Author Archives: Erroll

Buying Grapes To Make Wine

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White wines are easy but some reds are worth it

I ordered wine grapes yesterday – 100 lb (about 45.5 kg) of Chardonnay and 100 lb of Merlot. That should yield about 5 gallons (19 liters), each, of finished wine. This will be the third time I’ve ordered wine grapes from my local homebrew shop, but the first time I’ve ordered red wine grapes from them. That’s because I’m relying on them to crush and press for me. Since I’ll be pressing the red grapes after they’ve fermented for a few days, I’ll have to load up the fermenter, all 100 lb of it, and haul it back to the homebrew shop to have it pressed. This two step process makes red wine more of a hassle than white, but this year I decided that the high-maintenance red was worth it.

Merlot: Red wine with a home state connection

There were several other choices of red wine grapes, like Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Lemberger, and Syrah. I chose Merlot because it’s become associated with Washington state in a way the others haven’t. Just as Oregon is becoming known for it’s Pinot Noir, Washington is making a name for itself with Merlot. What other grape would a Washington Winemaker choose for his first red?

Chardonnay: A white wine grape that grows in the Puget Sound AVA

As much as I’ve been taken in by the promise and allure of a good Merlot this year, I couldn’t bring myself to halt my affair with white wines. They’re easier, cheaper, and terrific when young. Don’t be fooled, though, a well made white can age gracefully into a sophisticated and elegant wine. I could have chosen many different white wine grapes too. I passed up Semillon, Sauvignon Blanc, Chenin Blanc, and Gewürztraminer for Chardonnay. I’ve made Sauvignon Blanc twice before and loved it, and I’m curious about blending it with Semillon. Gewürztraminer is a parent of Siegerrebe, which I grow in my bonsai vineyard, so I’d like to try that one day. I chose Chardonnay because it is grown commercially in the Puget Sound region, and I intend to grow it myself.

Merlot, and Chardonnay – the choices are made and the grapes have been ordered. Now all I have to do is wait.



Join The Club!

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I don’t know too many winemakers personally, so most of my interaction with other people, who share my interest, is online. I’ve thought about joining a club every so often, but never pursued it. Well, I was at the Puyallup Fair the other day, and I ran into a wonderful lady named Peggy. She was running a booth for the Puget Sound Amateur Wine and Beermaking Club. They put on the Puyallup Fair wine and beermaking competitions, arrange bulk purchases of wine grapes, and host events like wine tours and a holiday party. Maybe they don’t get points for coming up with a catchy name that distills down to a clever acronym. Mingling with my fellow winemakers sounds pretty good, though, and I think I’ll drop in on them.



Colony Collapse Disorder: A clue

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I last wrote about Colony Collapse Disorder back in May. That’s when I made the case that CCD would not squeeze honey supplies too much and cause a large price run up. With honey prices up about 10% since then, I think my analysis was about right. I’m still anxious to learn about the impact on colonies this year, but I haven’t seen any good data on that. In fact, I hadn’t seen much in the way of new information at all until a few days ago.

Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus linked Colony Collapse Disorder

The Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health announced a study linking CCD to Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus. I haven’t found a link to the study itself, which is published in the journal Science, but ScienceDaily has published a summary. The authors of the study claim that the presence of IAPV predicts CCD in a colony with 96% accuracy. In other words, if someone selected a honey bee colony in the US and all they told you about it was whether or not it had IAPV, not how big it was, where it was, what kinds of bees they were, you could tell them if it had collapsed or not. If you did this 1000 times and had average luck, you’d be right 960 times.

But we don’t know if it actually causes CCD

That kind of accuracy is pretty amazing and makes IAPV a “significant marker” for CCD, but it doesn’t mean that it causes CCD. It might even be the other way around; CCD weakens a colony that was otherwise able to fend off IAPV, allowing the virus to infect the colony. Or something else causes both CCD and facilitates an IAPV infection.

Did IAPV come from Australia?

The study also fingered Australia as a possible source of IAPV because they found IAPV in Australian honeybees and live bee imports from Australia began close to the time that beekeepers started reporting CCD. It’s possible, but this strikes me as the weakest part of the study, and not just because we don’t really know if IAPV causes CCD. Finding IAPV in Australian bees isn’t the same thing as establishing that Australia was the source. Do we know for sure that the US was free of IAPV? Was Australia the only source of live bee imports that might have carried IAPV? To my knowledge, no and no.

Where do we go from here?

The next step for these researchers is to try and cause CCD. They’ll do this by introducing IAPV, by itself and in combination with other things that stress honeybees, into healthy colonies. The thinking is that if IAPV is the culprit, it’s not acting alone. One possible accomplice is the varroa mite, which already plagues honeybees. It’s known to suppress bees’ immune systems, so it could pave the way for IAPV to do it’s dirty work. If they can reliably cause CCD in this way, then IAPV could graduate from “significant marker” to “cause”. If not, well science has a lot more red herrings and blind alleys than it has breakthroughs. So we take what we learn from this, add it to what we already know, and keep moving forward.

Update 3/9/08: Beekeepers have staying power

The USDA’s 2007 honey report indicates that the number of producing honeybee colonies rose in 2007 by 2%. This is encouraging news and shows that beekeepers have been able to make up their losses from CCD for the second year in a row. Read more here.

Update 3/9/2009: Honeybees hang in there for another year

The 2008 Honey Report indicated that managed colonies in the US fell by only 6%. Honey production and per colony yield rose. It’s looking more and more like Colony Collapse Disorder is not a catastrophe.

Restarting a stuck fermentation

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Don’t panic!

It happens. Sometimes, after a promising start full of froth and vigor, the yeast tap out and leave a partially fermented must/wine. It’s not drinkable and you certainly shouldn’t bottle it, but it’s also vulnerable to spoilage. So how do you get the yeast going again? I’ll explain how I do it, and use my oregano wine as an example.

Find out, and correct, the problem

It’s not always apparent what went wrong, but it’s worth the effort to try and find out. If there is some underlying problem that is inhibiting the yeast, then just adding more yeast, even a vigorous starter, won’t help. This is where good measurements and careful note-taking pay off. Nobody ever plans for things to go wrong, and that’s why good habits should become habits. My oregano wine suffered from a pH problem, and that brought fermentation to a halt. I suspected the pH after reviewing my notes, and confirmed it with a measurement.

Other potential problems that you might consider are temperature, preservative in store bought juice, nutrient deficiency, or lack of oxygen. Review your notes, take measurements, and do your best to discover why your yeast stuck.

The yeast began fermenting again, albeit very slowly, after I corrected the problem. It probably would have fermented out, eventually, if I had left it alone. A long slow fermentation like that is risky, however, so I decided to treat it as though it were stuck and hurry things up a bit.

Gradually add the stuck wine to a vigorous starter

After fixing the underlying problem, you should make a starter. This builds up a large population of actively growing yeast. Add some of the stuck wine to the starter. I like to double the volume every four hours or so, and since my starter was about a cup, I added a cup of wine to it. Four hours later: two more cups. Four hours after that would have been well into the wee hours, so with about a quart (close to a liter) of fermenting wine, I went to bed. In the morning I added another quart.

Nutrient: Not too much, not too little

Without enough nutrient, the new yeast may have trouble growing and fermenting the wine. If there’s more than the yeast can consume, some nutrient will remain in the fermented wine. That can cause off flavors all by itself, and it can also support spoilage organisms. So there’s no way I can tell you how much, if any, nutrient to add at this stage. The best way to decide is to measure the available nitrogen in the must, but it’s pretty unusual for home wine makers to run such an involved test.

If you haven’t got a chemist and a state of the art lab handy, gather up all the information you have about how much nutrient was in the must, how much you added, and how much yeast activity there was. Did I mention the part about good notes? If you started with a lot of nutrient and the yeast didn’t get very far, then you shouldn’t add much (or any) nutrient. If, for whatever reason, you’re starting nutrient level was low then you should add some. I realize that “a lot”, “much”, “low”, and “some” are a little vague, but the only way to get precise answers is with that chemist and the state of the art lab that we haven’t got.

My Oregano Wine recipe called for 1 tsp/Gallon of diammonium phosphate, which isn’t a lot. Since the must was basically a sugared oregano tea, it had virtually no nutrient except for what I added. So I decided to add another tsp of DAP along with the yeast starter.

I’d like to say that you won’t have to deal with stuck fermentations, but if you make wine regularly you’ll probably have to face an unmoving hydrometer sooner or later. Your best bet is to start dealing with it before it happens with good procedures and meticulous note taking. If you do that and use your head, you’ll have a good shot at saving your wine.

Tomato Wine: Harvest update

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I began harvesting my Gold Nugget tomatoes a month ago. I hope to get at least 15 lb (almost 7 kg) to make a white tomato wine. The 6.5 oz (175 g) that I harvested on 8/9/07 has become 9 lb 12.5 oz (about 4.4 kg) and counting, so I’m about 2/3 of the way there. I couldn’t fit that many tomatoes in my kitchen freezer, so I bought a chest freezer to store my harvest. I may have been a little optimistic, though, when I was thinking about how much space I would need …


Chest freezer with two bags of tomatoes at the bottom

Cherry Mead Recipe: Racked

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Cherry Mead after racking on 9/3/07


As you can see in the photo above, I racked my cherry mead into two 1-gallon jugs, a magnum (1.5 liter) bottle, and an ordinary wine bottle. The 1-gallon jug on the left, that isn’t full and has a lighter more opaque color to it, is filled with slurry from the fermenter. I’ll let it settle so that I can recover some clear mead later. I talked about the acidity of the cherry mead last week, and I planned to add 1 tsp/Gallon (1.3 g/L) of tartaric acid. I did that, and I’ll taste it in a few months to see how it’s coming along.

Oregano Wine Recipe: First racking – at last!

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Oregano Wine after racking on 9/3/07


I’ve never been happier with a specific gravity measurement than this one: 0.993 on 8/31/07. After the pH crash and the stuck fermentation, after the potassium bicarbonate addition and the yeast starter, and after all that waiting my Oregano Wine has finally fermented out! I racked on 9/3/07 to a 1-gallon jug and a half-bottle. I poured the thick slurry that was left into a beer bottle to settle. I’m a little worried about oxidation because I’ve kept the wine in it’s primary fermenter since June, but there is no sign yet and I’ve treated with sulfite.

Produce Department Chablis – First racking

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Produce Department Chablis after racking on 9/3/07


I measured the specific gravity on 8/31/07, and at 0.991 it had fermented out and was ready to rack. So yesterday I siphoned the young wine into a 1-gallon jug and a beer bottle. There was some thick slurry left in the fermenter, and I poured that into another beer bottle to settle. I should be able to recover some clear wine from that, and every little bit helps! I’ll let the wine sit for a while. It will clear and the yeast will settle to the bottom. Then I’ll measure the pH and titratable acidity, make adjustments if necessary, and rack again. In the meantime, I’ll have to think about changing the name to “Produce Department Rose” – how about that color!

Veraison – The grapes are changing color

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I love watching my grape vines change over the course of a season. First they break bud, then they leaf out, later they flower, after that they set fruit. Each of these stages is exciting, and I’ve written about all of them. When the grapes change color from green black (or red or yellow), it’s sudden and dramatic and visual. So why don’t I stop writing about it and show you …


A single dark grape in a cluster of green ones heralds veraison.


That’s my Pinot Noir in the photo above. Here’s one I haven’t said much about, Price. It’s a seeded table grape. I wanted some table grapes to munch on. The grower I bought cuttings from and his son each had a favorite (Swenson Red and Price), and I got both of them.


A few grapes, in two small loose clusters of green grapes, are turning red.


The Leon Millot is putting on a great show as well.


Leon Millot veraison on 8/18/2007


The grapes will accumulate sugar as they ripen over the next month or so. Their acid profile will change, with the harsh malic acid giving way to grapes’ signature tartaric acid. Then a happy wine maker will bring in his harvest!

Cherry Mead Ready To Rack – More On Mead Acidity

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I pressed my cherry mead back in July, and looked in on it Saturday (8/25/07). I wanted to see if it had fermented out and if it was in danger of spoiling. To do that, I measured the specific gravity and the pH. An SG of 0.995 indicated that, yes, it was done fermenting. The pH was 3.56 which, along with sulfite additions, will protect it from spoilage organisms.

Tasting is important too (hey, somebody’s gotta do it!). It was clear with a light red color, had a subdued aroma, and a mild pleasant taste with a hint of cherries. This was different, and much better, than last year’s cherry mead. That one had a medicinal taste to it. I used the pomace from cherry wine to make the cherry mead both times, but this year I made sure to get the cherry wine off the skins after three days. Last year I left the cherry wine on the skins for over two weeks, so there were fewer “goodies” left in the cherries for the mead. I also made this year’s cherry mead to a lower alcohol level. I haven’t added any acid to this year’s mead, but tasting it makes me think it could use some.

I wrote about acidity in mead a little while ago, and it’s been at the back of my mind ever since. I’m starting to think that an acid titration might be useful in mead making after all. Such a test overstates the acidity because it includes the amount of gluconolactone along with the amount of acid in it’s result. But putting an upper limit on the acidity is better than nothing, so in the interest of gathering as much information as possible, I titrated the cherry mead. I got a value of 6 g/L.

What can I do with that number? One idea is to try and make it in the style of a dry white wine, which would mean a titratable acidity (TA) of 5 – 7.5 g/L, and aim for the high end of the range. I think that’s what I’ll do, knowing that it won’t be too much, and tasting it in six months or so to see if it needs more. Since I measured the TA as 6 g/L and I’m aiming for 7.5 g/L, I need to add about 5.7 grams of acid (I’ll use tartaric) to each gallon. That’s about a teaspoon, and I’ve sort of trial and erred my way to adding 1 teaspoon/gallon to flabby tasting meads anyway. Maybe “adjusting the acid to taste” is working better than I thought.