Massachusetts group grape buy

Hey guys,

A bunch of you guys who were at Masstoberfest and at the Utopia brew day expressed intrest in making wine. I started a seperate thread here to discuss it and I'll link to this thread from those threads.

So here's my idea. We can pool our resources and do a group co-op wine. I have been buying grapes from a fruit wholesaler in Harford who has a great relationship with California vineyards and also with vineyards in Chile. If you've never had Chilean wine you are in for a treat. Pick up a bottle of Malbec and try it. It's VERY good. THey get the grapes up from Chili in fantastic condition. Yes it's not 'picked in the morning and crushed by noon' like you would wish for but we don't live in California so we have to make do. I've been very happy with the quality of the Chilean grapes and just bottled my Chilean Cab Sav from May 2007. It is VERY good.

I have 30 gallons of a Bordeaux blend in my barrel that needs to come out of the barrel. (My 15 gallon barrel is older and can hold the Zin blend till the fall.) I need 30 gallons of something red to put back in there. (You can't put a white wine in a barrel that has held a red wine.) I'm not really wanting to spring for 500 lbs of red grapes for myself again this year, I have more red wine than I know what to do with as it is.

So if you guys are interested we can form a co-op and do something with the Chilean crop. I'll be buying mostly whites for myself this spring, probably focusing on PG, Chards and Reislings.

PTN

I am very interested. You can count me in the group grape buy. I'm currently making this kit, I ordered it from Northern brewer yesterday.

NORTHERN BREWER: Vintners Reserve 10 Liter Wine Kits-New!

Shiraz. Australia's own "big red" entry on the world stage, Shiraz boasts an incredible concentrated blend of blackberry fruit, spice and chocolate, all within a firm structure that keeps it together beautifully. A stunning, mouth-filling, dark and delicious treat.

I was told it won 5th place out of all the kits in terms of taste and quality. We shall see. If I can get a decent table wine out of it I will be pleased.

I'm sure you will be happy, Albert. My only recomendation regarding making a kit is if the directions say "Do XYZ and leave it for a week" leave it for two. Time is your friend with wine.

Make a few kits between now and then. It will make it easier for you to leave the whole grape wine alone for the time it needs. Cause it does need time! But if you have a few kits you will have something to drink in the meantime. Also it will give you an appretiation of the difference between whole grapes and kits. Like I said to you guys last week, there is a difference that you can taste. Some people will swear that there is no 'kit taste.' I think there is. It's not bad, it's just there.

But we can talk more about it as we get closer. Have you given any thought to what you would like to make?

PTN

Hey Paul, I tried a Malbec that you suggested. It's really good, though I prefer a nice Merlot. I'm game for what ever the bulk buy is..

Can anybody recommend a merlot kit for the first time winemaker? Is one kit better than another? I'll be going to Modern Brewer this weekend.

Ya Brian, a merlot is a much softer, rounder wine. I prefer my reds a bit beefier, with more of a tannic backbone. The sort of wines where your mouth feels all dried out and fuzzy after a glass and after half a bottle you want to go brush your teeth. lol

I think you will be limited mostly by selection at MH. He only has so much space there and wine kits take up a fair bit of room. Let selection and price point be your guides. For the most part you get what you pay for. Most of the kits come from Canada, the remainder from Italy. They are all reasonable products and will yield a decent bottle of wine in a relatively quick time frame. Not to steer you away from MH, but Steve at The Witches Brew will more than likely have a bottle of whatever you are looking to buy. It doesn't take much coaxing to get him to open up a bottle 'for tasting purposes.'

PTN

One thing to think about when purchasing kits. The more juice you get the less concentrated that juice is. Intuitively you would think that a more concentrated product would be better but it's not that way. The more they monkey with the juice to get it concentrated the more that will show up in the end. Obviously straight juice fressh from the grape is the standard. Every time they do something to that juice they are messing with it.

So a 10 liter kit is better than a 5 and a 20 is better than a 10.

PTN

FYI, the guy who runs my local HBS (who also has a couple locations in eastern MA) gets fresh grape juice direct from one of the vineyards in the Finger Lakes. You might want to talk to him; I'm pretty sure he drives up himself and picks up the juice in fermenation buckets. Kinda neat to do something with local product, you know?

the_bird said:

FYI, the guy who runs my local HBS (who also has a couple locations in eastern MA) gets fresh grape juice direct from one of the vineyards in the Finger Lakes. You might want to talk to him; I'm pretty sure he drives up himself and picks up the juice in fermenation buckets. Kinda neat to do something with local product, you know?

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What's the name of his place?

Bulls Beers said:

What's the name of his place?

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Modern Homebrew Emporium

I'm a big fan of Finger Lakes Region wines, Alice and I go there several times a year, often to act as judges. But no-one out there has any juice still hanging around now. Even Fulkersons only keeps their juices till the end of November, if it hasn't sold by thenthey ferment it or wholesale it out. Good idea though, Bird. We are lookingat spring time fruit and that means South America.
PTN

Wasn't sure how long in advance you were talking. I think I'm going to get hooked up with some of the Finger Lakes juice this year when it's available, I've been getting more and more into wine lately and some of the stuff out there is outstanding. My MIL lives out in Bath, so we love being able to take little trips up to the wineries, leave the_Bean with Nana and pretend that we're "sophisticated" adults for a little while.

Spawn #1 is in grad school out by Corning. One of my favorite memories ever was the Columbus Day Weekend Alice adn I took my parents out there. I rented a big van and all of us and three of Sheila's friends piled in and we went up the east side of Seneca Lake. Now for those of you who haven't been out there, first off, what are you waiting for? It's GREAT. The lakes are rimmed with vineyards. You drive along and there is another one. Pop in, sample some wine, maybe buy a bottle, maybe buy a case. Pull back out onto the road and just about the time you get into 5th gear there is another vineyard.

So we're popping along and from the way back I hear, "This is so great! I'm riding in a van with my best friend, her parents and her grandparents and we're all getting drunk!"

"Uh, Chrissy, honey, you're sitting out the next few vineyards, ok? And we need to talk about spitting!"

If you are looking for a great wine experience the Finger Lakes are only a 5 hour drive away, thru some spectacular scenery (No not the NY Thruway.) I wouldn't go now, it's colder than hell out there now, but for 9 months out of 12 it's fantastic. Who ever would have thought that a died in the wool Red Sox fan could have so much nice to say about NY?

Anyway, back on topic. South American grapes. Mmmmmmmmm! I'm getting itchy just thinking about it. End of April's coming boys and girls!


PTN

We went out to Seneca Lake for our fifth anniversary last year. Stayed at a nice little B&B up in Pen Yan, had a great dinner at the Madderlake Cafe in Geveva. Small little place, exceptional food, really knowledgeable about their wines (of course) but I really appreciated that the owner steered us towards a bottle that was not only exactly what we were looking for, but was very reasonably priced. We always end up with about a case of wine, total. One of the places, can't remember which, was doing tours of the facilities, which was really cool; the tour guide was very impressed that I knew what a wine thief was... Got to see all the equipment, the fermenters, got to do a barrel tasting. Well worth the $7. Have to remember which winery it was.

Count me in Paul...

All this talk about vino made me head down to the cellar and pull a bottle of last years Bordeaux blend out of the barrel. I replaced it with a bottle of 2006 Chilean Cab Sav, you need to keep the barrel topped up but I was dying to see where the Bordeax was. The Cab will blend in just fine.

I am quite pleased! Very nice jammy nose, black fruit, violets, and leather with a cigar box back end. On the tongue it is still a little hot, with an obvious alcohol presence. It doesn't have the tannic backbone that I wanted and not as much of the Cab Franc funk as I expected. It is very soft and round, very smooth. Nice notes of black fruit, currents and berries. Very left bank. I'm very happy. One year old and showing signs of being a winner. This one will only improve for the next 2-3 years and has the body to maybe go for 5-10.

Off to finish the potato leek soup that is simmering on the stove. I'm REALLY looking forward to supper.

PTN

Sounds interesting. I know NOTHING about wines...but am willing to learn.

What are the specifics for this group buy? How much $$$ and how much wine is made etc?

-Will

I would be interested in getting on this. Do you have your own crusher/destemmer? And what is the normal weight for 6 gallons, something like 20 lbs? I've done two concentrated kits and was very unhappy with the result. I am currently fermenting two unconcentrated kits, at least the color is better already. My next batch was going to be the flash frozen juice/skins, a local guy who makes pretty good wine uses that.

In any case, I would be up for 12 gallons total. However many pounds that would approximate anyway.

Ok someone break out your sliderule. (For those of you under the age of 45 Google sliderules. Honest to God, we used to use those things. We flew men to the moon using those things.)

Grapes come in lugs. A lug is a pretty standard measure of grapes, it is a box, either cheap wood or plastic. It holds 38 lbs +/- . It takes about two and a half lugs to end up with 5 gallons of wine. You will end up with more than 5 gallons to start with but every time you rack the wine off the lees you loose some and need to top up, so you need a bunch of smaller bottles to hold your topping up wine. So like I said, about three lugs per 5 gallons. Now, here is where it gets weird. Chilean grapes come in half lugs. (When I say Chilean I am refering to any and all grapes from South America, Chilean, Argentinean, etc.) These lugs hold around 15-18 lbs. I usually figure 4 of these lugs per 5 gallons and I know I'm going to be tight for topping up wine. The Chilean grapes have been costing around $20 per lug (half lug) over the past few years and from what I've seen that will be about the going rate this year.

So for instance...

One ton of grapes will yeild about 120 gallons of wine, enough for 2 standard 60 gallon barrels, yielding around 50 cases, or 600 bottles of wine At full on retail that should cost around $2300. If we bought that much we would get a better price and the cost would go down. It's been my experience that the wholesaler plays it kind of loose and does not have a hard and fast, "This is the cost, take it or leave it." business model. He works with you and if you buy more you get a better price.

So it follows that one quarter ton (500 lbs) of grpes yields around 30 gallons or 12 +/- cases. (12 standard 750 ml bottles per case)

There will be other associated cost with this. I have several fermenting vessels but can only handle about 1/4 ton at a time. If we are going to do this we'll need to buy a larger fermenter. They go for around $200, not a big expense if we are spreading it out amoung a bunch of people in a co-op. I already have a press, and I can borrow a crusher/destemmer. (I currently use my patented Pauthenurse's backbreaking low tech 'wire screen over a barrel' destemmer. It works great. You WILL need Motrin the following day and a lot of it.) Yeast is an additional cost as is yeast nutrient and malo lactic bacteria.

So what it comes down to is how many people want in on this and how much each person wants to pony up. I'd suggest we might buy in at a 'share price' of (for example) $50. Everyone interested buys into the coop at $50/share. We determine what we are going to buy/make. If we get 15 people buying 20 shares we'll have $1000 cash money. With that we could buy 1/4 ton + of grapes plus any and all sundry expenses.

OK I'm realizing that I'm a bit too drunk to do teh calculations here, Alice and I spent the day at the Boston Wine Expo then came home and I foolishly opened a bottle of Port with supper that a friend of mine made and I'm pretty tight right now. But you see where I'm goiong with this. I have a few friends who are coop members, one in Colorado and one in CA. I'll ask them how they run the coop. Lets hear some discussionn.

PTN

Just for clarification purposes, here is a pic of lugs of grapes. These are full lugs from CA, 2007 vintage, currently residing in a barrel in my cellar. My press is in the backgorund as is my low tech destemmer.



Here is a pic of my low tech destemmer at work. Actually, it's a picture of Carlos at work, feeding the destemmer.


And although I don't usually do this I did buy a few lugs of Old Vine Zinfandel and let my neice and nephew crush them the 'ol fashioned way' It was a memorable family event, the kids still talk about it.



PTN

This is a great idea!!! I live in JP, been brewing beer for years, and I am currently fermenting my first two fruit wines (berry blend and cherry). I'd really like to get in on this since the output will be delicious, and I'd like to get the chance to meet and learn from others in the area.

Let me get this straight. We pitch in $$$ and muscle. You ferment the wine. We get X bottles of it. What is the time frame? What else do we need to do? What other stuff do we need?
I can handle $50 (or so).
Sounds good to me so far...
Let me know exact numbers when you get them.

-Will

That's pretty much the idea, Will. BUt it's a group co-op thing. The only thing that I'm providing that everyone else isn't will be experience, some equipment and a corner of my cellar.

PTN

Welcome, Cranky.

Be very very careful when Paul says it's 'just a little work'...
*has visions of trees coming down*

Melana said:

Be very very careful when Paul says it's 'just a little work'...
*has visions of trees coming down*

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LOL - He WILL NEVER live that down.

-Will

Melana said:

Be very very careful when Paul says it's 'just a little work'...
*has visions of trees coming down*

Click to expand...

I hate you! Really, I do.

PTN

Hey guys,
we've sort of let this thread wimper out. Lets get it going again and start our planning. I've got an itch. I made 3 gallons of Habenero/Lime wine yesterday cause I'm getting figgitly.

PTN

paulthenurse said:

Hey guys,
we've sort of let this thread wimper out. Lets get it going again and start our planning. I've got an itch. I made 3 gallons of Habenero/Lime wine yesterday cause I'm getting figgitly.

PTN

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Just waiting on you Paul. I just bought 275 lbs of grain in the club grain buy. So what the hell man lets get some grapes too. BTW I got a barley crusher for 60 bucks.. I just want to throw that out there and let the haters hate lol.

Hey... just caught this thread today, a bit distracted lately.

I would like to participate as well.
Would 50 bucks work for you?

How can we help the process, in terms of "muscle"..?

Sounds like it would be a great learning opportunity, as well as one more excuse for quality time in Stoughton...!

paulthenurse said:

Hey guys,
we've sort of let this thread wimper out. Lets get it going again and start our planning. I've got an itch. I made 3 gallons of Habenero/Lime wine yesterday cause I'm getting figgitly.

PTN

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This sure sounds tasty to me!

Paul if you need help picking up said grapes that can be arranged also!

paulthenurse said:

Hey guys,
we've sort of let this thread wimper out. Lets get it going again and start our planning. I've got an itch. I made 3 gallons of Habenero/Lime wine yesterday cause I'm getting figgitly.

PTN

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Let me know what you need from me, because I'm definitely up for this, and am excited to learn more about wine making.

By the way, can you post the recipe for your Habanero/Lime wine?

Who is Carlos...?

Do I have to bring my own version of Carlos?

Sumo said:

Just waiting on you Paul. I just bought 275 lbs of grain in the club grain buy. So what the hell man lets get some grapes too. BTW I got a barley crusher for 60 bucks.. I just want to throw that out there and let the haters hate lol.

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It worked, I hate you, too.

Melana said:

This sure sounds tasty to me!

Paul if you need help picking up said grapes that can be arranged also!

Click to expand...

Your truck might get drafted. Ask Chris about me pulling into his driveway the last time I picked up grapes. He swore my front wheels weren't touching the ground.

PTN

CrankyOldLibrarian said:

By the way, can you post the recipe for your Habanero/Lime wine?

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I kind of winged it by the seat of my pants but here goes.

I took about 50 limes and juiced them, got about one and one half quarts. (Bought 60 the week before but didn't get to it before going away, lost 10 or so to spoilage.) Put it into a three gallon carboy and topped up to about 2 1/2 gallons. Added a few drops of pectic enzyme. I forgot to measure the pH. (I'd already finished a half bottle of my Cab when Alice told me to get off my ass and do something with the limes before they ALL turned fuzzy.) I'm not worried about it being flabby, there will be plenty-o-acid. I'll try to remember to check it in the morning. Added 5 lbs of sugar which gave me a Brix of 22 exactly when I checked this morning. (I left it to sit overnight after adding the pectic enzyme.) Added 1 tablespoon of dried bitter orange peel and 2 dried habaneros. I added one packet of D47 this afternoon. I'll top up to the three gallon mark after a few days. D47 isn't a particularly vigourous fermentor but I don't want to have an overflow.

That's it. Should be done with the primary in a week or two, if I need to take out the peppers before then I'll fish them out. I'm guessing that I probably will need to, I'm not looking to have a particularly hot wine, I just wanted the pepper as an adjunct to the lime.

PTN

beergears said:

Who is Carlos...?

Do I have to bring my own version of Carlos?

Click to expand...

If you have a Carlos of your own bring him along, we can use the muscle.

PTN

paulthenurse said:

I kind of winged it by the seat of my pants but here goes.

I took about 50 limes and juiced them, got about one and one half quarts. (Bought 60 the week before but didn't get to it before going away, lost 10 or so to spoilage.) Put it into a three gallon carboy and topped up to about 2 1/2 gallons. Added a few drops of pectic enzyme. I forgot to measure the pH. (I'd already finished a half bottle of my Cab when Alice told me to get off my ass and do something with the limes before they ALL turned fuzzy.) I'm not worried about it being flabby, there will be plenty-o-acid. I'll try to remember to check it in the morning. Added 5 lbs of sugar which gave me a Brix of 22 exactly when I checked this morning. (I left it to sit overnight after adding the pectic enzyme.) Added 1 tablespoon of dried bitter orange peel and 2 dried habaneros. I added one packet of D47 this afternoon. I'll top up to the three gallon mark after a few days. D47 isn't a particularly vigourous fermentor but I don't want to have an overflow.

That's it. Should be done with the primary in a week or two, if I need to take out the peppers before then I'll fish them out. I'm guessing that I probably will need to, I'm not looking to have a particularly hot wine, I just wanted the pepper as an adjunct to the lime.

PTN

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Thanks for the recipe... I'm either going to make this, a ginger wine, banana wine, or coffee wine next week. Too many choices!

Having done all of the above... Bannanas make a great addition to other wines to lend body and mouth feel. As a prominant player... Meh. By themselves... Good Lord save me.

Ginger. I LOVE ginger. (But I wouldn't turn my back on MaryAnn.) If you want a ginger wine I'll gladly give you a bottle then you can decide if you want to make 5 gallons of it.

Coffee. My biggest dissapointment.

I suspect you are where I was not that long ago. You are all qwrapped up in the idea of making wine. And you understand that GOOD wine takes two things: grapes and time. You don[t have either, so you want to ferment ANYTHING that tastes good and has sugar in it. Been there and done that. Let me ask you, if you go down to your local packy and wander the wine aisles do you see any ginger or coffee or bannana wines? No? Why d you think that is?

Cause they SUCK!

I'm not caving on fruit wines, I make a strawberry wine every year that makes me want to cry out with joy in February. I make a peach wine form peaches grown in a tree in our yard which is wonderful. My plum wine has won medals.

Childs play.

The lime wine was an experiment. (I bet it is going to taste fine and will be a nice summer sippin on the back porch watching the sun go down on a 90 degree day in July wine) It won't ever sell for $2.99/ bottle. Don't expect ANY of your non-grape wines to ever get your non home winemaker friends to appreciate the subtleties of what you made. They won't. But you may. Make all of the wines you want to experiment with. Learn from them. (Take a bit of advisce and only make a 3 gallon carboy, tha way yo uonly have to get rid of 12 bottles, unlike someonw who will be unnamed who made 10 gallons of tomato wine and cant stomach it.


Anyone making tomato sauce?

paulthenurse said:

Having done all of the above... Bannanas make a great addition to other wines to lend body and mouth feel. As a prominant player... Meh. By themselves... Good Lord save me.

Ginger. I LOVE ginger. (But I wouldn't turn my back on MaryAnn.) If you want a ginger wine I'll gladly give you a bottle then you can decide if you want to make 5 gallons of it.

Coffee. My biggest dissapointment.

I suspect you are where I was not that long ago. You are all qwrapped up in the idea of making wine. And you understand that GOOD wine takes two things: grapes and time. You don[t have either, so you want to ferment ANYTHING that tastes good and has sugar in it. Been there and done that. Let me ask you, if you go down to your local packy and wander the wine aisles do you see any ginger or coffee or bannana wines? No? Why d you think that is?

Cause they SUCK!

I'm not caving on fruit wines, I make a strawberry wine every year that makes me want to cry out with joy in February. I make a peach wine form peaches grown in a tree in our yard which is wonderful. My plum wine has won medals.

Childs play.

The lime wine was an experiment. (I bet it is going to taste fine and will be a nice summer sippin on the back porch watching the sun go down on a 90 degree day in July wine) It won't ever sell for $2.99/ bottle. Don't expect ANY of your non-grape wines to ever get your non home winemaker friends to appreciate the subtleties of what you made. They won't. But you may. Make all of the wines you want to experiment with. Learn from them. (Take a bit of advisce and only make a 3 gallon carboy, tha way yo uonly have to get rid of 12 bottles, unlike someonw who will be unnamed who made 10 gallons of tomato wine and cant stomach it.


Anyone making tomato sauce?

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Thanks for the tips, I really do appreciate it. And, yes, you pegged it, I'm about to bottle a mixed berry wine, fermenting a cherry wine, and am now curious to do one that I know won't turn out so good, but has my curiosity (and will be dirt cheap to make). I don't expect too much from these so I have been keeping them to about 2 gallons. It's been fun, a great learning experience, and a bit of a shift from making beer. I'm planning on getting 6 gallons of Chilean grape juice in the Spring so I can learn a bit about grape wine on my own, and I am hoping that your ideas for the group wine making works out too so I can learn more about the entire from grape to wine process.

Next week...I think that I'm going for the limes or bananas unless something that might make a tastier wine is on sale.

paulthenurse said:

Your truck might get drafted. Ask Chris about me pulling into his driveway the last time I picked up grapes. He swore my front wheels weren't touching the ground.

PTN

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No worries... i'm all for helping just keep in mind that i WILL NOT overload my truck.