Our wine was noticeably different than back in early November when we racked it for the first time – the wine color has deepened into a brooding dark red that is almost black in the carboy. I was really surprised at how much sediment had collected at the bottom of the carboy and rossi jug. The sediment was clearly adding the bright redness to the wine previously.  Out of the carboy and in the glass, the wine was not as dark, but still a nice light garnet red.

Before getting to work, we sampled our newly oaked cabernet sauvignon and were impressed with our young wine…. still a bit tart but maturing nicely and definitely “drinkable.”  This was encouraging!

The second time around, the racking went much more smoothly than the first time, and our wives even commented on “how easy that was.”  We are clearly learning something.

Now onto naming and designing a label.  Any suggestions?

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Racking is the process of moving the wine from one container to the next, with the primary result being to lift the wine off of the lees (all the dead yeast and gunk that has settled at the bottom).  Racking the wine off the lees helps with flavor and ultimate wine clarity.

Easier said than done, unfortunately.  We learned some lessons about suction, and tubes, and gravity, and the three of us spent about an hour in the bathroom moving the wine from two 6 gallon carboys to 1 six gallon carboy and a 3 litre jug that was once home to carlos rossi.

The hardest part was moving the wine from our half full carboy, as we just didn’t have enough gravity to get it started.  I ended up drinking a few cups of wine through the process of sucking on the tube to try to create enough movement to get the wine to funnel upward about two feet and then back down into the clean carboy.  Check out the pictures for evidence of a wine stained bathtub. 

At this point, our oak master decided it was time to add a sack of french oak chips to our little science project in hopes of adding some complexity and smoothness to the finished product. It turns out that new oak barrels are quite expensive, and even a small 5 gallon barrel would have run a few hundred dollars….  Maybe next vintage.

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I knew the fermentation was about finished when the cap no longer needed much punching down and started to slip back into the layer of juice. The next time we do this, I’d like to slow this down a bit to give the juice some more time to marinate with the skins.  I’m interested in the added color, especially in a cab.

We took our food grade garbage bucket of “new wine” back to Mountain Home Brew to press all of the juice off of the skins.   The store provided us with a bladder press for the job.  I was surprised that at least 3/4 of the juices strained right out without having to use the press.  The other quarter came from the actual “pressing.”  The bladder press is a pretty neat deal, utilizing a porous sac and an inflatable bladder that is pressurized with a water hose.

We were in and out in about 15 minutes and driving home with about 8 gallons of wine in two separate 6 gallon carboys.

At this point, the wine was tasting REALLY tart and acidic. I have to admit I was a little bit worried about it ever becoming a drinkable and enjoyable adult beverage.  When I say tart, I’m talking sour patch kids, tart.  We decided to encourage a malolactic fermentation, which turns the malic acid into a more gentle and smooth lactic acid by adding some bacteria cultures.  We added an air lock to each carboy and put the wine to rest for another week.

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The important equation that is necessary to turn grapes into wine:

Sugar + Yeast = Alcohol + CO2

To start the fermentation I went ahead and added the Bourgovin RC 212 yeast packed to some warm water for about 10 minutes and confirmed that the yeast was indeed activated.  Next, I combined the activated yeast water with about a cup of must and mixed that around in a tall pint glass.  Then, I dropped the yeast mixture into the large white plastic garbage can like fermentation container, which I made sure to mix around really well. 

Once again, sit and wait.

There is one necessary activity during this primary fermentation – punching down the cap.  As the wine begins to ferment, the grape skins are pushed to the top of the fermentation container, above the juice.  The technique is actually as simple as pushing the skins back into the juice and mixing it around a little bit. What this accomplishes is 1. providing oxygen to the process, and 2. preventing the skins on the top from growing weird things that might contaminate your soon to be wine.  I found this  part of the process quite fun actually, and enjoyed punching down the cap twice a day and getting my (clean) hands down in there.

During this primary fermentation the only thing that the winemaker can control is the temperature.  We chose to let our wine ferment as fast as it wanted to and tried to keep the air temperature above 70 degrees.  This resulting in the must pushing 83 during the height of fermentation.  Next time, I would probably try to slow this down a little bit and let it take a little longer, which i think would allow more color to be extracted from the grape skins.

This took us about 5 days.

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We received  our sweet and tasty fruit at Mountain Home Brew in Kirkland, and  were a little surprised that 100 pounds of cabernet sauvignon fit into just four boxes. 

First, we ran the grapes through the a destemmer/sorter machine which did exactly what you might expect – it separated the grapes from the stems and in the process mushed the grapes up a bit creating some of the first juice we got our hands on, and enjoyed sampling. It was grape juice at this point, and sweeter than I expected. This part of the process could have taken even longer if we hadn’t had access to this equipment.  I can imagine standing around a sorting table for hours picking grapes off of their stems.

Next, we took our large garbage can of grapes home and asked Liz to jump in and give them a good crushing.  She cleaned up her feet and legs and jumped in.  After about 10 minutes of treading in grape juice, crushing grapes between her toes, and letting her entire legs go numb (the grapes were that cold), we called it good.  At this point our grapes had become “must” or a mixture of stems, seeds, grape skins, and juice.

We added some sulfite to kill off the natural yeasts on the grapes, and before putting the “must” to bed for about 24 hours added some yeast nutrients to nourish to wine yeast we would add the next day.

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