leave the stalks on. Every bottle I had there had the horrible bitter undertone.
Just out of interest, I have about 400 vines, what sort of average yield should I expect

Regarding yield...there are many variables which will or may affect the size of the crop. Around my area, in a good season, each vine will produce about 3kgs, but that can vary by up to about 30% either way. So many things to consider! As an average for your crop, I would be hoping for around 1 ton, especially if the vines are either very young...or very old.

This year, I will be leaving out all of the stalk, but keeping the skins in the must. I'm also going to try adding a kilo of dried oak chips and leaving them in until the final decant...hopefully, they might add to the body, but in a smooth way.

It's a great hobby and the proof of success comes a few years down the track.

Chin chin.

Thanks again Bazz, now I have to concentrate on emptying enough wine bottles before the autumn.
Work, work, work

That's all part of the fun mate. I'm sort of lucky because in our city place, we have a wine bar right across the road from us and a few years ago I noticed that they were dumping dozens of empty bottles in the garbage skip every morning...I made a deal with them and in exchange for all their empty bottles, I would remove the lot, every morning for them. They jumped at the chance and now I get the best stuff and put the rest in the recycle bin (which is 2 doors down from the bar)...everyone is happy.

I had to buy myself a corking rig (40 leva), but that's about the sum total of the outlay. The bottles get sterilised in a large tub, over an open fire, just before bottling.

This year, I am thinking of designing a fancy label...just to make me look posh.  

Meant to include this in the previous post.

You DO realise how much wine a ton of grapes is going to produce, ddon't you?

yesh, I are werkin hurd on it new bowt 800 leters +, baik ter wirk

Great! Makes perfect sense to me!

GeshiSimon wrote:

yesh, I are werkin hurd on it new bowt 800 leters +, baik ter wirk

If I was nearer to you I would help and we would both look like this

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Most welcome, but you will have to drive home for you will be far to drunk to walk.

She should be ok...I seem to remember a bus parked in her garage. Berni managed to aquire that the last time she got legless!!

justbazz wrote:

She should be ok...I seem to remember a bus parked in her garage. Berni managed to aquire that the last time she got legless!!

Will you stop man, you are giving all my secrets away I was hoping to drive the train home next