Making Great Wine: A WineMaker’s Top Four Things Want to learn winemaking?
As a winemaker, you need to think about these 4 big things.
#1. The biggest thing is the grapes.
The most important determinants of whether the outcome will meet expectations are: the choice of varietal, the quality of the vineyard and the fruit it produces in any vintage, and how that fruit is handled before fermentation. ProVina has done a great job of sourcing superior fruit, and in handling it properly to arrive at the end user's doorstep in top condition. The user has the choice of varietal and vineyard. Beyond that the key to a good outcome is for the user to thaw the fruit quickly – with the buckets closed – and to get it into the Pod with SO2 as quickly as possible.
Want to make organic wine?
Some WinePod users are going to want to make "organic" wines without the use of SO 2. While it is possible to do so, assuming a source of organic grapes, (Provina does not currently supply) I don't recommend it for a number of reasons. Foremost is the chance for spoilage organisms to ruin the wine, which SO 2 use mitigates. But even absent spoilage it is my firmly held opinion, based on long consulting experience, that wines made without SO 2 are simply not as palatable as wines made with. That said, I don't want to discourage potential users from experimenting. I do think that those who won't use SO 2 should examine their reasons, and ask themselves if they might have other chemical sensitivities that could impact how they use the Pod.
#2. Oak.
First, there is the choice of whether to use oak at all. Second, the choice of using barrels or some substitute like oak chips. And third, the choice of whether to use French, European or American oak. Each one of these choices strongly impacts how the wine will turn out, and poor choices here can result in very poor outcomes. My advice is to err on the side of caution – if a little is good then less is better, not more.
#3. A complete fermentation.
A stuck ferment – either alcoholic or malolactic – will degrade the quality of the wine regardless of the quality of the fruit or the wisdom of the oak choice. The keys here are for the end user to clean the equipment thoroughly to minimize the chance for microbial contamination, to feed the yeast properly, and to make sure the fermentation does not get too hot.
What about natural yeasts?
There will be users who will choose to eschew the use of the selected yeasts, nutrients and bacteria included in the kit. This should be discouraged. While it is possible to produce a palatable wine by employing "native" yeast and bacteria in the microbially rich commercial winery setting, the uninoculated approach is far less likely to succeed outside this environment. The WinePod user has far fewer options than are available to the commercial winemaker for dealing with an incompletely fermented wine. An example is sterile filtration, common commercially but available to very few WinePod users.
#4. Specialty Additions? Tannin and specialty yeast extracts.
Should you add these to your must before fermentation? I debated including this in the big thing category, and finally decided that it is an important choice. In my experience if one were to make, say, five Cabernets each from a different vineyard, the resulting wines would smell and taste more alike if tannins and specialty extracts were used than if they weren't. The wines made with these products are likely to be more uniformly palatable than the wines made without, however, whether or not to use them becomes a philosophical decision.
And what are the small things? Read on.... |