Day 4 for the Malvasia was my first post, so now it's time to backtrack and talk about days 1-3.
Day 1: The vineyard owner contacted me via email to let me know that the Malvasia was ready for harvest. We had agreed earlier that I wanted the grapes to come in at 23-24 brix. Luckily, we agreed to a grape pickup in two days. Sometimes you have to drop everything and go...."the grapes are ready, can you be here this morning?"
"Brix" is the measurement of sugar in the grapes: See this link for a definition: http://www.kenswineguide.com/wine.php?word=18
If you read the definition, you may be asking why I wanted the brix higher than "normal".... the short answer is that I also am making a Pinot Grigio that came in a little low in brix, and I plan to do some blending later on...e.g 24 brix= 13.2 alcohol! more on that later....
For me, it was a relatively short drive to the vineyard, about 1 hour.
To pick up the grapes I brought the following equipment:
3 - 32 gal plastic garbage cans
1 - plastic bucket {in case I needed to "bucket" grapes from one container to another...}
1 - gallon jug containing my sterilizing solution of Potassium Metabisulfite
A drying towel, a water bottle, my wine notebook, AND my checkbook!
A drying towel, a water bottle, my wine notebook, AND my checkbook!
The vineyard owner was waiting for me and had the grapes picked into 5 40lb grape bins....The bins were overflowing with grapes so the 5 bins totaled more the 250lbs.
A side note here.... 250 lbs of grapes yield about 6 cases of finished wine. That's enough to drink for the year, and be able to give some to friends, and not too much if you make a bad wine....yes it does happen...
The vineyard owner had a crusher/de-stemmer set up for us to use. This is not always the case, so be sure to check beforehand! If the owner doesn't provide a crusher/de-stemmer, you'll have to borrow or rent one. I do not have my own crusher and find that a home wine maker can get along fine without one.
Next we crushed the grapes into 2 of my plastic garbage cans. Why two? 125 lbs in each container means that my wife and I can lift the containers into and out of my van!
The third garbage can held the stems from the grapes that are spit out of the crusher/de-stemmer. Why keep the stems? They are needed for the pressing that I'll talk about soon...
I added the Potassium Metabisulfite solution to each plastic garbage container of grapes secured the lids, tied them down! {important! don't want sticky grapes all over your ride} and drove home.
See this link for the use of the "Meta" solution:
This post is getting long... I'll talk about pressing the Malvasia in the next post.
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