Grape harvest

[deborahjross]

We have a tiny vineyard on our property: 26 syrah vines. Rain forced an early harvest this year, so the grapes were not quite ready. davetrow wasn't sure of the benefit of leaving them longer, since they aren't getting much sun now.

So, yesterday afternoon, we both went out to the vineyard. davetrow turned off the electrified fence (raccoons) and stripped off the bird netting (birds and squirrels), while I clipped off grape clusters. There had been some loss/damage from the raccoons, but not as much as in earlier years. Some bunches were just wonderful, dusky purple, heavy and sensual in the hand. It was afternoon, and the sun slanted through the yellowing leaves. Commercial vineyards pick only perfect clusters, but for us, this is a labor of love, so I grabbed any cluster than had even a few good grapes.

Then we hauled the buckets to the porch, where we sat and sorted, pulling off immature, split, moldy and dried grapes. The sun went down and the temperature fell. Our backs ached. We kept at it, because the grapes couldn't be left as is, fodder for wild yeasties. We ended up with 65 pounds of grapes -- which makes us the most micro of micro-vineyards.

We set up the crusher-destemmer leased from a local brewer's-supply place and treated ourselves to Chinese take-out. Thendavetrow went to work turning a pile of recognizable grapes into a vat of grape pulp/skin/juice mush. Added stuff to kill the bad microbes, will inoculate with good-wine yeasties. He'll do other things to the mush. And in 2 years, if all goes well, we'll have wine.

Isn't that amazing?

Comments

[desperance.livejournal.com]

It is, it's astonishing every time. *sips wine, and thinks about it*

Is it standard practice, to kill off the wild yeasts and inoculate with a known culture? In my innocence, I thought wild yeasts were still how the miracle happened...

[deborahjross.livejournal.com]

Yes. The wine label reads, "contains sulfites." You can certainly get wine by using wild yeasties, but that's an open invitation to off-flavors. Ideally, you wouldn't have to use sulfites, you'd have a population of just the right yeasts in your vineyard. But most vineyards play host to a zoo of icky molds and yeasts attuned to nonhuman taste buds. So the most reliable way of getting a good wine is to kill off whatever's there and then add the ones you want.

So sayeth davetrow, who has studied such things at UC Davis.

Wild yeast

[davetrow.livejournal.com]

Wild yeast is not alcohol tolerant, and usually dies at 6-8% alcohol, far too low for a stable wine.

While a long-established winery may have been colonized by "good" yeast, only rarely has the vineyard.

Organic vintners rely on the yeast inoculant being robust enough to out-compete the wild yeast, but even so, you can, as Deborah said, get other beasties in there that can generate flavors that belong only in a horror story.

The amount of sulfur used is miniscule: about 50 ppm, which amounted last night to about 2.5 grams of potassium metabisulfite in 6 gallons of grape must. (Grape mush is actually called must, which always makes me think of sexually-aroused male elephants. But they'd be really good at pressing the grapes, wouldn't they!)

I found out at the last UC Davis course I took that the Romans used sulfur in similar fashion, but the technology was lost when the Empire fell and didn't come back until the 19th century! The professor actually makes wines in the Roman fashion, and tasting it tells you a little about why they conquered the world. Quite robust!

Re: Wild yeast

[deborahjross.livejournal.com]

Roman wine leads to thoughts of other things Roman... oh, my.

Re: Wild yeast

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I love data...

(Also, I have been experimenting with sourdough, which depends on wild yeasts, which is what stimulated my curiosity: and one common method of exciting a starter dough is to mix raisins in with the flour & water, because they usually still have wild yeasts clinging...)

Re: Wild yeast

[deborahjross.livejournal.com]

That gets me thinking about our own sourdough challenge. davetrow is wheat-intolerant, and all the commercially packaged sourdough starters I've seen are wheat-flour based. But I could take some rice flour and mix it with water and raisins... maybe some of those we left on the vines??

Re: Wild yeast

[desperance.livejournal.com]

I know nothing of the potential of rice flour for a sourdough - but you can certainly make a leaven - and then a loaf - with rye or spelt flour, or a mixture. I'm planning to do exactly that, having recently eaten a totally yummy rye/spelt loaf which I think ought to be fine for a wheat intolerance?

[imhilien.livejournal.com]

I hope you get to enjoy some nice wine eventually... :)

[tcastleb.livejournal.com]

That's really cool. Best of luck with the wine!

Re: Wild yeast

[deborahjross.livejournal.com]

Spelt is iffy for wheat intolerant folk and off limits for those with celiac. It's too close a relative of wheat, as is kamut. We're going to do an experiment with spelt pasta to see how Dave tolerates it. Rice is much safer.

For bread, I'd use a gluten-free sourdough recipe -- I have several, but couldn't figure out how to do a wheatless starter. It looks like I don't need a commercial dried starter, just some kind of flour and raisins.

[deborahjross.livejournal.com]

Me, too, although I find I'm pickier all the time -- not just about the taste of the wine but the effects of alcohol. I get to drink less and less before "I don't like this" sets in. Sigh.

[deborahjross.livejournal.com]

Yes, tres kewl. And not something I'd have explored on my own.

davetrow, love, the wishes go to you!

Re: Wild yeast

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Ach, damn - I thought spelt was safe, I thought that was why it was making a comeback. Rats...