Fantastic Red Wine Success Wanted

[Grancru]

I am interested in making my first grape wine. I have made many meads/momels with great success. It is now grape season and I am going to the California Wine Grapes Co. in Detroit to purchase fresh juice (6 gals buckets).

Can anyone share a GREAT red wine recipe success. We enjoy cabs, merlot, pinot noir, syrah...even a traditional Italian table wine.

I have two 15 gals fermentors to play with. Also one 34 +/- gal toasted oak barrel used once for a zinfandel that must be thoroughly cleaned before use.

So I can do two different 15 gal batches or all the same an oak age in the barrel.

All suggestions and successful recipes appreciated!!!

 

[Grancru]

Is nobody making traditional red wines? Come on guys.

 

[the possum]

I'm no master brewer or anything, but I guess I'll chip in my two cents since no one else has replied.

With grape wines, I don't really think in terms of "recipes". Buy the juice of your choice, pour it into a sanitized carboy, add some yeast, and let 'er rip. You can check the specific gravity or % sugar first just so you'll know what you end up with, and verify that acids are within normal ranges, but if the juice is good enough quality to be worth buying, you shouldn't really need to mess with it- at least not until you have a few batches under your belt & have a better idea of what you want to shoot for. Likewise with the oak barrel, for a first time I'd personally wait until ferment is complete & the wine is fairly clear so you don't take chances on off aromas from sediment. Let your nose be your guide on how long to leave it in there.

 

[Grancru]

What I was looking for was what process others have used that that have been very successful. What grapes with what yeast worked the best. After racking of the lees when to put into the oak barrel for aging, ect.

I have been told some grape juice needs no yeast to ferment. Any direction is appreciated.

 

[malkore]

I've only made wine with WineXpert kits. Its kinda like extract brewing, but it makes decent wine for $3 a bottle.

 

[the possum]

What I was looking for was what process others have used that that have been very successful. What grapes with what yeast worked the best. After racking of the lees when to put into the oak barrel for aging, ect.

I have been told some grape juice needs no yeast to ferment. Any direction is appreciated.

Again, I don't have a lot of great experience at making wines. In college I was fortunate to get into a wine class, where we spent 3 hours a week sniffing samples of various wines. I've done "vertical" tastings privately, where we sample the same wine from the same vineyard, produced in different years (I had 5 consecutive years on one).

You probably already know this, so I hope I don't sound condescending here, but there's a lot more to making good wine than the variety and type of yeast. Much of it is done in the vineyard, and depends on the weather. Some years the same vines will produce fantasticly complex aromas, while poor years may be ho-hum plain table wine, which is exactly what we saw in our tasting classes. So I'm not sure anyone can really answer your question, except maybe the people who grew the grapes/juice in those buckets.

That said, here's a couple links to at least give you some guidelines- some googling will turn up many more pages like these.

This one has some descriptions of the kinds of aromas & flavors different grape varieties are known for. http://www.winepros.org/wine101/grape_profiles/varietals.htm

This one gives some tips on which yeast strains are generally paired with certain grapes, and the bouquet they contribute.
http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/strains.asp


I don't have my notes handy, but from memory I recall that Montrachet red smelled like soft pretzels, whereas the Pasteur Red I'm using right now smells like pastry. Lalvin EC 1118 had notes that reminded me of cured meat, which was obvious as soon as the packet was opened, and carried through in the wine.

Since wild yeasts live symbiotically on grape skins, most grapes will naturally ferment without additional yeast. This is exactly where cultured yeasts came from. We just use the cultured ones so we know which strain we've actually got, since many wild yeasts aren't as tolerant of wine & can produce off aromas, like "wet dog" for example. Especially since you're talking about buckets of pre-processed juice, I think it would be worthwhile to spring for the extra 75 cents on a packet of yeast rather than taking a chance.