Posca (Sour Wine) Experiment

I have been trying to think of unique things to do and was thinking about making a sour wine. Well, it ends up that there is a term for it based in Roman times, Posca. I was wondering if any of you have ever given this a try.

I am thinking of throwing Wyeast's Roeselare blend in as the yeast of the wine instead of the packet that comes with whichever wine kit that I end up buying. I will most likely throw a wood dowel into the carboy to get a bit of that flavor as well.

However, I am undecided what style of wine I will want to use in this experiment. The ones I am kicking around are Riesling, Merlot, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Blanc.

I am anticipating that I will have to feed this experiment with yeast nutrient as I go. I don't know if I should add any of the normal packets that will come with the wine kit or not. I don't know if they will hinder the sour notes or help the experimental wine to become more palatable.

Should I acquire a small barrel to bulk age this after I let it go for a year or do you think I should bottle age it?

Any ideas or words of caution before I get this experiment underway?

I know coriander was typically used as the spice, so I might have to come up with a good spice blend for this as well.

One problem I see with using Roselare blend is that beer yeast can't ferment the long chain sugars in grape mustt, which will probably mean little primary fermentation or at least a very underattenuated one.

Huh?

I always thought that grape must and most fruit must contain an extremely high proportion of fructose and sucrose sugars, especially compared to wort. How would a beer yeast not.be able to ferment especially a mixed blend like roselare. Its not the ideal fermentor but it'd work.

Go read up about a guy named Paul Thackery. I think thats the name. He does wines aunatural as wa done in Roman Times.

Well, the main objective of using that blend would be the balance of the pedio, lacto, and brett. Do you think the brett would be able to take over enough to ferment this down sufficiently? Otherwise I could throw in the yeast provided as well as the Roeselare blend. It would be hard to reproduce the results, but would at least be an interesting experiment who should give me enough bottles to not care whether or not I can replicate it exactly.

If I do throw in the provided yeast, I will keep to their schedule of additions as specified on the packaging just to be sure I don't get too many off flavors.

Do you think that would be a safer bet to get a good result?

A quick google search revealed who Sean Thackrey is. I will read up on him and his techniques before I proceed. I may even try to see if I can procure any of his wine to see whether or not this is something that I would find desirable to pursue.

Thanks! This should be an interesting investigation.

smokinghole said:

Huh?

I always thought that grape must and most fruit must contain an extremely high proportion of fructose and sucrose sugars, especially compared to wort. How would a beer yeast not.be able to ferment especially a mixed blend like roselare. Its not the ideal fermentor but it'd work.

Go read up about a guy named Paul Thackery. I think thats the name. He does wines aunatural as wa done in Roman Times.

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Whoops, major brain fart, wine yeast can't ferment the long chain sugars in wort, not the other way around. Ignore me and carry on.

Thanks to both of you, again. I feel more sane doing this, and since I am in an apartment I think I will go with that blend instead of doing the awesome things that Mr Thackrey is doing. I will most likely keep the fermentation at the low end of the spectrum at the beginning so that I don't get as many esters from the sacc yeast. This should at least make it less likely that I create clashing flavors.

Should I go with a red or a white wine kit?

I feel like a white wine would show the sour characters less due its natural sourness, yet the flavors might seem more natural for that very same reason. Though, if Roeselare has Brett L, the cherry flavors would more compliment a red wine. Any thoughts or should I try one then try the other when the first one is completes? (White then red would make the most sense to me for reuse of the yeast cake).

Are red wines high enough in anthocyanins to cause bitterness issues?
More info.

One thing I'd watch out for is if the wine yeast that comes with the kit is a competitive/killer strain. The brett and LAB will be fine but it'll take out the sacch. Another would be the pH of the wine. If you're already down around 3.2, the LAB may not produce additional acidity, nor would you want them to. Finally, since the must is comprised entirely of simple sugars, the primary fermentation will take it to dryness. The brett will do its thing regardless, but again, not much for the LAB to work with. All this actually brings up one more point. Suppose you select a higher pH must and crash out the sacch before dryness. The LAB will be in a more favorable environment but are likely to go acetic as a byproduct of malolactic "fermentation."

This is actually a really cool experiment, I hope you go through with it and report back. Just some things to consider. I'll have to read up on the traditional method before I write it off. Until then I'll probably only take it so far as blending wine with sour beer or a brett secondary in a small portion of a batch.

Ah, looks like it's been we'll documented that Posca is vinegary, so nothing new there. Carry on...

BryanThompson said:

Are red wines high enough in anthocyanins to cause bitterness issues?
More info.

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Anthocyanin may be an issue with a LAB. I cannot find a general anthocyanin content of grape must but there are grapes that can contain up to 800mg anthocyanin per 100g of grapes. That's about half what I had with my purple corn but I only used a couple pounds of purple corn and this will be a full must from something pretty rich in anthocyanin. Plus well the problem I had with my beer was only discovered through a wine defect listing so it can certainly be an issue for your project.

I'd read through Thackery's stuff a bit more because he does discuss at some point having lactic acid bacteria issues. I don't know if that issue led to bitter taint or just too much acidity.

Maybe the trick would be to have an underattenuated wine with a lactic acid component to balance the sweetness?

Well, I think one of the major things here is that the drink itself, if I am being historically accurate, is not palatable on its own anyways. It is something that is supposed to dry out too far and get a bit vinegar-like. That's why the "replications" of nowadays is to simply take red wine vinegar and mix it with honey and spices. It would be an interesting thing to be able to make it palatable without additives (beyond spices thrown into the fermenter)

I guess one way that I could make it sweeter on its own would be instead of using that Roeselare blend, take a sweet wine yeast and add lacto and pedio. This will skip all funk, but might give the bacteria more room to play their own part. I could always take a sample after a few months sitting like that and get an idea of whether to bottle or throw in some wild yeast for a more complex flavor.

Another route would be to possibly throw a kombucha scoby in to the wine as its fermenting so that I get a lot of the bacteria, including the acetic ones so that I get that vinegary taste. I just would have a theoretical shelf life on how long this would actually contain alcohol at that point.

Another thought would be to do brettanomyces lambicus at the same time as the kombucha scoby. Allow all the players to fight it out for several months and then try it out. (Whichever tastes the best I will then reproduce as a large batch)

I might just split the wine kit into several batches. Each one using a different method, marking them all, then noting the differences after a year when I would taste them.

Also, I am having a hard time finding his documents that actually have to do with the wine making process he uses. What I found last night was mostly historical documents that he had compiled onto his site. Judging by the titles, they did not look like they had any direct content dealing with how the wine is made.

marvaden said:

I guess one way that I could make it sweeter on its own would be instead of using that Roeselare blend, take a sweet wine yeast and add lacto and pedio.

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Pedio kicks out a lot of diacetyl. You may still want the brett there to clean it up. Residual sugar left from primary will be consumed in secondary. Any number of options from there if you want it sweet. Carbonate then pasteurize (Pappers method in the cider forum works pretty well), sweeten at serving (syrup, honey, sweet wine, sugar cube), etc.

marvaden said:

I might just split the wine kit into several batches. Each one using a different method, marking them all, then noting the differences after a year when I would taste them.

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I think that's a great idea. You'll learn from it (so will we if you share) and have some blending options at the end.

Hmm, good point. I didn't consider what off flavors that pedio would throw off. More food for thought while I plan this out.

I will keep you all informed. I will be starting this experiment next month after a bit more research and give full details and pictures.

The one thing that I did decide was that I will do this to a merlot. I will throw a dowel of oak into each of them as well to give a bit of oak flavor and a place for the bugs to live.

This weekend I will be doing a different sort of experiment that I will post about: Brett B Maple Syrup Wine. I am going to do small tastings to figure out what the spices will be that I will put into it to give mild notes and complexities. (I know; I probably sound a bit crazy...)

marvaden said:

Hmm, good point. I didn't consider what off flavors that pedio would throw off. More food for thought while I plan this out.

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Buttered vinegar, yum!

marvaden said:

The one thing that I did decide was that I will do this to a merlot. I will throw a dowel of oak into each of them as well to give a bit of oak flavor and a place for the bugs to live.

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I like to boil oak cubes ~10 min then soak them in wine for a couple weeks to mellow the character. Forget if I stole that from Jeff Sparrow or Michael Tonsmeire but it seems to work well.

marvaden said:

(I know; I probably sound a bit crazy...)

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Yup but in a good way. You and levifunk should probably hang out.

Tonight it begins. I will do this in 3 2-gallon batches.
Batch 1: Brettanomyces Bruxellensis & wild capture from my patio
Batch 2: Brettanomyces Bruxellensis & kombucha SCOBY (will add after the krausen falls)
Batch 3: Roeselare blend

I will post pictures tonight after I fill the carboys and pitch the yeast/bacteria.

Keep us posted. This is interesting.

I'm skeptical that the Roeselare will get you much souring in a grape must. It's mostly simple sugars, which the sacc will eat up quickly, and slower owrking bugs are just going to be outdone. There's not going to be anything left for them once the sacc is finished (which won't take long). Anyway, that's my hunch. I'm curious to see what actually happens.

Maybe a 2oz addition of maltodextrin would help out with the funkyness, sourness I don't know what would help that.

An experiment occurred to me: Some strains of lacto produce alcohol. Would it perhaps work to ferment, say, two-thirds of a batch of wine with regular wine yeast and the remaining one-third exclusively with an alcohol-producing strain of lacto, with the intention of blending after fermentation to produce a sour wine?

For that matter, has anyone every tried fermenting anything exclusively with an alcohol-producing strain of lacto? If so, how did it turn out?

I have made sour wine from Frontenac Gris hybrid wine grapes. I used natural yeast from the vineyard to ferment. It turned out rather well, but was not particularly balanced on its own. I made a spin on a Flemish Red with it.

https://sites.google.com/site/brouwerijboerderijkabouter/home/whiny-tart

It has turned out with a year of aging to be the best thing I have made to date.

I am not familiar with anyone trying to do that with wine. I do know that the mad fermentationist did it for beer. http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2012/06/100-lactobacillus-berliner-weisse.html is an example of a 100% lactobacillus berliner weisse.

This round, I am going to stick purely to the wine kit and yeast/bacteria blends that I have chosen. I obviously won't be putting the sulphites into the wine, though. If I want to do one that is funkier I will try the "best" method again with various additions of maltodextrin side by side.

I honestly think the Roeselare one may just end up being a really dry wine, but we will see. The one hope for it is that the alcohol tolerance of the Sacch strain may not be high enough for it to willingly get through all the sugars. I am hoping that the Sacch strain bites off more than it can chew and leaves a lot of off flavors for the Brett to clean up. I think the bacteria will mostly be playing with what the malolactic bacteria would normally eat.

Predictions:
Batch 1: mostly clean and dry with a tiny bit of sourness and possibly a hint of funk and pineapple. Possibly very acidic on the tongue.
Batch 2: mostly clean and dry (maybe some funk and pineapple) but ultimately overpowered by the kombucha.
Batch 3: either ultra clean and dry or the funkiest of the 3. To a large degree, this one is the wild card.

As promised (though late), here's some pictures of the carboys as they are this morning. I am going to leave the one carboy out on the porch for a few days to make sure it does catch something. I have had good success out there before for sour mashing, so I have high hopes.

As for varietal, maybe Sangiovese, Nebbiolo, Barbera? Pretty sure pinot noir isn't Italian at all. Germanic Roman during the Holy Roman Empire? Merlot or Cabernet Sauvignon might be a winner, maybe a blend? Anyhow, good luck making slightly less vinegar-y vinegar.

Balls, posted before I saw you'd already committed. What are your varietals?

I chose to go with a Merlot since, as you said, it is an old world style wine (and that region had been part of both the Roman and Holy Roman empires). I bought a single 6 gallon wine kit and split it between the three carboys.

There doesn't seem to be much going on in the carboys as of right now, but the Roeselare pack did swell. I think everything's just taking it slow.

I had also moved the outside one inside since it was looking like it was going to rain. I will be putting it back outside over night if it is not supposed to rain.

Here's the scoop:

The only visible activity is that the Roeselare one has yeast rafts.

HOWEVER there is a drop in gravity and the smells are each very unique.

Pure Brett B(eventually will have the Kombucha SCOBY thrown in) has a caramel smell.
The one I had on my patio is already developing a faint sour smell.
The Roeselare one smells like baking yeast.

So far this is really really intriguing to me.

Interesting experiment. Please post more results as they progress.

The wild fermentation one molded. I was debating pitching it anyways because I realized that my downstairs neighbor has a compost heap down there that has recently been contaminating the flavor of my wild sour mashes. If it's getting in those, I don't want to drink this.

Just an update with pictures. I am going to let the two remaining carboys to keep riding until I see that the pellicles collapse. Attached are the pellicles. The one that is more white is the Roeselare mix while the other is the Brett B + Kombucha SCOBY

It's been a while, and I just stole my first sample of each yesterday.


The one with kombucha almost tastes like a malbec. It's a but on the sweet and robust end. The brett gave it almost a woody flavor as well.

The roeselare mix one is amazing. It has a similar flavor profile to duchess de bourgogne. I highly recommend this method.

Nice, thanks for sharing. Keep us posted!


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I'd like to see a small winery do something like this to their wine. Get a buggy barrel and get a merlot must in there. The woody character from the brett is surprising. Good experiment. Keep us abreast.

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It's been a while since I've updated, so I figured I would give a quick update.

Both wines are pleasing to the palate still but the mouthfeel is lacking. I'm going to add medium toast French oak spirals to both the brett + kombucha one and the roeselare one. I'll have it sit on that for two weeks, then I will bottle half of both, saving half to throw a fresh dark (not roasty) wort on top.

I had tried small samples of blending but did not care for the blended flavor at all.

Cheers!

I bottled the roeselare mix wine today with priming sugar in the hopes that this will become a sparkling red wine.

Today's impressions on flavor.

SWMBO:
Aroma - "woody, not too fruity"
appearance - "pretty damn dark; like a brownish red"
flavor - The flavors come out at different times. The first flavor is fruity, with a slight sweetness. Then a woody taste develops. Then it finishes with a funky/grainy/bready flavor. A bit of sourdough bread at the end.

Overall impression: "Better than good"

My description:
aroma - somewhere between a Merlot and a port. I get the french oak that I threw in there, but I also get a hint of the funky/almondy aromas of a port/sherry.
appearance - I agree with my girlfriend
flavor - First thing I get is a tiny bit of lactic acid followed by the merlot flavors mix with wood. This slowly dissolves into the sherry/tawny port flavors of almond, leather, wood, hay, etc. I get a bit of sourdough rye bread at the end as well.
body - the body is surprisingly well structured. I believe that the addition of the french oak spirals really brought this together with its tannin structure.

Overall impression: I am going to need to hide this so that I don't drink it all at once.