Saturday, October 3rd I received a half ton of old vine Zinfandel Grapes from a vineyard in Dry Creek Valley, Healdsburg. It was the most luscious fruit I've seen in a while, big clusters and grapes with deliciously sweet flavor. With help from friends and my cousin Bryan we ran the fruit through the destemmer and used our feet to crush the first half of the batch.
Beautiful Fruit
Inspecting the fruit
Standing in a bin full of grapes and juice
Crushing was a team effort, and those grapes were quite cold.
We added dry ice to the bin to cool down the grapes and juice, and let them soak on the skins before starting fermentation. Tuesday we added yeast, the fermentation is now under way.
Beautiful Fruit
Inspecting the fruit
Standing in a bin full of grapes and juice
Crushing was a team effort, and those grapes were quite cold.
We added dry ice to the bin to cool down the grapes and juice, and let them soak on the skins before starting fermentation. Tuesday we added yeast, the fermentation is now under way.
Comments
mostly stopping by to belatedly wish you a happy birthday. i hope you enjoyed it and send wishes for a lovely year.
the wine making looks fantastic! how fun! do you have room at your house to do this or where did it take place? how many bottles will you get with a half ton of grapes? sorry for all the questions, this is always something i've wanted to do.
p.s. you look SO incredibly cork irish. (which imho is a wonderful thing.)
My cousin Bryan has a small winery in San Francisco, so I'm doing it all there. A half ton should be enough to fill a barrel, and a barrel makes about 27 cases, over 300 bottles. Making wine is a lot of fun, but it takes some nerves. Nerves because you never know exactly how it will turn out, or what will go right or wrong.