Old World Technique

[Carlo]

Figure since I prob make the most wine out of the group id be the first to post.

Ive been making wine since I was a kid with my dad. I guess out of Italian tradition. We probably make around 200 gallons a year each fall, and use grapes grown on his land and also buying fresh grapes from a market that gets cases of fresh grapes from california. We dont use much science, we have never used a hydrometer, or checked acids or tannins. Our technique is crush the grapes into a big SS pot, pull out any extra stems we didnt get before, we know have a de-stemmer crusher. Cover the pot with a lid and let it sit. Then for three days we take the lid off and push the skins down and kinda stir it. by the third day the skins rise and you notice fermentation, we then open the valve and rack into a large tub then use a metal straner to catch some of the skins that come through. That Ill call “first run” goes right into glass carboys and we add 1 pack of dry yeast, after the first run is dog, my take the skins out of the pot and put them in a wine press, we press and do the same as the first, then keep them seperated. by christmas we rack into clean carboys and the rest is bottled by spring. This technique is far from scientific but its worked for us for years. Any questions of comments feel free to ask me

[BrianK]

I would be very interested in sampling this. If you have a bottle laying around, bring it to a meeting. Any idea what grape varieties you use or does it vary from year to year? I saw that Scotzin’s has the grape juices available from South America, I’m thinking about getting some. I’ve made a few meads and one wine from a kit (which is aging at the moment, not anywhere close to being ready to drink).

[Carlo]

Different grapes from my yard are muscato, sangiovese, and merlot, we usually purchase cases of sangiovese, or alacante, I’ve never tried making a wine kit always fresh grapes

[Author]

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