Racking wine for stability and quality

Most ex-pat plonk is drunk young, often within a week of it falling clear at the end of fermentation. Some even before that, when it is still bubbling and full of suspended yeast. Extremely young wine doesn't do you any harm, by the way. In some parts of Poland, cloudy fermenting wine is even served on tap, in the bars. I tried it when last there, and wasn't especially impressed. The yeasty taste was almost acceptable but the visual resemblance to calamine lotion was a definite turn-off. No. Received wisdom correctly says that finished wine should be matured for a time before drinking. But even if you don't have time to mature your wine properly, at the very least you should separate it from its sediment at the end of fermentation. This process is called racking.

Most books on winemaking advocate siphoning the wine from the fermenting vessel into the storage vessel. This is best practice if the fermenter is bigger than 10 litres and heavy to lift. (Though better still is to ferment in a plastic barrel with a fitted tap). But if the fermenter is 10 litres or less, simply pouring it carefully into the new vessel has several advantages:

• It is much quicker, reducing the risk of oxidation
• The pouring action helps release dissolved CO₂
• Dissolved CO₂ can form bubbles in a siphon tube and stop the flow
• There is less equipment to sterilise and to wash up
• Performed carefully, the waste is no more than with a siphon.

After racking, always top up the storage vessel before sealing it. Use wine from a previous batch if you have some available (and if it is sound). Alternatively, use cool boiled water, though this obviously dilutes the wine reducing its ABV. Don't use fruit juice as this can restart fermentation, preventing clearing and pressurising the bottle.

Blending wines for balance and quality

Last year, I made close to 50 litres of red wine in two batches using my semi-pulp method. The first batch was made with black cherries and the second with brambles (blackberries). It would have been nice to use a blend of fruits in the fermentation but not possible because cherries are a summer fruit and brambles come ripe in autumn. By Christmas time, both wines were coming along nicely. Both were 14% ABV, dry and clear. Both still young and fruity of course, especially the bramble.  

Now, here's the interesting thing- the cherry tasted and smelt like cherries and the bramble like brambles. Who'd have thunk it!? In each case, the fresh fruit completely dominated the supermarket grape juice, as you might expect. Also, the bramble was brasher, with more acid and tannin than the cherry. More than was good for it, if I'm honest. The obvious solution was to blend the wines together for further maturing. After a few experiments, I settled on a 60:40 cherry to bramble mix which is now sealed for maturing in several 5-litre bottles. 

Next Christmas, I'll offer it around in the hope that someone says- I'm getting hints of Black Forest gateau and maybe some fruits of the forest too. And steel, of course. Never forget the steel.

Paraglider's semi-pulp method

The standard literature will tell you that there are two main ways to make wine- juice fermentation and pulp fermentation. This is true for grape wines whether made on a commercial or a domestic scale. But grapes are not the only fruit in town and most other fruits are less accommodating when asked to yield clear fermentable juice or wet fermentable pulp. Here is a short list of fruits that are suitable for both juice and pulp fermentation:

1. grapes
2. raspberries
3. brambles or blackberries (two names for the same fruit)

I said it was a short list! 

Citrus fruits are obvious candidates for juice fermentation and while you could pulp them, there is nothing to be gained from doing so. Now here is a much longer list of fruits that respond well to what I like to call a semi-pulp method:

1. cherries
2. peaches
3. apricots
4. rhubarb
5. dates
6. strawberries
7. blackcurrants, redcurrants 
8. elderberries
9. rose-hips
10. rowan-berries
11. dried fruit

And here is the Semi-Pulp Method.

I'll describe it for cherries, but it works for all of the above list.

Day One: 

Pour one litre of grape juice into a five litre water bottle. Add half a teaspoon of dried wine yeast. Cap it loosely and leave it in a warm place to start fermenting.

Day Two:

Add another litre of grape juice. Cap it loosely and leave it in peace :)

Day Three:

750 grams cherries (approx). Flash rinse them in boiling water (to sterilise the skin surface). Remove stalks. Halve them, remove stones, drop them straight into the fermenting grape juice. Cap loosely.

Day Six:

Strain the fermenting juice from the pulp into another five litre bottle, using a nylon sieve. You can press the pulp lightly to get more juice, but don't force it too much.

Make up the volume to five litres with 600 grams sugar dissolved in water. Alternatively, you can add another litre of grape juice and reduce the sugar to 450 grams dissolved in water. Don't be tempted to replace all the water with grape juice or the total acidity will be too high. Cap loosely and leave to finish fermenting.

The finished wine will be around 12 to 13 % ABV, depending on the ripeness of the cherries and the brand of grape juice used. Wines made by this Semi-Pulp Method are more complex than simple juice wines and will benefit from longer ageing before drinking. I recommend a minimum of three months.