Home winemaking: My 2006 vintage begins

<table align="right" valign="top"><tr><td><img src="http://members.allstream.net/~pabs/wine/2006cayuga.JPG" border="1" align="left"></td></tr></table>Finally, after much deliberation and uncertainty as to whether I'd even be making wine this year (the Concords I wanted to buy were in appallingly poor condition this year, half being unripe and the other half rotten), I picked some nice and healthy Cayugas yesterday at a local vineyard and thanks to the sturdiness of this cultivar and its fruit, I will be making wine after all.

I had my heart set on a dry Concord again this year to try and rival my 2002 effort, but it wasn't to be given the truly awful, cold and rainy September that we had - just at the crucial time for excellent crop health and ripeness. Concords and Niagaras seem to have been affected particularly badly this year - no doubt due to their characteristic of splitting berries when there is excessive swell due to rain harvest-time. I am curious, incidentally, how the weather affected the labrusca juice growers this year. The few baskets of Concord that I bought for eating showed distinctly retarded fruit flavour development and sourish acidity - they were not wine-quality by any means this year.

Cayuga White, however, seems to have the ability to swell up on the vine during a rainy September - but with no cracking whatsoever. A crack-resistant grape is a boon to the grower: you don't have the problem of wasps clamoring for your fruit when you do finally get out into the field to harvest it, nor does mold take hold (pardon the rhyme). Actually, yesterday while picking my Cayugas I was extremely surprised and impressed by the complete absence of rot on these grapes. That is truly something wonderful - especially considering that this vineyard did not receive any sprays at all.

The grapes do have a flavour of their own, especially those that received the most sun exposure (the canopy was quite properly open at this time of year) - it is a somewhat peachy, somewhat muscatty flavour. I didn't pick up any labrusca notes, even though Cornell says that they are a possibility when the grapes are ripe. If they mysteriously emerge in my final wine, I will be happy no doubt.

This is my first non-labrusca homemade wine. I am eager to see how it turns out. I plan to do the traditional treatment with it: full-skin maceration, full skin contact during primary and, if necessary, cold stabilization. It will be 100% bone-dry, as per my custom and preference.

Watch this space for updates!

Thanks for the update Paul B. Sorry to hear about the Concord you had your heart set on, but I’m quite sure you will do just fine with the Cayuga.

Salute

This is my first non-labrusca homemade wine. I am eager to see how it turns out. I plan to do the traditional treatment with it: full-skin maceration, full skin contact during primary and, if necessary, cold stabilization. It will be 100% bone-dry, as per my custom and preference.

Watch this space for updates!

Paul - Cayuga is a very nice grape, as you are aware. It is quite a different animal than Niagara or Concord. My personal recommendation is that you do not ferment it on the skins. Use pectic enzyme to break down the pulp and press it within 24 hours, just fermenting the juice. I believe the skins will give a bitterness to the wine. I will be getting my Cayugas next weekend from Bruce Giles (along with Steuben). I plan on blending Vignoles into the Cayuga, resulting in Riesling like wine and finishing it off-dry.

Thanks Howie! Of course, you know that I am a contrarian and so I will surely ferment the Cayuga on the skins anyway.

I chewed some of the grapes up and I feel that the skins won't make the wine bitter - they will, however, make it tannic, and I am excited about having a crisp and tannic white - a gutsy white, if you will. The seeds, however, are indeed bitter when crushed. Fortunately I won't be crushing any of them!

[Jenise]

Good luck, Paul. Too bad about the concords.

5 minutes after my previous post, Bruce Giles called me up and informed me that he was picking the Cayugas today (Monday), so I got them a few hours ago, and have them crushed and destemmed. Beautiful looking fruit - 19 Brix - Haven't tested for acid yet.

Hi Howie,
Good luck! Keep us posted (you to Paul B).
Did they pick FL’s Vignoles yet?

Salute

I don't know about FLs, but I picked up 10 gallons of Vignoles juice from Presque Isle 9/29. I'm not sure where the grapes are grown.

A brief update

Things are progressing well, with the wine transferred from fermenting bucket to glass carboy last Sunday. Fermentation, which for some reason was slow to start for the first couple of days, took off like wildfire once the wine was aerated on its way down into the carboy - I also added a bit of yeast nutrient at that time, which I think must have really helped too.

Almost a week later, the wine is still firmly cloudy, still fermenting nicely, but with less power than earlier in the week. The colour, even now, is a very nice light straw/green, indicating that the wine should have a very nice, pale colour when finished. I think that concerns over browning of white musts prior to or during fermentation tends to be a bit overblown at times. In my experience, all is well if one crushes and starts primary within a day, after adding the recommended 50 ppm of sulfite. Once primary starts, the must will become saturated with protective CO2 anyway.

I'm really excited to see what kind of character this Cayuga will have. It's my first time working with the variety. Once I transfer the finished wine to smaller glass jugs for clarification, I may add medium-toast French oak chips to one jug just to see what that will taste like when complete. All will be finished bone-dry, as per my long-held philosophy.

Paul:
Having been habituated to store-bought Vitis vinifera made in the traditional style over the years, I'd not been inclined to try my hand at winemaking. However that mindset changed recently when I tasted a locally-grown and produced dry Concord. I just loved it! Unfortunately the producer left the wine-making (but not grape-growing) business. I just might have to try on a wine-maker's hat after all! Thanks for the inspiration, Paul!
Dave Mo

Go for Dave! I just finished crushing 3 bushels of Steuben (19 Brix) which I will ferment on the skins to yield a Rose. Also picked up 10 gals of Chardonnay juice and 5 gallons of Riesling. More to follow.

Boys, this is all pretty neat stuff. Gotta be thinking I have missed out on something here. Too late for me to start now up here I guess. Good luck to everyone!!

Paul,
I'm with Howie on this one. I too think extended maceration on the skins will cause your wine to be overly bitter. You may, however, find that you like it that way, and that's just fine. If you discover that your wine is more bitter than you prefer, PVPP at 1 to 2 grams per gallon will remove at least some of the bitterness without affecting aroma or flavor, and also remove some browning elements.

Many thanks, Alan. I appreciate you guys giving me wise advice in these areas. It's my first time working with Cayuga, and so this really is an experiment in progress.

As it happened, I separated the vast majority of the skins from the must prior to starting primary - I didn't want them to end up in my carboy, as by the time I put my wines into glass I have typically put them through the fine-mesh sieve treatment. This is laborious, but I feel it makes things much easier down the road.

I expect clearing to start within the next couple of weeks. I will be sure to post back when I have my first taste of the wine.

Alan - I don't know what PVPP is, but I've used gelatin as a fining agent when I wanted to reduce tannins.

Howie,
"Polyvinylpolypyrolidone is a synthetic, high molecular weight fining agenst composed of crosslinked monomers of polyvinylpyrolidone (PVP). It is a protein-like fining agent with affinity for low molecular weight polyphenols. The mechanism of its action is hydrogen bond formation between carbonyl groups on the polyamide (PVPP) and the phenolic hydrogens. Unlike the soluble protein fining agents, which may selectively remove larger polyphenols by the virtue of their ability to conform with the molecule and interact with many hydroxyl groups, insoluble PVP is able to contact relatively few of the reactive groups needed for bond formation. Therefore, PVPP finds its maor application in binding with and removing smaller phenolic species such as catechins and hydroxy-cinnamates that conform to the PVPP molecule."

and

"The activity ... is specific for low molecular weight phenols such as catechins. The latter compounds are precursors to browning in white wines and browning an bitterness in red..."

furthermore,

"Ough (1960) found that [PVPP] removed more tannin and anthocyanin thatn did gelatin - behavior that represents apotential problem in use of this agent in red wine fining."

From "Production Wine Analysis," Zoecklein, Fugelsang,, Gump & Nury, Chapman 7 Hall, 1990.

In short, it removes low molecular weight phenols (bitterness) and browning precursors. It can be useful in whites with extended skin contact to remove bitterness, and in removing browning precursors. In reds, it will remove some color, so bench trials are a good idea.

I don't like gelatin for a couple reasons. One is the need for counterfining with tannin, even if tannin removeal is the object. The other is the very real possibility of a persistent and difficult to remove gelatin haze. That is not to say that gelatin does not have a place in a winemakers bag of tricks, but I prefer PVPP in most cases. It is quick, effective and easy to deal with.

Presque Isle Wine Cellars (800-488-7492) has it in quantities useful for amateur winemakers at reasonable prices.

Best

Thanks, Alan - a bit over my head, but I think I get the gist.
Actually, I don't like having to reach into a bag of tricks to fix things, but sometimes, ya just gotta. The best wines I've made are the ones I've done the least manipulation of any type to.

Yup! Minimal intervention is almost always best, if you can get away with it.

However that mindset changed recently when I tasted a locally-grown and produced dry Concord. I just loved it! Unfortunately the producer left the wine-making (but not grape-growing) business. I just might have to try on a wine-maker's hat after all! Thanks for the inspiration, Paul!

Dave, I am really pleased to hear that, and very glad that you enjoyed this style of Concord.

My long-held view has always been that labrusca wines need to be redefined for our times. Gone are the days when people feared creativity and just obediently went "by the book", using inferior methods that stuck and later had the force of inertia (i.e. "well, that's the way the experts say to do it, so that's the way I'm gonna do it ... what do I know?"). Today, people are open to trying new styles of labrusca, and what I hear from certain tasting rooms and what I myself experienced at our last NiagaraCool bear that fact out. That's not to say that watered down, sweetened down versions don't have a place on the palette - but it is to say that no longer can mediocrity by design be considered the exclusively legitimate style in which to make labrusca wine.

Thanks for posting that

Boys, this is all pretty neat stuff. Gotta be thinking I have missed out on something here. Too late for me to start now up here I guess. Good luck to everyone!!

Thanks Bob,
It might not be too late, but you'd have to do some last minute legwork. However, from a link from the WLDG front page:
THE HOME WINEMAKERS MANUAL
This is a complete 168 page manual, is very well written and very informative for all wine lovers, not just wine makers. The link is to the table of contents, but if you scroll down there are links to download the entire manual in a few different popular formats. Reading this over the next year would give you a very a good idea of how to plan things for the 2007 vintage.

Hi Alan,
Thanks for the info. Is this product also known as Polyclar?

Salute

Thanks Howie for posting the manual. Sure when I get some free time, I might well consider a new venture!! Legwork seems to be the operative word.

Today, finally, I transferred my '06 Cayuga into gallon jugs for clarification and possible cold-stabilization. I say "possible" because after evaluating the wine I am not convinced that it actually needs cold stabilization; the acidity is very crisp but not harsh or sour in any way. The wine is still not perfectly clear, but already it has a light straw colour with a youthful clarity when held up against the light. As for the nose, it is nearly neutral ... though it does bespeak a hint of volatility that, thankfully, does not show up on the palate.

I believe I know the source of this mild hint of volatility. The 2006 vintage was not memborable in Ontario; non-stop rain and cloudy skies hit our province's wine regions just at the crucial time for good grape ripening. September was one of the rainiest and coldest that I ever remember. In such years, it's almost certain that reds will suffer, while some wineries can still make decent whites. At this vineyard, the vines were characteristically overcropped and while the Cayugas were the best looking of the lot, other hybrids planted nearby were hit very badly by berry splitting and fungal disease - a whitish fungus covered many of the red hybrids, for example. I believe that this was due to a lax, or possibly non-existent, spray schedule - coupled with the really bad weather.

In any case, the Cayugas did look healthy when I picked them ... but on day two of my customary 24-hr skin maceration, a white film of mold had begun to develop on the surface of my must. Startled by this never-before-seen phenomenon, I immediately removed the skins from the must and proceeded with fermentation. All went well and the wine is okay, but there is this slight, ever so slight hint of volatility on the nose which I am sure came from that unfortunate spoilage that began to take hold in the fermenting bucket from fungal spores invisible to the naked eye on the grapeskins. In any case, the wine has completed fermentation and was sulfited properly, so I have no fears about this problem developing further. It will simply serve as a mark of a less-than-ideal vintage when the wine is completed.

The texture, as mentioned, is exceptionally fine and there is very good structure - and this is the bright side. I can't help but wonder how much more interesting the wine might have been had the vintage been drier and had I had control over the vines all year long and been able to induce some mid-season crop control.

You really learn about wine when you make it "from ground to glass". You learn about the innate relationship between the weather, the vines, the site and the human factor. This is knowledge that I would never trade for anything.

Stay tuned to this space for future updates!

Thanks for the update Paul B. All my 2006 vitage is now it oak barrels. Just completed bottling 144 bottles of 2004 Zinfandel (2 years in oak) and 152 bottles of 2005 Barbera (1 year in oak).

Salute