This will be my last entry for a little over a week. My wife and I are leaving on a mini-vacation and I will not be home until September 4th. If you want to be sure to catch my next (and every next) posting, instead of checking here daily just subscribe to my RSS feed by clicking this button:

The other day we had a fabulous 2007 Perrin & Fils Cotes du Rhone Villages Grenache/Syrah 50-50 blend. Very spicy, plummy & well-balanced. We had a fabulous 2007 Perrin & Fils Côtes du Rhône Villages blend, 50% Grenache and 50% Syrah. The color was richly dark, the flavor dark, plummy and spicy, the balance even and very drinkable. Wine Spectator gave this wine a 90, which is not my wine guide by any stretch of the imagination, but on this one they got it right as I gave it a solid 9 on my 10-point scale. And while I generally consider a 9-point wine to be "excellent,' when it only costs $10 a bottle it deserves a "Fabulous."

Deep Fried Twinkie (photo:
munchymunchyhippos.com)

If you read my tweets, you know I read Katy Vine's article in Texas Monthly entitled, "I Believe I Can Fry." It is the story of Abel Gonzales, Jr., the undisputed high priest of deep fried everything. His throne room is the Texas State Fair, and what he introduces annually quickly becomes the rage throughout fairs across the country. We're talking about deep fried Coca-Cola, deep fried cookie dough, deep fried butter, deep fried pineapple rings, and deep fried peanut butter, jelly and banana sandwiches. He has even deep fried beer!

And so it came to past that one deep fried delicacy stuck in my brain and would not let go. I had to find a recipe and try it, and that of course is deep fried Twinkies. Now, I know that after two heart attacks this is not the best food for my arteries, but I figure eating just one -- maybe two -- is not going to kill me. Not immediately, anyway. I pray I am right.

The New York Times described this culinary treat this way: "Something magical occurs when the pastry hits the hot oil. The creamy white vegetable shortening filling liquefies, impregnating the sponge cake with its luscious vanilla flavor... The cake itself softens and warms, nearly melting, contrasting with the crisp, deep-fried crust in a buttery and suave way. The piece de resistance, however, is a ruby-hued berry sauce, adding a tart sophistication to all that airy sugary goodness".

This recipe is from "Deep Frying for the Brave" (link at end of entry) with some tweaking be me. I have also added some finishing touches.

• 6 Twinkies
• popsicle sticks
• 4 cups peanut or vegetable oil
• flour for dusting
• 1 cup milk
• 2 tablespoons vinegar
• 1 tablespoon oil
• 1 cup flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Freeze Twinkies for several hours or overnight. Heat 4 cups vegetable oil in deep-fryer to about 375 degrees F. Mix together milk, vinegar and oil. In another bowl, blend flour, baking powder and salt. Whisk wet ingredients into dry and continue mixing until smooth. Refrigerate while oil heats. Push sticks into Twinkies lengthwise, leaving about 2 inches to use as a handle, dust with flour and dip into the batter. Rotate Twinkie until batter covers entire cake. Place carefully in hot oil. The Twinkie will float, so hold it under with a utensil to ensure even browning. It should turn golden in 3 to 4 minutes. Depending on the size of your deep fryer, you might be able to fry only one at a time, two at the most. Remove Twinkie to paper towel and let drain. Remove stick and allow Twinkie to sit for about 5 minutes.

Just before serving, dust with icing sugar and drizzle with your favorite fruit topping. I ate one drizzled with strawberry syrup and another drizzled with raspberry-chipotle sauce. I know some of you will think that whipped cream would be a good idea, but I think that is simply too much. Besides, it would certainly detract from the melted vanilla cream filling. Read The New York Times quote again.

When I am asked what my most novel wines were, I immediately say Bermuda Grass Clipping Wine, then Sand Burr Wine, and then Chickweed Wine. And they all fooled blind tasters and they all won ribbons. But here are two more traditional yet novel wines anyone can make with a little forethought that will not draw judgmental glances or questioning stares. And they are both fabulous wines.

• 3/4 lb chopped dried apricots
• 6 oz raspberries
• 3 oz dried elderberries
• 1 lb granulated sugar
• 11 oz white grape concentrate
• 1 cup mixed red and yellow rose petals
• 2 tblsp lemon juice or juice of 1 lemon
• 1 tsp pectic enzyme
• 1 gallon water
• finely crushed and dissolved Campden tablets
• 1/2 tsp potassium sorbate
• 1 tsp yeast nutrient
• Burdundy (Lalvin RC212) wine yeast

Before you start, dissolve sugar in 3 quarts boiling water, reduce heat to simmer, add lemon juice and hold simmer 30 minutes. Cover and set aside until cool, then chill overnight in refrigerator. Chop or mince dried apricots and elderberries, crush raspberries, and mix together in primary fermentation vessel with chilled sugar-water, nutrient, pectic enzyme. Stir well, cover and set aside 12 hours. Add , crushed Campden tablet, cover and set aside additional 12 hours. Add activated Burgundy yeast, cover and ferment on pulp three days, stirring daily. Strain through a fine nylon sieve to separate pulp and press lightly to extract juice without exuding pulp particles. Add grape concentrate, cover and ferment additional four days. Add rose petals and ferment additional three days before straining again. Add sufficient water to bring volume to 1 gallon. When S.G. drops to 1.000 or lower, add another crushed Campden tablet and rack, without splashing, to secondary fermentation vessel, attach airlock and store bottle in cool place (65-70 degrees F.) without disturbing for three months. However, check after three weeks and if pulp debris is detected in sediment carefully rack again without splashing. After total three months in secondary, rack again, being careful to avoid splashing, add one crushed Campden tablet, and top up with water before refitting airlock. After additional three months, rack again as before, add another crushed Campden tablet, 1/2 tsp potassium sorbate, sweeten slightly if desired with 1/4 cup simple syrup, top up with water if required, and refit airlock. Wait 30 days and carefully rack into bottles. May taste after six months but matures at 18 months. [Author's own recipe]

• 8 Valencia oranges (substitute 10 small navel oranges if you absolutely must)
• 2 lbs ripe bananas (peeling covered with large black spots)
• 11 oz frozen white grape concentrate
• 2 thin slices ginger root, 1/2 inch wide X 2 inches long
• 1 star anise
• 1 1/4 lb very fine granulated sugar
• 1 tsp pectic enzyme
• 1/4 tsp grape tannin
• finely crushed and dissolved Campden tablets
• 1/2 tsp potassium sorbate
• 1 tsp yeast nutrient
• Lalvin EC-1118 or any low-foaming wine yeast

Juice the oranges and set aside. Peel bananas (or not) and cut into 1-inch pieces in 2-quart pot. Add 1 quart water and simmer for 30 minutes, gently stirring every 10 minutes and skimming any scum off surface. Add ginger root slices, star anise and and simmer 10 minutes more. Place sugar in primary and strain liquid from spiced bananas over sugar. Discard banana and spice pulp and stir liquid well to completely dissolve sugar. Stir in thawed grape concentrate, orange juice, yeast nutrient, grape tannin and cold water to bring volume to 1 gallon. Stir in pectic enzyme, cover primary and set aside 10-12 hours, during which time build and husband a yeast starter solution (see link below). Add yeast as starter solution and ferment vigorously for 4 days. Transfer to 4-liter secondary, attach airlock and ferment to dryness. Rack into 1-gallon secondary and add finely crushed Campden tablet. Age 4 months, rack, add another finely crushed Campden tablet, 1/2 tsp potassium sorbate, and sweeten with 1/4 cup simple syrup if desired. Top up, reattach airlock and set aside additional 2 months. Carefully rack into bottles and wait 3-4 months before tasting. Serve chilled. [Author's own recipe]

I hope you are adventurous enough to make one or both of these wines. They are both extremely good.

• Deep-Fried Twinkie, at "Deep Frying for the Brave"
• Twinkie, "Wikipedia article, where The New York Times quote was found
• The Miracle of Yeast, on my site, use last section to make yeast starter
• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

The only email I received about my last WineBlog entry (3 of you took the time to write) complained that I did not answer the title question, "What Percent [of Alcohol] is Too Much?" No, in fact I did not deliver a numerical answer. The title question was intended to be a thought teaser and my discussion intended to stimulate you into arriving at your own answer. But I did suggest that too much is an amount that upsets the balance of the wine -- no, that prevents the wine from achieving balance -- by delivering too much heat to the tongue and palate. If that is all you got out of it, aside from "more is not better," then you got my answer. The actual percentage depends on the wine and your ability to coax it into balance, where neither alcohol, acidity nor sweetness rise to the fore.

To write to me about WineBlog entries, use the address jackredkellerwhitewine(at)gbluemail(dot)com; just remove the patriotic colors and insert the parenthetical characters. I may not have time to answer, but I do read all emails.

My Free PC Services website is doing well. We've counted about 2,000 visitors and that is encouraging, especially since we are waaaay back in the 3-digit page numbers on Google. Our latest addition is a page on Image Editors, where we evaluate 8 stellar programs (plus plug-ins, tutorials, etc.) offering different levels of sophistication -- from beginner-level adjuncts to Windows' Paint program to near PhotoShop quality and complexity. We are certainly not through with this category of free programs, but wanted to get these 8 reviews out to you without further delay. And please, if you find the site useful, tell your friends about it. You are our only advertisers.

In a forum discussion 2-3 weeks ago, a winemaker mentioned using raisins for adding body to a wine made from blackberry jam. I felt compelled to comment on this. Quite a few of my older recipes call for using raisins, but in all honesty I haven't used them in years. Here then are my reasons why. Oh, and he also asked the difference between using jams, jellies and preserves, which I also felt compelled to answer.

I have stopped using raisins altogether. Adding a can of Welch's frozen grape juice, red or white as needed, per gallon provides all the body my non-grape wines generally need. Why stop using raisins? There are reasons for this.

First, raisins are typically 65-69% sugar. When adding a pound of raisins, I always assumed I was adding 10 1/2 ounces of sugar. Then I read that if you put the raisins in whole (which I never did) your yeast might process 1 1/2 ounces of sugar from them. If you cut each raisin in half (how many people do that?) the yeast might get to about 3 1/2 to 4 ounces of sugar, max. If you soak them overnight and run them through a mincer (a hand-cranked meat grinder with a mincing blade, which I always used) the yeast will get almost all of the sugar, but might need 2 weeks to do it.

Second, cleaning the mincer is a lot more trouble than it's worth when an alternative is handy.

Third, raisins always seem to leave a very slight "raisiny" flavor, but concentrates don't.

Fourth, grape concentrate is easy to use and requires no clean-up.

Finally, grape concentrate is immediately available to the yeast.

He mentioned that a wine he used had a "waxy" taste and wondered if it was pectin. I don't know what the "waxy" taste is, but it isn't pectin. Pectin has mouthfeel, but no taste.

As for the difference between the different fruit spreads, jelly is made from juice and always has pectin added so it will gel. Jams are cooked, pureed fruit and may or may not have pectin added, but if so then much less is used than for jelly as jams are not supposed to gel. Preserves are cooked fruit or fruit pieces in heavy syrup that may or may not have pectin added, but if so then also much less is used than for jelly. Conserves are preserves that combine two or more fruit and may or may not have a little pectin in them. Marmalade is a clear, sweetened, usually thin jelly containing the cooked pulp and rind of citrus fruit and any other ingredient (grated carrot, chopped walnut or hickory meats, chopped peaches, apricots, black cherries, etc.) that thicken it, but usually containing just enough pectin to produce body.

Did I miss any?

A winemaker wrote an a forum that he was out of pectinase and starting a mango wine. He wanted to know if pectic enzyme is purely a clearing agent and if there is any benefit to flavor or yeast health using pectic enzymes before fermentation, or will it do the same thing after fermentation? Good questions, so I tried to give him good answers.

As the "ase" ending stipulates, pectinase is an enzyme, specifically one that catalyzes the hydrolysis of pectin to pectic acid and methanol. So, what does this mean? It means that it transforms pectin into something else. What does pectin do? Pectin is found in most non-woody plant cells, particularly in the flowers, leaves and fruit, but also between the cell walls. Think of pectin as the "glue" that helps hold the cell walls together. But as fruits ripen, both pectinase and pectinesterase break down the pectin and allow the pulp of the fruit to loosen the seeds and moisten them to encourage embryo emergence. So what does this have to do with wine?

When pectic enzymes convert pectin into pectic acid and methanol, they effectively neutralize the pectin. The cell walls separate and then break apart, allowing juice, flavonoids, pigments, and other goodies to be more easily extracted. If you heat the fruit at too high a temperature, you set the pectin and it gels -- not good for the winemaker. Also, pears contain a different type of pectin and can sometimes present a problem in clearing, but they will clear.

For obvious reasons mentioned above, pectinase delivers the most benefit if used prior to fermentation. As far as I know, it provides no benefit to yeast except making their food (natural sugars and nutrients) easier to get at. While pectins do contribute to mouthfeel, they do so while making the wine difficult to clear.

• Image Editors, 8 free image and photo editors
• Jam vs Preserves, original thread on WinePress.us for my raisin vs grape concentrate discussion
• Mango Wine, original thread on WinePress.us for the pectin discussion
• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

Time flies. It is now or soon will be harvest time throughout the nation and I am reading lots of email about uneven ripening, Brix levels, seed maturity, bird problems, development of phenols, and a host of other subjects that all indicate serious growers and winemakers. It is heartwarming to know that so many are growing grapes and fruit with such passion.

I had an interesting phone call with questions about making pyracantha wine. I no longer have pyracantha bushes and it has been years since I have tasted it (Keith Sundberg made the best I have tasted). Following that call, I got to wondering how many people even look at my recipe for Pyracantha Wine. I ran a statistics program against site visits and discovered something interesting. During the first 16 days of August, the least viewed recipe on my site was Apple Juice Wine, with 4 views. The second least viewed recipe on my site was Youngberry Wine with 11 views. Tied for thirdleast viewed recipe on my site, with 13 views each, were Chickweed Wine and Pyracantha Wine. I don't know what this means. Apple Concentrate Wine had 179 views and the page containing several Apple Wine recipes got 8472 views (in 16 days!). There's a whole lot of winemaking going on out there.

This was a great question, asked casually at a wine tasting in Alamo Heights, an incorporated area surrounded by San Antonio. The gentleman tasted a Pinot Grigio, made a face denoting displeasure, picked up the bottle and announced "Too much alcohol" while scanning the label. "Ah," he said, "14.6% -- too much." His companion asked, "What percent is too much?" His response was both illuminating and totally correct.

To paraphrase him, he essentially said there is no magic number, but 14.6% for a table wine is almost certainly too much. Certainly it is too much when you taste the alcohol over the fruit, when the heat from the alcohol burns the taste buds, and when the winemaker is obligated to sweeten the wine to attempt to achieve balance and fails in the attempt. What you have here is an overly sweet, hot wine. You have to search for the flavors, which in this particular wine were quite nice, he admitted, but you shouldn't have to search for them. The fruit, not the alcohol, should be up front.

The gentleman was absolutely correct. Alcohol creep began in earnest about a dozen years ago, when growers began letting their grapes hang longer to develop the full flavor of the fruit. The general consequences were higher Brix and lower acidity. In big reds, such as Cabernet Sauvignon, these can result in a rich, chewy wine, but one that can pack a whollop when the bottle is empty. In whites, the lower acidity can result in hot, flabby wines. I would not have called that Pinot Grigio "flabby," but it was "hot" on the tongue.

In home winemaking, one has a certain amount of control the commercial winemakers may lack. We can dilute a high Brix must or chaptalize a low Brix in areas where this is not allowed for commercial producers. When making non-grape wines, we have complete control over the chemistry, limited only by our knowledge and the means to achieve that control. Means in this sense refers to laboratory analysis and equipment.

Yet the greatest abusers of excessive alcohol tend to be novice or young home winemakers. The first group mistakenly believes that more is better while the second group is just seeking a quick buzz without regard for balance or any concept of what a good wine really is. I know. I was among them once, as were many other experienced winemakers. I'm not sure when one grows out of that phase. In my case it occurred when I tasted a truly great, nearly perfect Zinfandel and noticed the alcohol was a few decimals below 13%. For others it might occur when they begin competing and receive feedback from conscientious judges.

But to be fair, I know two local winemaker who have developed a taste for high alcohol wines in much the same way as another friend has developed a taste for moonshine. I do not judge them. They like what they like. But they know what I and most judges will say when we judge their wines.

I recently had a "come to Jesus" moment regarding a long-held assumption I had about dried cherries. I had always assumed that 1 pound of dried tart cherries equaled about 4 pounds of fresh and 1 1/4 pounds of dried sweet cherries equaled about 4 pounds fresh. I discovered that 1 pound of dried (either tart or sweet) equaled 6 to 8 pounds of fresh, depending on the size of the cherries and their pits. I also discovered the sugar content of the dried, approximately 68%, was much higher than I had assumed. This drastically changed my outlook on making dried cherry wine.

I focus on tart cherries because they make a far superior wine than do sweet cherries. Tart cherries are only about 55% as sweet as sweet cherries. This varies with ripeness, varieties and annual variations. This difference seems to fade when the cherries are dried. The sugar content varies with the form of the cherry product. Here are some examples:

The 5+1 tart cherries are sold in 30-pound containers to bakeries, restaurants and food preparation companies. IQF tart cherries are sold in most supermarkets, as are pie filling, canned tarts and juice concentrates. Dried tart cherries care often packaged in boxes and bags, but the best way to buy then is in bulk at a Whole Foods or other outlet. Be sure to read the labels for each kind of product to avoid buying cherries treated with biological stabilizers such as potassium (or sodium) sorbate, sorbic acid, or benzoic acid. Here is my new recipe for dried tart (sour) cherry wine.

• 1 lb dried tart (sour) cherries
• 1 11-oz. can Welch's 100% White Grape Juice Frozen Concentrate
• 9 ozs finely granulated sugar (to S.G. of 1.090)
• 1 tsp malic acid
• 3/4 tsp pectic enzyme
• 1/4 tsp tannin
• 1 tsp yeast nutrient
• 7 pts 5 ozs water
• 1 pkt Montrachet or Champagne wine yeast

Soak cherries in 2 quarts water for 24 hours. Bring water to a boil, lower heat and simmer 8 minutes. Strain to capture liquid (reserve cherries for jam or preserves) and stir in sugar until dissolved, cover and set aside to cool. Add remaining ingredients except yeast, stir and recover. After 12 hours, add activated yeast, recover, and stir daily until specific gravity drops to 1.010-1.020. Transfer to secondary, attach airlock and ferment to dryness. Rack when fermentation ceases, top up and reattach airlock, Rack, top up and refit airlock every 60 days for 6 months. Stabilize and sweeten to taste, wait additional 30 days and rack into bottles. Age another 6-12 months before tasting. [Author's own recipe]

• Apple Juice Wine, on my site
• Youngberry Wine, on my site
• Chickweed Wine, on my site
• Pyracantha Wine, on my site
• Table: Nutritional Analysis for Cherry Products, from which sugar data was extracted
• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

My mother turned 86 today. She sounds well. If your mother is still with you, don't wait for a birthday. Call her today and let her know she is in your heart, your thoughts and your prayers. We owe them our lives. It's the least we can do.

I've been downloading, installing, test driving, reviewing, and uninstalling software for my other website. In all, I've added eight programs to my page on audio, video and multimedia software, bring the total there to 27. Among the eight is one that really stands out and was not uninstalled, an audio ripper, converter, database builder, inventory manager, and CD burner for the serious music collector. It organized our 6,686 ripped tracks in seconds and then went out and found missing album, artist, track, album art and other data for about 1/10th of the collection that another program had missed. We then asked it to build a play list based on "psychedelic rock" as the genre and it found 617 tracks in about 2 seconds. I hope you check it out at Audio, Video and Multimedia Tools -- Free PC Services and see what I am talking about.

A fellow on a forum wrote about consistency between wines. He had made two wines from canned concentrate and questioned why one is very pink and the other has an amber tint to it. Also, the flavors are not the same. After a shortened version of 20 questions, it was probable that the second wine was starting to oxidize early. I offered seven reasons this might occur. I thought you might like to read them.

Ullage: The amount of air in the secondary after the airlock is attached determines how much oxygen the wine will absorb, and O2 absorption is the controlling parameter for oxidation. Less ullage equals less oxidation. HOWEVER, when you first transfer from primary to secondary leave more ullage than you otherwise would -- to allow for foam as the fermentation continues. After 2-3 days, you should know whether you can top up to reduce the ullage without foaming over or not. Top up when needed.

Sulfur Dioxide: If you don't use Campden or potassium metabisulfite, you are essentially checking the box that says, "Permit early oxidation of this batch." There are no ifs ands or buts about it. If you are one of the 2-3% of the population with a genuine (not imaginary) sulfite sensitity (you would have noticed this as a kid when you first ate raisins and got violently ill) then you will have to drink the wine young. If you are one of the others who just don't like the idea of adding chemicals to your chemically constructed body, that's your choice and you'll have to suffer the consequences; drink it young or drink it oxidized.

Removing the Airlock: Every time you remove the airlock you allow fresh O2 to enter the wine, and wine absorbs O2 very quickly. I have seen people remove the airlock and smell the wine for no reason whatsoever, or taste the wine every day to see how it is improving (or not). This is sheer stupidity. Tasting the wine not only lets in O2, but increases the ullage and allows quicker aging (right on through to oxidation). Remove the airlock when you must -- to top up, rack or pull a sample for testing.

Racking: Some people purposely splash their wines when racking but most do not. Those who splash on purpose mistakenly think this is somehow akin to micro-oxygenation (which it isn't) or think it will help degas their wine (it will, but this is not the way to do it!). When you rack, place the output end of the siphon tube against the side of the carboy to minimize splashing; when the wine is an inch or so deep, push the end under the wine to eliminate splashing altogether.

Bottling: I have fooled around with filling my bottles with CO2 or argon gas before adding the wine. This does reduce (but will not eliminate) the wine's exposure to free O2 during bottling, but I long ago concluded that I am not a rich man and the cost of either CO2 or argon are an expense I cannot afford. Use them if you are fortunate enough to make enough money to be vilified by the Democrats as "rich." Otherwise, try not to allow the wine to splash when bottling.

Corking (or Closing): The best way to do it is to fill a bottle with wine and cork it immediately. This requires two people. If you don't have a partner to help, buy youself a bag of 25-50 tapered (wedge-shaped) corks to temporarily cover the bottles after filling them until you finish bottling and can insert the final cork. If using screwcaps, close them immediately after filling (takes 3-5 seconds).

Laying Down: Corked bottles need to be laid on their sides during cellaring. If you put them in cases, lay then on their sides or tape the cases shut and store them upside down. Dry corks shrink and pass air; wet corks don't shrink and pass air over many, many years. HOWEVER, always allow your corked bottles to remain upright for a minimum of two days (three is better) to allow the compressed air inside (shoved in there by the cork) to escape between the cork and the glass. If you lay the bottle down immediately, the pressure will push wine out around the cork until the pressure is reduced enough not to have any "push" left. After that, it may seal or may continue leaking. Be smart and wait three days.

This has nothing to do with wine, but was just too good not to share. A friend sent me this recipe (thank you, Pete) and I had to read it through twice to make sure it wasn't a put-on. I found it on-line just to be sure, and finally I said "Okay, I've got to try this." This is basically a funnel cake recipe and is being served at county and state fairs all over the country. I ran to the store to get some Coca-Cola, whipped cream and Coca-Cola Syrup. It turns out you can't buy Coca-Cola Syrup in Pleasanton, Texas, so I used a method I found on-line to make some. If you cannot find it either and have to make it, by all means make it up before you start on the funnel cakes.

Folks, this was a lot of work, but the results were worth doing it...once.

• 2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 1/2 cups Coca Cola
• Oil for deep frying

Topping:

• 1 cup Coca Cola syrup
• whipped cream
• maraschino cherries

In a medium bowl, mix together the flour and baking powder. Mix in eggs and Coca Cola and stir until a smooth batter forms. Preheat oil in a skillet or deep fryer. Pour 1/3 cup of batter into a funnel or turkey baster and in a circular motion pour batter into the hot oil in a funnel cake pattern. Fry up for about a minute on each side and drain on paper towels. Serve while still warm and top with Coca Cola syrup, whipped cream and a maraschino cherry.

According to half a dozen websites, you can get genuine Coca-Cola syrup at pharmacies everywhere. There are five pharmacies in Pleasanton and none carry Coca-Cola syrup. Indeed, all five pharmacists thought it was odd that I thought they might have it. So, I looked at several recipes for reducing Coke by heating it to arrive at a syrup and settled on this one. It requires more additives than the others, but seems to me to be a better flavored syrup.

• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons cocoa
• 1/4 can Coca-Cola
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1 tablespoon light corn syrup
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla flavoring

In a small saucepan mix together the sugar, cocoa, Coca-Cola, butter and light corn syrup. Cook over medium-high heat stirring constantly. Bring it to a boil and lower the heat a bit. Cook until it thickens up, stirring constantly. Once the mixture thickens, stir in the vanilla flavoring and remove from heat. Allow the Coca-Cola syrup to cool, and serve it on top of your Deep Fried Coca-Cola or use to glaze a ham.

• Audio, Video and Multimedia Tools, my site, Free PC Services
• Winemaking Consistency, original thread at WinePress.us
• Deep Fried Coca Cola, at Chiff.com
• How to Make Coca Cola Syrup, at eHow.com
• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

Busy, busy, busy. My lower back has finally stopped bothering me daily and now only complains to lifting carboys, ice chests, sacks of feed and 11-year-old granddaughters. I'll suffer for the latter, but for everything else there is Scott, when around, or my Carboy Lifter. I address the lifter in the first entry below.

I put up another page on my Free PC Services website. This one evaluates 17 free audio, video and multimedia utility programs -- everything from CD, DVD and MP3 rippers and burners and audio, video and iPod converters to YouTube file grabbers. We even found one DVD cloning package and a CD/DVD cataloging program. You can read about and download them right here. If you find the new site useful, please tell your friends about it. I would appreciate that very much.

In 1977 I picked up a stack of bricks, lifted them just above waist-high, and leaned back to center the weight over my hips. While doing this, the disc was compressed between my L2 and L3 vertebrae and the cortical rims met and actually snipped off a piece of the outer disc called the annulus fibrosis, allowing the jelly-like center (the nucleus pulposus) to escape. I was in spinal traction for three weeks while the pulposus retracted into the disc and it healed just enough for me to be released from traction in a corset. Luckily, there are no surviving photographs of me and my corset. But, I have had a "bad back" ever since and lifting more than 40 pounds often puts me in pain. My recent bout of lower back pain has made Martin Benke's Carboy Lifter a Godsend once again. I had to rack seven carboys over the weekend and the Lifter made it easy. Just crank the carboy up to about 30 inches and rack in place. Simple.

6 gal of Elderberry on the Lifter

We went fishing with Martin Benke last week (12 blue catfish keepers, absolutely delicious!) and he says he now makes the Carboy Lifter only when ordered. The price has risen for his latest design to the $360 -$380 range and that puts a lot of people off. He claims the nearest competitor found on the internet was around $900, but I could not find it. I did find one for $1900 and another for $2300. I don't understand people. My back is worth every bit of any of those numbers (I have no idea how much I have spent on my back over the years, but am sure I could buy a house for that amount), so $360 or $380 or even $1900 is a bargain.

Martin can be difficult to reach. He and Lesley sold the L&M General Store in Castroville some time back and they rotate between their homes in Dunlay, Texas and Lake Corpus Christi, with frequent travels mixed in to keep us guessing as to where they might be. But if you need to order a Carboy Lifter, call (210) 535-7105 and be patient.

Approximately half of all tropical fruit grown commercially are mangoes. It is, without question, the most consumed fruit in the world. It also makes a delightful wine that goes down well with most meals and over ice. I have made mango wines over the years and have had two great recipes sent to me from Australia and Florida. Recently, I noticed some Ataulfo mangoes that were shriveling. I knew this was a sign of ripeness, but they looked bad and people weren't buying them. I called the produce manager over and offered him half price for the lot. For reasons known only to him, he took my offer and I bought 18 mangoes for $4.50. The combined weight of the peeled, deseeded flesh was 6 1/4 pounds, just enough to make two gallons of wine. In an act of daring, I decided to make just one.

Ataulfo Mangos (photo: berrydoctor.com)

The Ataulfo mango, also called Champagne, Honey, Manila, Adaulfo, or Adolfo, is a mango cultivar from Mexico and Hawaii, originally from Indonesia. They are golden yellow and mine weighed around 8 ounces each, with an oblong, curved shape similar to a cashew. They have a buttery, non-fibrous, yellow flesh with a rich, spicy and somewhat lemony flavor that masks their high sugar (15 grams per 100-grams) content. My wife and I like this mango a lot. It has a much richer and more interesting flavor than the Tommy Atkins and Haden mangoes, the most common market mangoes in the United States, Canada and United Kingdom.

When in Florida I tasted several mango varieties, but two in particular were memorable although I have never tasted either since. One was called Kent and the other Cannonball. Both had exceptional flavor and smooth pulp. Why they are not widely exported probably has something to do with shelf life, tolerance of handling and transportability. Nonetheless, I wish I could taste them again and possibly making wine from them.

Before we get to the recipe, a word of warning. Mango peel contains urushiol, the chemical in poison ivy and poison sumac that causes contact dermatitis in susceptible people. Do not ferment the fruit with the skin. Peel it and discard the peeling. Handling the peeling will not cause contact dermatitis, but you don't want to consume it.

• 9 lbs Ataulfo mangoes, peeled and deseeded
• 1 1/2 lbs granulated sugar
• water to one gallon 1/2 tsp pectic enzyme
• 1 tsp yeast nutrient
• 1/4 tsp tannin
• Lalvin ICV D-47 (Côtes-du-Rhône) wine yeast

Put water on to boil. Start with 3 quarts; you can add more later if needed. Meanwhile, peel the mangos, cut the pulp away from the seed, and slice and dice the flesh. Tie diced flesh inside a nylon straining bag and put in a primary. Mash the pulp with your hands. Dissolve sugar in boiling water and pour over mashed fruit. Add acid blend, tannin and yeast nutrient. Cover and allow to cool to room temperature. Add pectic enzyme, cover primary and set aside for 12 hours. Add activated yeast in a starter solution and recover the primary. Squeeze bag 2-3 times daily until violent fermentation subsides (7-10 days). Drip drain bag into primary without squeezing. Allow wine to settle overnight, then rack into secondary. Top up and fit airlock. Rack again after 30 days and again every two months for six months or until wine falls brilliantly clear. Stabilize with potassium sorbate and potassium metabisulfite (or finely crushed Campden tablet) and sweeten to taste. Wait 30 days to ensure refermentation does not occur and rack into bottles. Age this wine a year before drinking. Serve chilled or over ice. [Author's own recipe]

• WineBlog Archives, scroll to March 27, 2005 for original entry on the Carboy Lifter
• Free Email Services, at Free PC Services
• Mango Wine, my site, two earlier recipes
• Sweet News: Ataulfos are in Season, The Star, Toronto
• I'm Mad About Mangoes,by Sue Doeden, The Bemidji Pioneer
• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

I lost my Blanc du Bois harvest this year. While waiting for a higher Brix, I nursed a back injury a bit too thoroughly and did not check the grapes for 5 days. When I did, those that were not taken by the birds had browned, were starting to shrivel and some (probably pecked at by the birds) were starting to rot. How could five days make that much of a difference? The last refractometer samplings showed a Brix of 20 and 21°, so I have to assume that was as high as they were going to go this year and I should have harvested them right then, but I have always gotten 23 to 25° Brix.

I have since talked to two friends who also experienced early shriveling and browning of different varieties and we all share the following experiences: (1) very large crops this year (none of us thinned the bunches to raise quality), which may have lowered the Brix to below our expectations, (2) early verasion, probably due to a relatively mild winter (while it reached 32° or below 15 times in January and February, we really only had one "Blue Norther" -- Jan 8th [21°], Jan 9th [15 °], Jan 10th [19°], and Jan 11th [27°]), and (3) more than adequate rainfall this growing season (just over 3 feet in Pleasanton, with 5 1/2 inches of it falling on Jun 28-29). Whatever the cause, I should not have waited 5 days to check on them when they were almost where I expected them to peak anyway. We all know a grape is capable of jumping 2° Brix in 24 hours; it isn't common, but it has happened.

Having gotten that out of the way, I want to thank all of you who visited my new website, Free PC Services, and who wrote with comments. Since the last WineBlog entry, I've put up a page on free email services. I evaluate ten email services, with Gmail coming out on top, Inbox second, AOL and Yahoo tied for third, Hotmail fourth, and Mail fifth. You are welcome to disagree, but at least see why I rated them as I did.

Back on May 27th I asked the question, "When can we call it wine?" I've received several replies worthy of note. One answered another question I asked in that entry and I concede his point. A second offered a point of his own that I also conceded. A third dug up a California regulation to offer a legal view of when we can call it wine.

In the May 27th entry, I wrote, "I have received many inquiries over the years asking some form of the question, when does an alcoholic beverage become wine? The question usually centers around alcoholic content -- percent of alcohol by volume -- but occasionally someone asks why is it that in some competitions mead can be entered with the beers or with the wines? Or, can one fortify a nonalcoholic beverage and call it wine? "

In discussing the last question, I said, "As for the distinctly different question of can one ferment Big Red or Pepsi Cola, I have no idea what havoc the carbonation would play with the yeast. More importantly, why would one want to do this in the first place? "

Steve Haebig quickly wrote, "Just about laughed myself silly when you asked why anyone would try to ferment soda... This coming from a guy who's trying to imitate the Juicy Fruit flavor into a wine." Well, he has a point and I concede to it. For the record, I have not been successful in duplicating the Juicy Fruit flavor. I can get very close to it in the raw must, but it changes drastically during fermentation.

Randy P. from Tacoma, Washington wrote, "References say that wine is fermented grape or fruit juice, but you have shown us that it can be the fermented essence of just about anything, from cracked corn to rose petals to a tea made from sand burrs. But I offer you two recipes. One ferments into wine. The other does not."

Method: Combine ingredients in primary. Cover with clean towel and set in a warm place. After 10 days, transfer to a gallon jug and attach an airlock. When all fermentation stops, rack. Repeat racking every 30 days until clear. Bottle and drink. One is wine. The other is not.

Point taken. Wine includes aromatic and/or flavor essences from some base ingredient.

Finally, George Cameron sent me a snippet from a California regulation (not further identified) that says that unfortified fermented beverages containing between 7 and 14% alcohol by volume may be labeled as table wines.

Interesting stuff. Further comments are welcome. Write to me at jackredkellerwhitewine(at)gbluemail(dot)com after removing the patriotic colors and converting parentheticals to appropriate symbols.

The mustang grapes are ripening all over Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana. I've received a number of emails, snail mails and phone calls concerning making this wine. The most common questions this year, as in many years in the past, have to do with (1) how much juice does x pounds of mustang grapes yield and (2) why does one dilute the juice to reduce acidity and then add acid blend to the must?

I covered both questions in my "Taming the Wild Mustang" article in the June/July 2004 issue of WineMaker magazine.

Mustang grapes are low in juice content when compared to V. vinifera or other wine grapes one might be familiar with. Their skins are thick (and heavy), affecting the yield in terms of fluid volume to weight. I have pressed as much as 24.5 pounds to yield one gallon of juice, although I think 22 pounds is more common. This is considerably more than the 12-16 pounds per gallon yields I get from most other varieties.

The amount of grape by weight in each gallon of must determines the wine's flavor, fullness (body), acidity, and tannic qualities. The minimum amount used should not be less than 4 pounds per gallon. I have used as much as 14 pounds per gallon and will not repeat that figure except for the late-harvest, near-raisined grapes. I prefer 6 to 8 pounds per gallon - 12 if making a port. Using 22 pounds grape/gallon of juice as a norm, the figures in Table 1 should apply.

Table 1. Mustang Grape Juice Yields

Fully ripe mustang grapes possess a small amount of free-run juice trapped between the skin and the pulp. This juice is richly colored and highly acidic, but the acid declines as the grape passes optimum ripeness. It is low in sugar - with a Brix of no more than 10 and often as low as 6 - but strongly flavored. Juice trapped in the pulp is less flavorful, acidic and sweet than the free-run but essential for making the wine. Its release is aided by a generous dose of pectic enzyme approximately 10-12 hours prior to pitching an activated (rehydrated) yeast culture.

Chaptalization requirements are fairly straightforward, but cannot be calculated until after amelioration (with water). Table 2 assumes Table 1's yields in pints, amelioration to 1 gallon, and a generous Brix of 8 before amelioration. Thus, there is little natural sugar in the diluted must.

Table 2. Chaptaliztion Requirements for Mustang Musts

The mustang's high acidity is easily dealt with by ameliorating with water. Even commercial wineries are allowed to ameliorate with water for acid reduction. Acidity as high as 14 grams per liter (14 ppt, or 1.4%) is not uncommon in mustang juice. It should be reduced to around 7.5 grams per liter (7.5 ppt, or 0.75%). Howevwe, ameliorating just enough to balance the acid may end up with too much of the mustang's "wild" flavors, so it is common to use less grapes, more water, and then have to add acid back to the wine. Indeed, in Table 3, acid actually needs to be added to most formulations to achieve this high value.

Table 3. Acid Corrections for Mustang Musts

These tables, by the way, were first publish in my WineMaker article. I make note of that because they are now copyrighted by Battenkill Communications, publisher of WineMaker magazine, and used here with their permission.

Below are two recipes for mustang grape wine, one using 6 pounds of grapes per gallon and the other using 8 pounds. These are my own recipes.

• 6 lbs. black Mustang Grapes
• 1 lb 13 oz granulated sugar
• 3/4 tsp acid blend
• 1/2 tsp pectic enzyme
• 6 pts water
• 1 crushed Campden tablet
• 1 1/2 tsp yeast nutrient
• Burgundy wine yeast

Destem and wash the grapes. Wearing rubber gloves, crush the grapes in the primary and add all ingredients except the pectic enzyme and yeast. Stir well to dissolve the sugar and integrate the other components. Cover with a clean towel or lid and leave for 12 hours. Add pectic enzyme and stir well. Recover the primary and leave for another 12 hours. Add yeast in a starter solution and cover the primary. When fermentation gets going, the pulp will rise and for a floating "cap" which should be pushed down and stirred twice a day for 5 to 7 days. Strain and press the pulp well to extract all possible liquid. Transfer liquid to secondary fermentation vessel, attach an airlock, and let stand about three weeks. Rack and top up, then rack again in three months. If not clear, add a fining agent and rack off of finings ten days later, set aside another month and bottle. May taste immediately, but improves continuously and remarkably with age (3-4 years). If you wish to sweeten this wine, stabilize it with potassium sorbate and a crushed Campden tablet after racking off the finings. Sweeten to taste and allow the wine to sit 30 days to make sure refermentation does not occur. [Author's own recipe.]

I finally put up my new website, "Free PC Services". I have been working on it for three months -- probably no less than 4 hours a day (12 hours some days) since late April -- and decided to publish it even though it isn't anywhere near where I wanted it to be when I debuted it. The web site is a selective cataloging of free programs for your desktop, laptop or notebook computer.

My first concern was security, especially since I have suffered three computer or hard drive crashes in my life, and so I wanted to find safe, secure, off-site (read as online) backup and storage sites so I don't ever lose my data and informational files, website files, emails and addresses, etc. again. So, I set out researching and trying out various online backup and storage sites. In doing so, my antivirus program warned me that a couple of downloading files contained adware, spyware, suspected rootkits, and trojans. Holy cow!

I started looking into free anti-everything programs to make sure I could detect everything trying to hijack, exploit or ruin my PC. I evaluated antivirus, antispyware, anti-adware, anti-rootkit, anti-key loggers, and all manner of anti-malware programs that filled various niches in my computer's armor. That led to firewalls, automatic patch and update managers, password managers, encrypted storage of anything with my Social Security number and other identity-sensitive information. During this period I decided to weave my evaluations of these programs into a website so others might benefit from my many hours of work.

I had planned on spending a week on free security programs and then moving on to free strategy games (I was aching to find a good, free Risk or Risk-clone program), wysiwyg text editors, markup, programming and scripting editors, photo editors, media file catalogers, audio and music rippers, email programs and plug-ins, desktop tools, and, well, you get the picture. Instead, I spent 11 weeks on security programs (there are a lot of them out there!) and 10 days on Risk games. That funny little pointed rock I started digging out of the sand turned out to be the top of the Great Pyramid.

So, realizing that if I waited until I had covered all the categories I planned it might be two years or more, I decided to go ahead with what I have and just keep building. After all, that's what I did 16 years ago with The Winemaking Home Page. The response I get to the site will determine where it goes in the future, how much time I dedicate to it, and if it is even worth the effort. I hope you will look at it. I have nothing invested in any program listed and receive no remuneration from any listing. I do this for you. Your response will determine the project's future. This site isn't ever going to get a respectable ranking in Google, so it will live or die based on personal recommendations. If you check it out and find it useful, you might mention it to your family members and friends. I would certainly appreciate it.

Once again, the pages posted thus far evaluated:

• AntiSpyware and AntiMalware software
• AntiVirus software
• Firewalls
• OffSite Backup and Storage
• Password Managers and Encryption software
• Serious Tools for Serious Situations
• Tune-Up and Optimizing software
• Patch and Update Monitors
• Risk Games

If you might be in need of any of these kinds of programs, before spending your money take a look at what is available free, but by all means start with antivirus programs first to protect all subsequent downloads.

• Free PC Services, a website for you
• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

Charlie Suehs sent me and several others a link to a video that caused a stir among members of the San Antonio Regional Wine Guild. At our June meeting, we had Charlie demonstrate the procedure. He succeeded, but with some difficulty. First, click on the image below to go to another site and view the video. If it opens in the same window as this blog, please click your browser's "Back" button (arrow) when done to return here. By the way, the video is in French, but you will have no trouble understanding the technique.

Clicking on the image above will take you to another website;
when finished there, please return to Jack Keller's WineBlog

Okay, so after seeing that, you probably were as intrigued as we were at how simple the technique is, right? So why did I say, "He succeeded, but with some difficulty"?

Well, the first bottle Charlie tried was sealed with a synthetic cork that would not budge. All Charlie succeeded in doing was to jar loose millions of tiny bubbles of formerly dissolved CO2 that turned the white wine cloudy. Because this was supposed to be a still wine, it was bottled in a regular Bordeaux bottle. All that visible pressure inside the thin bottle made us nervous, so we set it aside and fetched another bottle of wine.

Next, a bottle with a natural cork was selected and Charlie once again gave it the old college try. After a half dozen whacks, the cork began to budge, but once again the wine turned cloudy from a release of bubbles that weren't supposed to be there. Another 8-10 jolts brought the cork out enough that Charlie was able to pull it out, but that caused the inevitable eruption and the loss of about a third of the wine. This wine, incidentally, had been sealed with a technical or composite 1+1 cork -- a dense, agglomerated cork with a natural cork disc glued to each end. These corks are not as compressible as pure natural corks, so that may account for the difficulty in its removal by this method. But I am just speculating....

So, the technique worked, but not nearly as easily as it did in the video. Here are some observations. You have to really put some force into that whack, so don't whack that shoe against a lath and plaster- or sheetrock-surfaced wall. Charlie was smart enough to use the side of a cement entryway. We also discovered that two out of two still wines selected for the demonstration were not still. This was a disappointing indictment of two very popular California wineries.

In a pinch, this will work, but not if the winery used a synthetic or a technical cork. If it used a pure natural cork -- or a colmated cork -- you won't have to repeat W.C. Fields' 1940 quote, "Once...in the wilds of Afghanistan, I lost my corkscrew, and we were forced to live on nothing but food and water for days."

I was recently interviewed by Ken Payton of the blog "Reign of Terroir" on the subject of the commercial prospects of non-vinifera grape and non-grape wines. I think it went pretty well. I got a lot of things off my chest that had been fermenting for a while, and I expressed once again what I think is key to being a good, competent winemaker. I am sure almost everyone will disagree with something I said, but I dare anyone to disagree with everything.

See the link following this entry

A friend of mine in Washington State, who doesn't drink or know wine, read the entry (I sent hime the link) and called me. "Wow," he said, "That was impressive! Now what the hell were you talking about?" Sigh....

The interview is located at the second link below. I hope some of you enjoy it.

• Wine Corks, my blog entry of different kinds of corks
• Jack Keller on America's Indigenous Grape and Fruit Wines, the July 18, 2010 entry on Reign of Terroir.
• Jack Keller, the Net's First Wine Blogger, Part 1,the October 3, 2008 entry on Reign of Terroir.
• Jack Keller, the Net's First Wine Blogger, Part 2, the October 6, 2008 entry on Reign of Terroir.
• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

I was searching Google for a specific recipe I once posted somewhere and came across a link to six short poems I wrote in 2002. These dredged up old memories and so I'm republishing them below. The poems are closer to Haiku than to traditional Western poetry in that they do not rhyme, but do not adhere to the 17-syllable Haiku style. Hopefully, they will sing to you anyway.

These poems were originally published in Short Stuff, Volume I, Issue 5, September 2002. I believe the original journal is now defunct.

I

Yeast in honey
brings the mead
to life beyond
the clovered fields

II

Dandelion petals
orange peel and yeast
trap sunshine in water
as golden wine

III

Juicy grapes
with sugars laden
ripe for wine
a feast for birds

IV

In shadows now
the vineyard sleeps
on morrow comes
the harvest

V

I crush the grapes
with purple feet
and wine flows
from their sorrow

VI

I raise my glass
to ideas lost
on foggy nights
when no one listened

If you have a favorite, please let me know.

• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

---

May 23rd, 2010

A number of people have told me they check daily for WineBlog entries. If you want to be notified when I post an entry instead of checking here daily, subscribe to my RSS feed by clicking this button:

A friend sent me a link to a video called, "What I Like About Texas," a song by fellow Texan Gary P. Nunn accompanied by a slideshow by Jeremy Oldham. It was too good not to share. I hope you enjoy it....

Dandelions Again

Two days ago it suddenly dawned on me that we are almost through May and I haven't made a dandelion wine yet. Dandelion wine is one of the best tasting country wines you can make, but in this part of Texas dandelions disappear around the end of June. So, it was time to "get to it."

I have 30 dandelion wine recipes posted on my site, but one is my favorite for ease of method and resulting taste. Tried and true, it works 100% of the time as long as you are using true dandelions.

I have on rare occasion been informed that dandelion flowers, upon being covered with boiling water (as this recipe calls for), have turned black. This has never happened to me and I have been making dandelion wine using boiling water since 1972. My suspicion is that catsear or another closely similar flower was used, or the flower used was dandelion but sprayed with something that reacted to the hot water. I am just guessing, really, as it has never happened to me, but every action has a cause.

Catsear (Hypochaeris radicata, or flatweed or false dandelion) is commonly mistaken for true dandelions (Taraxacum officinale or T. erythrospermum). Both plants carry similar composite flowers which form windborne seeds. However, catsear stems are solid and forked, bearing two or more flowers per parental stem, whereas dandelion stems are hollow and simple (unforked). There are other flowers that are also similar, but less so than these two.

Use true dandelions....

Dandelion Wine Recipe

• 9 cups dandelion petals
• 1 11-oz can Welch's 100% White Grape Juice frozen concentrate
• 1 lb 10 ozs granulated sugar
• 2 lemons (juice and zest)
• 2 oranges (juice and zest)
• 1 tsp yeast nutrient
• 1/2 tsp pectic enzyme
• 1/4 tsp tannin
• 6 1/4 pts water
• Côtes-du-Rhône or Hock wine yeast

Pluck flower petals beforehand. Put water on to boil. Meanwhile, prepare zest from citrus and set aside. Combine flowers and zest in nylon straining bag and tie closed. Put bag in primary and pour boiling water over it. Cover primary and squeeze bag several times a day for 3 days. If you can refrigerate primary during this period, so much the better; if not, the must should not suffer for it. Drain and squeeze bag to extract all liquid. Stir sugar into primary until completely dissolved. Begin a yeast starter solution. Stir in remaining ingredients except yeast, cover and set aside 10-12 hours. Add activated yeast starter and cover. Stir twice daily for 5 days. Transfer to secondary and fit airlock. Rack after wine falls clear, adding crushed Campden tablet, topping up and reattaching airlock. Rack again every 2 months for 6 months, adding another crushed Campden tablet during middle racking and stabilizing with Campden and potassium sorbate at last racking. Wait another month and rack into bottles. Cellar 6 months and enjoy a bottle. Cellar another 6 months and enjoy it all. [Author's own recipe]

A Pleasant Mistake

Several days ago I went to bottle a muscadine wine that had been bulk aging for 5 years simply because I had no place for it if bottled. Having now depleted my cellar enough to accept several dozen bottles, I assembled and sterilized the requisite number of bottles and then set the carboy on the kitchen counter. That's when I discovered in dismay that the wine had been sitting on its lees for 5 years. I braced myself for disaster as I drew a sample, evaluated the color -- a very nice red -- and inhaled it. The aroma was assuredly muscadine, so I hesitantly took a sip. It shouldn't have been, but it was wonderful.

Deliberately aging a wine on its lees is called sur lie aging. One ages a wine sur lie to enhance the body, structure and mouth feel of the wine. It tends to increase the aroma, flavor and depth, and may lengthen the finish. When combined with frequent stirring of the lees (bâtonnage), the wine may acquire a creamy mouth feel and enhanced complexity. The problem here was that I did not stir the lees. Indeed, I was totally unaware that the wine was sitting on its lees. How could this be?

When this wine was young it sat in my den with other carboys. My English Springer Spaniel, Coli (I sure do miss her), occasionally managed to remove a tag from the carboy and I would either find it and return it or prepare another one. I have no distinct memory of this tag being lost, but it probably was and I prepared a replacement tag from memory and mistakenly annotated it as racked twice. At some point I noted the color, thought it correct and noted this on the tag as well. At least, this seems to me the only explanation.

Whatever the truth may be, the result was an anomaly. The wine should not have survived this long without attention and I gave it none. But survive it did, and the amazing thing is that it maturated well. I cannot explain it and so will not speculate, but I do love the wine.

If any is encouraged by this experience to do on purpose what I did through negligence, I strongly discourage the attempt. The odds are overwhelmingly in favor of the wine being ruined rather than surviving in a drinkable state. I was lucky.

• Dandelion Wines Special Recipe Collection, on my site
• Sur Lie and Bâtonnage, the best article I know of on these techniques, by Ben Rotter
• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

---

May 13th, 2010

People have asked, where have I been these past 2 1/2 weeks? Around, but occupied. Family health issues have captured my attention -- my mother had a second stroke -- and after months and months of terrible reception I finally upgraded my internet wireless service to a new antenna and receiver. I'm BACK ONLINE!

I've still had time to enjoy more wine than usual. I dug into my older wines and discovered the two surviving bottles of 1999 Agarita (Western Barberry) had matured into a real jewel. A 2004 Blueberry was showing some age but still went well with Black Angus rib eye steak and all the fixin's. My stepson and I polished off the last of the 2001 Parsnip (acceptable), 2005 Kiowa Blackberry (still fruity), two bottles of 2004 Eggplant wine (before you go "yuck," it was very good), and 2003 Smoked Burgundy (still unique!).

Last night I opened a 25-year old Sonoma Valley (Buena Vista Winery) Cabernet Sauvignon I had somehow overlooked for the past decade. The cork disintegrated when I tried extracting it using a corkscrew, but I decanted it through a coffee filter (I have no shame in this!) to remove the cork flotsam and immediately noted two good signs. First, the color was near perfect for a Sonoma CS. Second, the aroma and bouquet signaled a nicely aged wine. I offered my stepson one glass and then piggishly husbanded the rest. Wonderful evening!

More on Burnt Rubber Smell

My last entry, on burnt rubber tastes and smells, generated several requests for additional information, if available. As I have said many times, I am not a chemist and thus I rely on what others say about wine chemistry. But I do have a good library, helpful friends and the ability to research the internet. The latter one does cautiously, as there is a lot of bad information out there. But some sources are sterling. While looking for something else, I found some information on this very subject from one such source. Besides hydrogen sulfide, it identifies nine other stinky compounds that can form in wine.

I was actually looking for the source article for Harvey Steiman's March 19th, 2010 Wine Spectator piece, "The Real Problem With Corks: Aussie researchers focus on bottle variation." Since the study was from AWRI (Australian Wine Research Institute), I went snooping around their website and stumbled across a reference to a 2008 study by V. O'Brien and C. Colby, " Wine Faults Caused by Reductive Characters: Low Molecular Weight Sulfur Compounds" [Aust. N.Z. Wine Ind. J. 23(5), 50-55; 2008]. In the reference I found the following chart:

Compound	Odor Description	Aroma Threshold (µg/L)	Typical Range (µg/L)
Hydrogen sulfide Methanethiol Ethanethiol Dimethyl sulfide Carbon disulfide Diethyl sulfide Methyl thioacetate Dimethyl disulfide Ethyl thioacetate Diethyl disulfide	Rotten egg, sewage like Rotten cabbage, burnt rubber, putrid Onion, rubbery, burnt match, sulfidy, earthy Blackcurrant, cooked cabbage, asparagus, canned corn, molasses Sweet, ethereal, slight green, rubber, sulfidy, chokingly repulsive Garlic, rubbery Sulfurous, cheesy, egg Vegetal, cabbage Sulfurous, garlic, onion Bad smelling, onion	1 1.5 1.5 25 5 1 40 10 70 4	0 - 370 0 - 11 0 - 50 0 - 980 0 - 140 0 - 10 0 - 115 0 - 22 0 - 180 0 - 85

The study was reference in the AWRI 2009 Annual Report and reporting on development of an analytical tool for wineries to detect low molecular weight sulfur compounds. These reductive compounds primarily are created by yeast, but have also been linked to wine storage under low oxygen transmission rates. The reference reported that 2% of the 13,477 wines at the 2006 International Wine Challenge were judged to possess faults due to the presence of one or more of these compounds. This is considered a rather conservative number because the amount present had to be significant to be judged a fault.

If you want to know more, you can Google any of these compounds and learn more than you probably want to know, but if you enter "[name of compound] +wine" you will get more relevant results. Good luck.

Screwcap Research: the Next Step

The Australian Wine Research Institute (AWRI) has long been the leader in unbiased research regarding bottle closures. I began following their research when they were doing trials to determine which closure was better -- natural cork or synthetic? Exactly when they tossed the screwcap into the mix escapes my memory and a hard drive crash long ago wiped out the electronic copies I maintained of the research articles. But two review articles point to one 10-year study having started in 1999. I think it safe to say they have now shown beyond all doubt that wines sealed under screwcaps exhibit superior aging and longevity qualities over those sealed under both natural and synthetic corks.

Jamie Goode's article reviewing the first published results (July 12, 2001) from what became a decade-long study by AWRI (including the screwcap) commenced circa 1999. At least the wine used in the study was a 1999 vintage and the published results covered data collected at 18 months post-closure. Additional data was later supplied to Goode by AWRI to include 21 and 24 sensory evaluations. However, I am quite sure there were previous studies comparing closure types because many Australian wineries switched to screwcaps (they call them Stelvins) around 2000. Goode's review, combined with one by Harvey Steiman in his March 9, 2010 blog in Wine Spectator and a publication from AWRI all indicate this conclusion.

Although some of Goode's inferences turned out in the long run to be wrong, his discussion of the key issues, experimental design and statistical treatment were excellent and I recommend you read it. Steiman, having benefit of the 10-year depth of data from the study, reports much firmer conclusions. It, too, is worth a read. Both gentlemen tell the story better than I can, but a picture, they say, is worth a thousand words. This one does not "say it all," but it says one heck of a lot!

Wines at 28, 63 and 125 months; the bottle on the left of each row is sealed by a screwcap

The study was not designed to compare screwcaps with corks and synthetic proxies, but rather to determine the best performing cork. What happened is that the screwcap quickly proved to be a superior closure for wine. The study points out that after 10 years, "Most of the wine sealed with closures other than screw cap were completely undrinkable."

Steiman asks, "Are twist-offs perfect? Not quite, but the down sides are manageable, while cork problems occur indiscriminately and exponentially more often. Winemaking for screw-cap closures needs to be clean, and sulfur must be handled carefully to avoid reduction. Aging occurs at a slower pace under screw caps (actually, at about the same pace as the rare perfect cork), so if you like those complex flavors of older wine, it will take longer to achieve them. But they do arrive, and the original fruit remains."

Personally, I think the incidence of Trichloroanisole (TCA, or cork taint) is vastly overstated by wine critics who seem to zealously enjoy applying the "critic" part of the descriptor. Many years ago I criticized the judging at a major wine competition because inexperienced students were doing the judging. Every white that wasn't straw in color was deemed "oxidized," including wines that were supposed to be brownish in color due to the ingredients (praline dessert wine, tea wine and tamarind wine). I think too many writers unable to pinpoint the actual defect or fault they are tasting, like the students who found "oxidation" rampant, simply attribute the imperfection to "TCA."

In my 15-year experience as a wine judge, I have only encountered notable TCA rarely -- probably no more than in 1% of the wines closed with natural corks. Admittedly, I have kept no data on he wines I've judges and therefore cannot offer any true statistical analysis, but my sense of it is that it is far less prevalent than wine critics claim. Then again, because I judge mostly homemade wines which tend to be consumed young (within two years of vintage) due to quick aging and peaking of many non-grape bases, perhaps they simply haven't had sufficient time to display the defect. I rather doubt this but remain open to the possibility.

But for those who want to keep their grape and non-grape wines longer and with greater confidence, evidence points to the screwcap coupled with good winemaking tecniques as the answer. So, what is the next step I referred to in my entry title? Just this. We know that too little ullage (air space) in the bottle promotes reduction and prolongs the aging process, while too much provides too much oxidizing O2. But some O2 is essential for aging to occur. Wouldn't it be nice to know exactly how much ullage in, say, a Shiraz will lead to wine maturity in 3 years, 5 years, or 7? All other variables being equal, can aging be dialed in by the correct measure of ullage and the O2 it provides the wine? I think this is the next step. Any takers?

• Fighting Cork Taint: Are Screwcaps and Plastic Corks the Answer?, Jamie Goode's Wine Anorak article
• The Real Problem With Corks, "Harvey Steiman at Large," in Wine Spectator" (subscription required to view whole article)
• Screwcaps = Awesome, the Harvey Steiman blog entry can be read here, at Aarom Wines blog
• 2009 AWRI Annual Report, see "Novel Analytical Services," page 43
• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

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April 26th, 2010

The Purple Sage Mead I made last September has aged briefly but well. The wine was entered in the San Antonio Regional Wine Guild's Spring Competition and did well, winning a 1st Place in the Novelty Dry category. A Ginger Mead I made early last year won 2nd Place in Novelty Sweet.

That the competition was stiff is evidenced by my home-grown Golden Muscat. It scored a 19 on a twenty point scale and tied for 2nd Place in the White Wine Dry category. If you've got a 19-point wine, it can only be beat by a perfect 20. And it was. Tight competition....

Lost Wine

Anyone who has made wine and allowed it to bulk age eventually realizes some of the wine simply disappears. If the wine is held in barrels or casks, the culprit is absorption by the wood and evaporation outwardly over long periods of time. But what if the wine is ages in glass carboys? How does one explain the loss of an inch or more of wine through glass?

The answer of course is that the wine is not actually lost through the glass, but rather through the airlock. This occurs at two distinct times during the winemaking process, and in both occasions it isn't the wine that is lost but rather carbon dioxide.

When must is fermenting vigorously, yeast are converting sugars into energy for their own use and expelling two waste products -- alcohol and CO2.The alcohol remains in he carboy, but the CO2 leaves through the airlock. All of those lost atoms of carbon and oxygen bound into CO2 reduce the volume of the must/wine and the level drops. This loss of volume even continues into the later stages of fermentation when the vigorous fermentation subsides and then stops.

As the vigorous fermentation subsides and less CO2 is produced to keep pushing those bubbles flowing through the airlock, the wine begins to absorb some of the CO2 and store its molecules in the billions of empty spaces between the molecules of wine and its components not already occupied by sulfur dioxide or oxygen. As fermentation slows further, more and more of those molecules of CO2 are "parked" in the interstitial spaces of the wine. Eventually, all of the CO2 is absorbed into the wine.

A newly fermented wine is fizzy because of this "parked" CO2. It has to be degassed before bottling or it will fizz later when uncorked. It is the "parked" CO2 that must be driven from the wine through degassing before the wine is bottled. A vigorous stir with a wooden dowel, plastic rod or specialized, power-driven degassing tool will do the job. I do not recommend you try shaking the carboy to dislodge the trapped molecules of CO2 unless you enjoy mini-volcanoes. All that is required for degassing is to move an object through the wine fast enough to create cavitation, which will knock the parked molecules loose and send them racing to the surface. As they rise, they dislodge other parked molecules.

If you do nothing to degas the wine, the CO2 will slowly "unpark" itself and escape, but the process can take an awful long time and is seldom complete, but the fizz does eventually subside. In the process, the volume of wine also subsides.

Wine Tastes Like Burnt Rubber

A winemaker in Ohio wrote a few weeks ago asking why his wine tasted like burnt rubber. This is a tough problem to diagnose, as there are many possible causes for this and related off-tastes. It is also possible the off-taste isn't a taste at all, but rather is an off-odor influencing what you think you taste.

Many odors are so volatile that they are inhaled orally when the wine is sipped and this affects the perceived taste. The more offensive of these odors that sometimes occur in wine are associated with sulfur. I wrote about some of these in my WineBlog entry of February 13th, 2010, "When to Pull the Plug."

It is also possible that a fermentation conducted either too hot or too cold or even too fast can cause the yeast to stress out and emit hydrogen sulfide. Another causative for the production of hydrogen sulfide during fermentation is nitrogen deficiency when using yeasts requiring high nitrogen nutrients. I think everyone knows that hydrogen sulfide smells akin to rotten eggs. While not exactly a burnt rubber smell, hydrogen sulfide can evolve into other, more offensive compounds. An intermediary compound is mercaptan, which can evolve from hydrogen sulfide but smells more like fermenting onions. Each of these can evolve into more odorous compounds giving off a burnt rubber odor that affects the perceived taste of the wine.

Hydrogen sulfide formed during fermentation is identical to that formed post-fermentation. The difference is that we don't expect it to form during fermentation. Indeed, it is usually associated with thick, compacted layers of lees where reduction causes the offensive compound to form. This can generally be avoided by stirring the lees every 5-7 days, but certainly can be avoided by racking the wine off the lees within 2-3 weeks of fermentation ceasation.

I have heard that over-oaking a wine with a dark-roasted oak can cause a burnt rubber taste. I have never experienced this, but have had over-oaked wines taste somewhat like burnt toast. Either taste is offensive in wine and should be avoided by monitoring the progress of your oaking period.

• Wine from the Texas Purple Sage, my site, scroll down to the entry of September 30th, 2009
• Zingimel: Ginger Mead,% my site, scroll down to the entry of October 17th, 2009
• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

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April 23rd, 2010

I've received many emails congratulating me on retirement and I thank you all for the nice sentiments. We are still undergoing an adjustment period, but I'm sure I will get the hang of it soon.

My wife, son Scott and I stayed overnight at Port Arthur to watch Klara, our granddaughter, earn her blue belt in Taekwondo, then drove to Galveston. Spending a week on Galveston Island doing nothing was difficult, but someone had to do it. The martial artist could only spend two days with us because school is still in session, but we enjoyed every minute with her. If you have a free week, I recommend Galveston. The water was warmer than we expected for April, the locals were friendly, and the merchants appreciative of our patronage.

Unlike most wine bloggers, I rarely mention any commercial wines and seldom recommend a product. Rarer still is my mention of a restaurant. This entry will be one of those rare exceptions because we ate twice at a place I cannot help but rave about.

Fabulous Shrimp

During our stay on Galveston we enjoyed the best meal I have eaten since my wife made crab and shrimp enchiladas last Christmas. This meal also featured shrimp -- four different entrées and two sides -- and was topped off with the best bread pudding I have ever eaten, but before I get to it I want to talk about some other Galveston eateries.

There are many seafood eateries on Galveston and our timeshare on Seawall was next to perhaps the most famous of them all, a place that has survived almost 100 years. It has lived on a reputation earned many years ago by prior generations who delivered fine seafood at upscale but not extravagant prices. But clearly something has changed. The current food quality is inferior to that which earned it its reputation and the pricing is seriously inflated for what is delivered. I will not speculate as to why this is so, but we noted the affliction elsewhere as well. Another famous Galveston seafood eatery, this one bordering the Strand, also served featureless food at inflated prices.

Some regional and national seafood chain restaurants are also located at Galveston. One does not expect superior dining at these locations, but one at least expects a fair deal. We discovered smaller portions at inflated prices that bordered on criminal. A plate of 15 French fries should not cost $3.50 no matter where it is served.

I like to give people and businesses the benefit of any doubt until faced with evidence to the contrary. I invented excuses for the excessive pricing and shoddy food, supposing they were trying to recover from losses incurred from 2008's Hurricane Ike -- a poor excuse but conceivable. There is evidence everywhere that the island is still recovering and will be for several years to come. But as we talked to local residents we began to realize the decline in many of the eateries began long before the massive hurricane did its damage two years ago. I won't speculate why this has occurred, but an afternoon on the Strand convinced us it was totally unnecessary.

We stumbled into Bistro LeCroy at 2021 Strand looking for a restroom. We were greeted by Tommie LeCroy, a co-proprietor, who was both friendly and gracious. Although we had plans to eat later elsewhere, we noted the inviting smells coming from the kitchen and the generous portions being served. We used the facilities and left, but noted the name and location. Later, when our appetites demanded attention, we returned.

Bistro LeCroy is owned and operated by cousins Tommie LeCroy and Barbara Davis. It bills itself as "A Louisiana Seafood Grille" and lives up to the claim. Tommie, from New Orleans, frequently vacationed on the island and was fond of the food at the famous seafood restaurant on Seawall I mentioned earlier. "I went into the restaurant business with a friend on a lark. Two years later Barbara joined in, we bought out my friend, and went into it in a serious way." . Barbara, from Lake Charles, learned something about cooking from her mother, who spent 10 years compiling a Southern-style cookbook. The marriage of Cajun and Creole cooking was a natural for both cousins.

I know nothing about the initial menu or business success, but opening a restaurant in December on an island that thrives on summer tourism is gutsy to say the least. That they were still open when Hurricane Ike deposited six feet of mud in their place five years later is testimony that people liked what they offered. Ike destroyed Bistro LeCroy, but not the spirit that built it. It took Tommie, Barbara and dedicated others eleven months to shovel out the mud, repair, replace, restock, and reopen.

It was our good fortune to discover LeCroy on a day that featured a shrimp feast as the daily special. Tommie immediately made us feel like old friends and filled us in on just enough history to allow us to appreciate the man and his business. Then the food arrived and we gorged ourselves on Remoulade Shrimp, breaded Popcorn Shrimp, large sweet Coconut Shrimp, very large battered NOLA Shrimp, and two sides from a selection of eleven offerings. Although we were all stuffed from the meal, we decided to test Tommie's claim that his Bread Pudding was the best in the South. The man wasn't exaggerating! It was by far the best bread pudding I've ever eaten -- served hot, smothered in a rich, creamy sauce and dribbled with caramel. The meal was so good that we talked about it all evening.

The next day we returned for a late lunch and feasted once again on shrimp, although I was terribly tempted to try the Crawfish Etouffée or Grilled Lemon Pepper Catfish. The shrimp won out because they were proven winners -- cooked fresh and never having been frozen, an increasing rarity even along the Gulf Coast. We chased the meal with a Key Lime Ice Cream Pie. The day was warm and the coolness hit the spot.

Tommie wasn't there when we returned, but Barbara was and she was as friendly and informative as her cousin. She even shared with us a secret or two about the previous day's Bread Pudding. Their secrets are safe with us....

As I said at the beginning of this entry, I rarely mention a restaurant in the WineBlog. That I spent the entire entry on Bistro LeCroy should impress upon you that I thought the food was exceptional. Your mileage may vary, but I cannot imagine it differing from mine by much. I will return soon to try the St. Charles Chicken, Center Cut Pork Chop, and Blackened Red Snapper topped with crab meat. If you're ever on Galveston, stop in at 2021 Strand in the historic downtown and treat yourself to a great meal and delightful dessert. They have a wine list if you ask for it. I can recommend the Dry Creek Fumé Blanc with the shrimp.

p.s. Call ahead for business hours, as they close early on weekdays. They are at (409) 762-4200.

• Bistro LeCroy, information page
• Bistro LeCroy, menu and reviews
• Bistro LeCroy, blogger reviews
• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

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March 13th, 2010

I thank each of you who wrote with kind words about my recent article in WineMaker magazine. I had fun writing it and I thought the topic -- Yeast Selection for Country Wines -- was long overdue for a serious treatment. I am most pleased that the two pages of tables were published, as I spent a lot of time constructing them but knew they might be too large for the magazine's format. Thank you Chris for working them in.

This issue (April-May 2010) of WineMaker magazine also had an article by Bob Peak on "Testing for Acidity." I had already spent about four hours researching and writing the entry below on titratable acidity when I read Bob's piece. I then checked one fact, changed one sentence and added two more to my own piece. Knowledge is where you find it, and thank you Bob for your well-written article.

Changing topics, a truly great citizen, fierce warrior and selfless individual passed away in Waco, Texas just before Christmas. I was busy then, driving from San Bernardino, California to Fort Mohave, Arizona and missed the news. In the following days we celebrated Christmas without the distractions of TV, radio or the internet -- just family enjoying family. I therefore missed the tributes to Robert (Bob) L. Howard, Colonel, US Army (Retired), Medal of Honor recipient, and the most decorated American soldier of the modern era. Thank you Steve for the clip below. Thank you Bob for the honor of being graced by your shadow.

Titrating Red Wine

I cannot say how many times people have written to me complaining that they cannot see the slight change in color when titrating a red wine to measure titratable acidity (TA), but I can assure you it has been many times. The problem, of course, is that while titration causes a white wine to permanently change from white to slightly pink when the end-point is reached, the color shift in red wine is negligible at best and undetectable at worse. What then is the poor winemaker to do?

First, it is important to understand several aspects of titration. We titrate to measure the amount of acid in a must or wine because we can utilize this knowledge to our benefit. Because it is a measure, it is a number which we refer to as TA for titratable acidity -- you can think of it as total acidity if you want, but that is both technically and factually incorrect. Titratable acidity is always a lower number than total acidity because the latter includes complete (ionic) as well as dissociated compounds while the former only relates to dissociated compounds. The number we end up with for TA may be expressed a whole number representing grams of acid per unit of volume (usually the liter), such as TA 6.5 (6.5 g/L) or as a percentage (TA .65%) cited as tartaric acid. Either number is fine for our purposes.

TA affects a wine's balance and taste. A wine with too little acid tastes flat, lifeless and inconsequential, while too much acid tastes overly sour in some way (a lemon tastes sour one way, while a green apple tastes sour in a completely different way -- each taste determined by the principle acid affecting the taste buds, and in these instances being citric and malic acids, respectively). TA, in conjunction with tannic content, also contributes to a wine's feel in the mouth and its ability to age well in the barrel or bottle. Further, TA can influence the stability of certain pigments and contribute to a wine's biological stability, although the strength of the acid (pH) plays a more important role than the amount of acid (TA) in both of these instances.

The titration process is actually quite simple. Traditionally, we add a specified amount of phenolphthalein (an indicator that changes color at pH 8.2) to a specific amount of wine (or juice) and perhaps water. A base sodium hydroxide (NaOH) solution of known normalized concentration (10%, for example) is added to the wine sample in a measured way until all the acid in the sample is neutralized and the sample changes color from clear to light pink -- an occurrence known as the "end point". A look-up table, calculator or simple math formula is then used to translate the results into a number we can relate to.

The problem with red wines is that it can be darned near impossible to detect the color change required for an accurate result in most wines. Some, but not all, red wines turn slightly gray when the end point is reached. If we miss the end point, we will keep adding the normalized base and arrive at flat-out wrong results. We can dilute the wine to try to render the color change more easily detectible but that is not a sure-fire tactic. Some wines actually change color when diluted and this makes it easier to detect the color change, but most wines are not so accommodating. So, what to do?

Some years back the winemaker at Sister Creek Vineyards was doing some lab work while we talked. I watched him measure some phenolphthalein and add it to a graduated cylinder of wine. This he poured into a short beaker. He then added a few drops of sodium hydroxide to the beaker, swirled it gently, then placed the electrode of a pH meter in the wine. He removed the electrode, added a few more drops, and swirled it again. Again the pH meter. Eventually he added two or three drops, swirled, replaced the meter and wrote down a number, did something on a calculator, and then wrote down "6.8 g/L."

"What did you just do?" I asked.

And he explained that because the phenolphthalein in any sample always hits an end point at exactly pH 8.2, he just adds NaOH until the pH meter reports 8.2. It is the same as adding the NaOH until the wine turns pink, only in this case you are not even looking for a color change. So, there you have it. Simply keep track of exactly how much NaOH you add until the pH reaches 8.2 and then convert to a TA reading.

When using a titration kit, you have to follow the manufacturer's instructions. Sodium hydroxide can come in varying strengths, which affect the specifics of the procedure and the determined results. There are also other indicators that can be used besides phenolphthalein, so one must adhere to the instructions that apply.

There is also a device called an acidometer that is simpler to use than a titration kit, but even with it you can miss the end point in a red wine. But remember the pH meter. You can obtain one sufficiently accurate for winemaking needs for less than $100.I think I paid $67 for mine. There are also commercial laboratories that will do this and other tests for you for a fee, but most are within your ability without too much investment.

If you consult a chemistry book you will learn all about titration. More than likely, you will be instructed to work in moles, which are calculated from the atomic masses of the constituent elements, and with simple or complex formulas depending on the methodoloy. Both make my head hurt.

In the old days I would have struggled through this and understood it completely before attempting a titration, but two people said things that changed my approach. A fellow named Jan Gray once said, "If generals needed to understand the details of how radar works in order to employ it our armed forces probably wouldn't have radar today." Much later, my wife said, "If there is an easy way to do something and a hard way to achieve the same result, simplify life and select the easy way."

So, let's forget the moles and look at the relationships we need to grasp. We can determine the grams per liter (g/L) equivalent of TA measured as tartaric acid by comparing the volume of the base used in the reaction with the size of the wine sample, plugging in a constant and then adjusting the result to a liter. The basic formula is:

(mL NaOH) x (normality of NaOH) x (0.075) x (100)
---------------------------------------------------------------------- = g/100 mL TA x 10 = g/L TA)
Wine sample volume in mL

Suppose you drew a 10 mL sample of wine and it took 8.4 mL of 0.1 normality NaOH to reach the pH 8.2 end point (either by color change or pH meter), the calculation would be:

(8.4 mL NaOH) x (0.1 normality of NaOH) x (0.075) x (100)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------- = 0.63 g/100mL x 10 = 6.3 g/L
10 mL sample of wine

If you think that is difficult, think again. Because you are reading this on a computer means you have a calculator at your fingertips and can simply punch in the numbers: 8.4 x 0.1 x 0.075 x 100 / 10 x 10 = 6.3.

If you use the acidometer, it is even easier. The indicator is bromothymol blue dissolved in a sodium hydoxide solution normalized at 0.067. You fill a graduated cylinder to a specified starting point and add the bromothymol blue solution until the sample turns green, then blue, reaching this end point at pH 7.0 rather than 8.2. A pH check can be made using a strip of litmus paper included with the acidometer or you can use your pH meter. When you have confirmed the end point, simply read the number on the cylinder corresponding to the amount of bromothymol blue solution you added. That number is the grams per liter of titratable acid in your wine.

However you do it, measuring your wine's TA is important. So is knowing its pH. If you have a pH meter and minimal lab equipment, you can know both at the same time. The dark color of a red wine need not be a show stopper.

• Tribute to Colonel Robert L. Howard, by all means, watch the video and read the text
• Wine Acidity Calculator, by Lara Hopley and Jo van Schalkwyk
• Titratable Acidity, commercial titration by Vinquiry
• Acid-Base Titrations, a simple chemistry approach
• Acid-Base Titration Calculations, a complex chemistry approach
• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

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March 10th, 2010

If you did not previously read the introduction to my last (March 7, 2010) WineBlog entry, please do. Any day now events will intercede in my affairs and I will go into a month or so of inactivity. I do not want you to be mystified when this happens. I have explained it.

I recommend you subscribe to this blog's RSS feed (click on the Subscribe link or button in the left column). That way you will be notified when I return. I don't want to lose you, and I hope you don't want to lose me.

A Solera-Like Blending System

A friend shared a wine with me last month that he said was a "special blend." It was quite good -- excellent, in fact. When I tactfully inquired as to the blending components ("Hey, Lou, what all's in this blend of yours?"), he pretended he didn't hear me. I let it go. Last night he called to apologize. Seems he couldn't remember that it was Mustang grape, more Mustang grape, another batch of Mustang grape, and a final batch of Mustang grape. But when he explained how he blended it, I said, "Oh, it's almost like a Solera system." "A what?" he asked.

Seems he started with a 5-gallon batch of Mustang one year when the wild vines were particularly heavy with fruit. The next year he made a 3-gallon batch and a 1-gallon batch. From the 5-gallon batch of year one he drew off a gallon and bottled it, replacing the missing gallon with the single gallon from year two.

The next year he made two gallons of Mustang. He also drew off and bottled two gallons from the year one 5-gallon carboy. He topped up the year one carboy with two gallons from the year two 3-gallon carboy, and topped up the latter with the new two gallons he had just made (year three).

The following year he made another 3-gallons in single-gallon jugs. He also bottled another two gallons from the year one carboy, topped it off with wine from the year two carboy and topped up that one with two gallons from year four.

The fifth year he made a single gallon of Mustang. He bottled another two gallons from the year one carboy, topped up that carboy from the year two 3-gallon carboy, and topped it up with the remaining gallon from year four and the single gallon he made in year five.

His system is not as structured as a Solera system, but it essentially works the same way. In the fifth year he bottled a blend of four different years, each in a different stage of aging. It made for a very interesting wine that boasted both age and youth at the same time, with both smooth and vibrant tannins and a complexity rare in Mustang. It was very good. I thanked him profusely for sharing his secret with me, hoping the profusion was enough to earn more than just a taste of next year's bottling. We shall see.

A 40-Year Old Mustang Wine Revisited

Two months ago I wrote about a 40-year old Mustang we consumed at a San Antonio Regional Wine Guild meeting. At our February meeting, another bottle of the 40-year old Mustang was opened and we declared it barely drinkable due to acetic acid. While I was still trying to get my taste buds around it, our host dumped the bottle down the drain, produced yet another bottle, and that wine was moved to a decanter after passing the sniff test. Although all three bottles reportedly came from the same batch of Mustang, each tasted completely different from each other. The first bottle was trying to become sherry, the second vinegar, and the third was sweet, quite cloudy, but very drinkable. I have a theory that explains this.

My best guess is that the must was heavily chaptalized but not well stirred, and that means that the sugar was not completely dissolved. In 1970, when this wine was made, it was quite common to chaptalize with 3 pounds of sugar per gallon of must. That will almost always leave a sweet wine, but especially so if the sugar is not completely dissolved so the yeast can ingest it.

My guess is that when the wine was bottled, the first bottle[s] were pulled from the top where the wine was fairly dry. As more and more wine was removed, the remaining wine hugged the undissolved sugar on the bottom and each of the final bottles filled contained successively sweeter wine.

This is just a guess, but a plausible one. But I'll say this for the deceased winemaker who left us his legacy; no matter how he did it back in 1970, he made some pretty darn good Mustang wine. I am still amazed it survived this long.

• Jack Keller's WineBlog, scroll down to January 21, 2010, "A Lesson About Oxidation"
• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

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March 7th, 2010

I will try to get a couple more WineBlog entries in before I vanish for a month or so, but I cannot guarantee it. I am preparing for retirement at the end of the month and the pace of things has picked up and is building considerably. Just cleaning out my office at work is turning out to be more of a job than I ever imagined. How does one manage to collect so many personal things at work?

In a week family and friends will start arriving and I will not have an opportunity to get back online for awhile. The last half of this month and the first half of next will be consumed by events and a seclusion with my wife at an island hide-away. I should be back online around April 20th.

I have been in the Army, affiliated with the Army or working for the Army since 1966. I am proud of my service and the men and women I served with. We defeated the Soviet Union in the Cold War, and even the Russians will admit that that's saying something.

Preface

I received a phone call last night from a winemaker in Minnesota who has written me several times but has never received a reply. Well, that could be explained by the notice on my Home Page that boldly states, "If you insist, you may send me email, but I have almost zero free time and probably won't answer it. This is reality and I don't want you to write expecting an answer." (See above. It will get worse before it gets better.) However, since the gentleman went through the trouble of tracking down my phone number I could hardly refuse to assist him. His questions, however, were technical and I said I would answer them here.

Storage of Honey

A winemaker -- sometimes meadmaker -- asked why his light golden honey turned black, crystallized, and soured. Wow. Three big strikes against using that particular honey for mead and proof enough that honey is a perishable commodity with a variable shelf life. I don't know that anyone can predict the shelf life of a given honey as there are too many contributing causes of its deterioration. But we do know enough about honey to explain each of the changes that occurred in this instance.

First of all, honey, like most substances, reacts with oxygen and oxidizes. This partially explains the darkening. The rest of the explanation centers on diastase. Diastase is a α-, β- or γ-amylase capable of hydrolyzing starch into maltose and then dextrose. I am not at all conversant into why diastase is naturally in honey, but it is. Diastase is not stable over time, and this instability at normal storage temperatures contributes to the darkening of honey. There may be other contributors I am unaware of, but these two are well known. I too have kept honey so long that it turned black. It's quite disconcerting, but if the honey still tastes okay then it still has utility -- if not in meadmaking, then in cooking, baking and sweetening coffees and teas.

Crystallization or granulation of honey is not an uncommon sign of age. Honey granulates when dextrose begins solidifying around a microscopic dextrose crystal, a pollen grain, a dust particle, or some other attractive nuclei. It will begin crystallizing most effectively at temperatures between 41 and 45#176; F. and crystallize most rapidly between 50 and 60#176; F.

A critical component of honey is moisture. The best grade of honey will contain on average about 17.2% water by weight. Grade A and B must not contain more than 18.6% water. This is considered the upper limit for moisture content of unpasteurized honey, although Grade C honey can contain as much as 20%. There are specific reasons varietal honeys are not pasteurized (loss of volatile aromatic compounds being the most significant). All honeys contain some wild yeast. As long as the moisture content is below the critical 18.6% break point, osmosis creates dormancy conditions for wild yeast. When the moisture content rises above that number, some yeast may come out of dormancy and begin fermentation. Remember, please, that alcohol fermentation, where alcohol is the major byproduct, is but one of many types of fermentation (although other types are unlikely in a sugar-rich environment). While you certainly don't want other byproducts in your honey, you really don't want an alcohol fermentation to start either -- in a sealed bottle in your pantry -- do you? Think "big bang."

As honey crystallizes, moisture is expelled from the crystal lattices as they form and grow. The result is a separation of solid and liquid. It doesn't take much separation to raise the water content of the remaining liquid up into the 20-30% range (and higher!). This changing environment encourages fermentation. Even a small amount of alcohol in a jar that almost certainly contains a sufficient amount of air and oxygen can break down into acetic acid and water. The end result is a black, crystallized, sour honey.

So, one might ask, what is the best temperature for storing honey for long periods without these kinds of consequences? I have always been told that the best temperature for long term storage of honey is 0#176; F. or below. At this temperature, the honey will not lose color, aroma, flavor, or density. For short periods, say from one season to the next, storage between 61 and 80#176; F. is recommended. Above 80#176; and the honey will degrade rapidly.

There is probably more that could be said on this subject, but my knowledge is limited.

Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

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March 5th, 2010

I suffered an agonizing sequence of events! First, I got food poisoning from an egg salad sandwich I left out all day and then scarfed down without thinking. After three miserable days, I then rushed to complete and submit my retirement packet and supporting documents so I can step into freedom at the end of the month.

While that was happening, I finally received my Windows 7 upgrade and then spent hours trying to do simple things, like move my Favorites (haven't done it yet!), my address book (another not yet but I know how!) and dozens of simple things that would indeed be simple if Microsoft didn't keep changing the interface without issuing an operator's manual (remember the good old days?). Not a whole lot of time left over for winemaking, but there was some.

Sulfite Overdose

Blog ideas come from many places. Bob Toombs wrote about a customer who added a teaspoon of potassium metabisulfite to a 5-gallon carboy of must. He had already written to Tim Vandergrift of WineExpert and their minds met on the "dump it" solution. I have to concur. It is possible to get the free sulfur (as SO2) down to a manageable level, but the bound sulfur level will be so high as to be disagreeable.

One-quarter teaspoon of potassium metabisulfite per 5-gallon batch is the correct dose. Exceed that at your peril. If you double it, you might pull off a recovery, but quadrupling it is just lethal for the batch. Accept it and dump it.

Recovery. You can stir with vigor for a long time, driving off the excess SO2. Applying a vacuum might accomplish the same thing. Alternatively, you can heat the must to drive out the SO2. But all things (but enthusiasm) in moderation.

Juicy Fruit Wine

You're going to laugh at me, but for many, many years I've tried to concoct a blend of fruit that tastes and smells like Juicy Fruit chewing gum. This quest is for my wife, who loves Juicy Fruit but will no longer chew it because Wrigley insists on loading it up with aspartame.

Thus far my must smells like Juicy Fruit. I have no idea what it tastes like. It has only been fermenting vigorously for 10 days, so it is far too early to taste it and declare success or failure. Certainly I am not going to publish the recipe until it proves itself, but I am willing to discuss what went into it.

I started with white grape juice and blended in apple juice, strawberries, kiwis, bananas, nectarines, and fresh pineapple. It doesn't have the strong aroma the gum has, but it does have it in a weaker form. Thus far, I am pleased. I am almost afraid to spoil the illusion by tasting it. I'll keep you posted.

• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

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February 20th, 2010

Awww man, it happened again, but this time no one told for a whole week; my RSS feed's links to my last two WineBlog entries were to old entries. My bad! I'm sorry. It happens. I said it wouldn't happen again but I was wrong. But it's fixed. I will try to be a better editor. I will probably fail. Please let me know when this happens. My email is jackredkellerwhitewine@gbluemail.com (remove the patriotic colors from the address).

Not knowing my bad, my wife bought me a heavenly treat, a pound of genuine, certified, Jamaican Blue Mountain #1 coffee. This isn't the fake stuff from Kona or wherever, and not the Triage blend that allows up to 4% defective beans and sells for $20 a pound, but the real, 17/20 select, $40-$60 a pound stuff that Hugo Reyes (Hurley, on Lost) would pay $1,000 a cup for. I am nursing a cup right now. I have no idea what I did to deserve this, but I hope I do it again.

Bentonite - To Use or Not

In my last WineBlog entry I mentioned a potential sluggishness problem when fining with Bentonite. At least two of you over-reacted. Please re-read the entry. The potential problem exists when using a yeast strain with high nitrogen needs. Most yeast strains are not affected but listed below are some that are. Perhaps more importantly, there are other things you should know about Bentonite. Used correctly, it can be among your best winemaking friends.

First, some of the strains that require a high nitrogen nutrient (especially so if using Bentonite with the fermentation). All strains listed are Lalvin: BA11, BDX, BM45, BRL97 (moderate needs), CSM, CY3079, ICV-D47, ICV-GRE, K1-V1116, L2226, M1, M2 (moderate needs), RA17, RC212, T306, W15, and W46 (moderate needs). Few yeast manufacturers are as forthcoming with information on their strains and their needs as is Lallemand (Lalvin) - one of the reasons I buy their yeast. As for high nitrogen nutrients, every winemaker should have one on hand [Diammonium Phosphate (DAP) works just fine, thank you]. In 90% of all cases of sluggish fermentation, adding DAP is the cheapest way to overcome the problem, and with the strains listed above it is the cheapest way to prevent a problem.

None of the worry about Bentonite causing a sluggish fermentation is even relevant if you don't add it to a must before or during fermentation. If it strips nitrogen from a finished wine, who cares? [Okay, there is a very small downside with regard to potential complexity development during aging, but very small are the operative words.]

There are essentially two kinds of Bentonite marked for winemakers. One requires extended hydration - you normally whip up a slurry with hot water at least the day before use and let it rest 24 to 48 hours before re-stirring and adding while stirring. A more convenient, agglomerated type requires little rest after hydrating with cold water and can be added almost immediately -- while stirring. But you must read and follow the directions that come with the Bentonite you purchase. If there are no directions, always assume it is the first type, whip up a slurry with hot water, let it sit at least 24 hours (48 is better), re-stir, and add it to your must or wine slowly while stirring.

Things I like about Bentonite are (1) for white wines, it is unsurpassable in achieving clarity and protein stability; (2) it is least likely of all the common fining agents to strip out color; (3) it is almost impossible to "over-fine" with Bentonite but easy to do with many other fining agents; (4) when time is allowed for gravity to exert itself, every tiny particle of Bentonite will settle into the lees and is one less thing to worry about.

What Fruit Do You Eat?

Seven of us at work were discussing fresh fruit. Only two of us ate fresh fruit every single day and I was the only one that eats -- sometimes three -- two portions of fresh fruit each day. I eat a banana on the way to work or before I have my coffee on weekends and have a second fresh fruit midway through the morning. I sometimes have a third portion mid-afternoon or as a dessert following my evening meal. But my interest here is the fruit we most frequently chose to eat as well as that we simply ignore.

The most frequently eaten fruit among us was the banana. However, each of us agreed that the flavor of supermarket bananas has declined considerably over the years. They are, in fact, pretty bland today. The second most popular fruit among us was the apple. This surprised me, as I infrequently eat apples because the flavors of supermarket apples pale in comparison to freshly picked ones. Actually, this can be said about most fruit (and vegetables). But apples are easy to carry, accept some traveling abuse, are easy to eat, and have predictable varietal flavors.

Oranges were third in popularity, although somewhat messy to eat. Peaches, seasonal berries (strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, etc.), grapes, plums, watermelon, tangerines, cantaloupes, nectarines, cherries, and pears were all mentioned, but I did not record the order of preference. However, my own second most frequently eaten fruit, depending on season, is peach, grapes, cherries, melons (all types), pears, plums, and a couple mentioned next. I mentioned pineapple, apricot, kiwi, pluot, mango, persimmon, pomegranate, fig, papaya, and several other fruit, but most of those present rarely bought these fruit fresh. Price, unfamiliarity or (in the case of pomegranates) messiness were cited as reasons for shying away from these fruit. However, everyone agreed to try new fruit every now and then just to experience them.

Comice pears are perfect dessert fruit

One fruit that actually ranked low but was still among the most frequently purchased was the pear. Chief complaint was the gritty texture of the flesh and inconsistency in flavor. I can guess which pear varieties my friends were referring to but no names were offered. I asked if they had tried Comice pears and no one believed they had. I had a monster of a Comice (weighed exactly one pound) in my office and left to retrieve it, a paring knife and some napkins. I began to cut each person a piece. Everyone noticed that with every cut juice flowed from the pear and through my hands. The napkins were very much a necessity. All six of my friends were delighted by the sweet, juicy, melting flesh. All asked where I obtained them. They are available from the most popular supermarket chain in Texas (HEB). You simply have to look for them. They are only in season about a month or two and cost a little more than the more common varieties, but they are well worth the investment in sheer delight. Although Comice pears are perfect dessert fruit, I eat mine at midmorning and relish every bite. If you find a Comice even the least bit gritty, you will also notice it lacks the juiciness and flavor I mentioned above because it is not fully ripe. When ripe, they are exquisite and make unforgettable wine.

A fruit no one mentioned is the gage - often referred to as the greengage but available in other colors and cultivar names. A gage is a variety of plum. The story goes that someone surnamed Gage (I have seen John, Thomas and William all cited) imported the 'Reine Claudes' plum from France in the 18th century; the trees lost their labels identifying the cultivar's name and took the name of their importer. Whatever the source of the name, plums that go by the name "gage" are consistently juicy, sweet and intensely flavorful. They also make exceptional wine.

Most had eaten an occasional fresh pineapple, but only those who had eaten freshly harvested ones in Hawaii, Mexico, or Central America truly understood how wonderful they really can taste and how rapidly they lose that ambrosiac flavor. A neighbor went to Hawaii several years ago and I asked her to buy me a fresh pineapple in the airport on her way home. She thought I was a bit nuts, but she arrived home with two - one for each of us - and said she never realized how wonderful pineapple could taste until she ate it at a roadside stand in front of a pineapple field. She ate it every day after that, and that is the pineapple you make heavenly wine from.

Large and incredibly sweet Nero di Terlizzi figs

My wife has a love for figs that is unnatural. Among her favorites are Mission, Celeste, Brown Turkey, Black Ischia, Strawberry, Desert King, and Kadota. Fig wine is either simply good to magnificent. I have never tasted a bad fig wine, and last October I judged a competition in which a fig wine won Best of Show.

There are dozens of varieties of mango. Personally, I like the golden-yellow skinned Ataulfo mango, with its sweet, creamy flavor and bright yellow flesh. I also like the greenish-skinned Keitt, with its sweet, juicy and fruity flavored yellow flesh. By far the most commercially available cultivar in the United States and Europe is the Tommy Atkins, but it really does have inferior flavor and a very fibrous flesh.

Wonderfully flavored Belle of Georgia and White Lady peaches

My preference for fresh fruit is a ripe, juicy, white fleshed peach. Two are attracted to my taste buds more than any other, First in my book is the incredible tasting Georgia Belle. I personally prefer it to any other peach but your taste buds may be calibrated differently. That's why there are so many varieties. My second choice is the aptly named White Lady. She is soft, she is creamy, she is juicy, she is sweet. Once you have tasted her, you want more. And her flavor is unforgetable. Better than the Belle? Only you can say.

But to be fair, there are other excellent white fleshed peaches. The home garden favorite, Champion, produces large fruit with a sweet, delicate flavor. Eden, another large white, is juicy, sweet and richly flavored. The Belle of Georgia (not the same peach as the Georgia Belle) has a wonderful flavor, but does not equal the Georgia Belle in my book. The very established Grosse Mignonne (a.k.a. Grimwood's Royal George) was introduced in 1667 and is an exceptional white fleshed peach, but difficult to find. J.M. Mack, Strawberry Free, White Champion and White Hale ate a few other whites I am familiar with, but I freely admit that there are hundreds of varieties I have never knowingly tasted, so there may be richer, more incredible flavors out there. If you have a favorite, let me know and I will try to find it to taste.

• Blue Mountain Coffee, basic info, in Wikipedia
• Strains of Wine Yeast, on my site, should be bookmarked by every winemaker
• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

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February 13th, 2010

I spent a few hours this week discussing both well-known and little-known grape varieties with people wanting to make wines that taste like two classic blends. The wines they sought to emulate are Chianti and Châteauneuf de Pape. The first traditionally was 70% Sangiovese, 15% Canaiolo and 15% Malvasia bianca; today Sangiovese is still the base but other grapes are allowed. Châteauneuf de Pape is a blend of any of 13 authorized and controlled varieties - predominately Grenache, but also containing Syrah, Mourvèdre, Cinsault, Muscardin, Cournoise, Clairette, Bourboulenc, Picpoul, Roussanne, Terret Noir, Picardan, and Vaccarese. There was little point to the discussions, as each of the participants would have to substitute many of the grapes involved to make anything close. But if they are simply after the style (assuming, of course, that the taste was close), then substitution is certainly allowed.

I could have waited a couple of hours to post this entry and dated it on Saint Valentine's Day. I didn't want to wait, but wish all my readers a happy Valentine's Day nonetheless.

I have two topics, below. Each is about wine problems, either directly or indirectly. I hope you take something worthwhile from them.

Sluggish Canned Blackberry Wine

A few days ago a reader wrote that he had followed one of my recipes to the "T" and after a month the specific gravity had only dropped from 1.110 to 1.046. After several email exchanges, he finally admitted he did two things different - he used Lalvin RC212 yeast instead of Red Star Montrachet and added Bentonite before pitching the yeast. "All the red wine kits do it," he said. And so I had to explain to him why his fermentation is slower than a snails' race and how to correct it overnight.

He used the canned blackberry wine recipe below, but added the Bentonite. I'm sure most, if not all, of my readers know that Bentonite is a very fine clay-like material primarily used as a fining agent to achieve protein stability in white wines. It consists of complex, hydrated, aluminum silicate with negatively charged, exchangeable, cationic components. It can contain calcium or sodium, but the latter is more effective for winemaking. It hydrates better and has more reactive surface area per clay platelet than the calcium form.

Hydrated Bentonite consists of flat platelets which absorb positively charged particles from the must or wine. In white wines these are primarily proteins which can cloud a wine after chilling, but it also attracts other positively charged components such as anthocyanins (pigments), other phenolics and nitrogen. Bentonite works rather quickly in attracting these components, but it takes gravity a while to drag the extremely fine platelets to the bottom, especially while active fermentation keeps the must stirred up.

Because Bentonite is very effective at removing nitrogen from the must, when added at any time before or during fermentation you must also use a nitrogen rich yeast nutrient. Also, Lalvin RC212, while a very fine yeast for blackberry, requires high nitrogen nutrient additions to avoid the potential development of H2S. Kit manufacturers that have you add Bentonite up front do so to aid in rapid clearing of the wine. They also use a nitrogen-rich yeast nutrient so as to avoid sluggish fermentations and use yeast strains that are not big nitrogen users. I told him he could solve his problem by adding 1/2 teaspoon of Diammonium Phosphate (DAP) or Fermaid 2133. If he didn't have either of these, another teaspoon of his regular yeast nutrient would probably work fine.

Here is the recipe he used, only I am posting it as I wrote it, not as he modified it. There is nothing wrong with tweaking recipes. They are, after all, guidelines. But when you tweak them, make sure you understand the consequences of the changes you make. By the way, if I were going to tweak this recipe, I would increase the can size from 16 to 20 ounces, reduce the sugar by 6 ounces and only add the syrup from one of the cans. I would freeze the rest in case I wanted to sweeten the wine after fermentation and stabilization. The blackberry flavor would be stronger and the alcohol content less. I have made it this way several times, but just haven't rewritten the recipe.

Canned Blackberry Wine

• 2 16-oz cans blackberries in light syrup
• 2 lbs granulated sugar
• 3 1/2 qts water
• 2 tsp acid blend
• 1/8 tsp grape tannin
• 1 tsp yeast nutrient
• 1/2 tsp pectic enzyme
• Montrachet wine yeast

Heat water, but do not boil. Drain syrup from fruit and set syrup aside. Put fruit in nylon straining bag, tie end closed, set in primary. Add sugar to hot water and stir well to dissolve sugar. Add syrup from fruit. Pour the water/syrup over fruit in primary, cover with clean cloth and allow to cool to room temperature (about 4 hours). Add remaining ingredients except yeast and recover primary. Wait 12 hours, add yeast and recover. Let ferment 5 days, punching bag down twice a day. Measure specific gravity. When S.G. reaches 1.020, drip drain (but don't squeeze) the bag of fruit. Discard fruit or save it for jam. Allow wine to settle overnight and rack into secondary. Top up and fit airlock. Rack after 2 months and again after additional 2 months. If certain fermentation has ceased, bottle. If not certain, either wait another 2 months and rack into bottles or stabilize, wait 10 days, and rack into bottles. This wine may be tasted young, but will be much better after 9 months. [Author's own recipe]

When to Pull the Plug

Another reader asked me to comment on when to pull the plug on a wine or mead. He said he wasn't sure when to give it more time, when to dump it or do something else. It's a good question, and a tough one even for a commercial winemaker to answer. It's especially tough for the home winemaker without an in-house lab, but I will give you my thoughts.

First of all, I have to admit that I'm really the last person who should be answering this question. I only pull the plug when a batch has undeniably gone south for eternity. That means a spoilage bacteria has crossed the Rubicon before I knew it existed; detection of advanced mercaptan formation that resists elemental copper or copper sulfate treatment; an ethyl or diethyl sulfide or diethyl disulfide presence (detectable burnt rubber odor); an aggressive case of acetaldehyde (Sherry odor) that defies treatment with potassium caseinate; ethyl acetate (nail polish remover) odor; 2,4,6 trichloro anisole (TCA) presence; ethoxy hexadiene (geranium odor) detected; aggressive Brettanomyces contamination - these are reasons I dump a wine. With the exception of watermelon musts, which spoil more often than not, I have experienced most of these rarely and one (TCA) never. Most of these are prevented by aseptic levels of sulfur dioxide; all are prevented by good winemaking practices (except spoilage of watermelon must, which is just a matter of losing a race against time).

Back before I really understood all that much about the chemistry of winemaking, I had a plum wine steadily ferment at an almost imperceptible level of progress for three years. I finally bought "First Steps in Winemaking" and discovered potassium sorbate. I bought some from a druggist and put the few surviving yeast cells out of their misery when the wine dipped a hair's thickness below 1.014 on my hydrometer. According to C.J.J. Berry, that wine had 10% alcohol and could stand on its own feet. But I have never had a wine that contained as much dissolved CO2 as that wine. I degassed it with a wooden dowel for two days. My point? Anyone else probably would have given up on it two years earlier, but I hung in there out of ignorance and nursed a pretty good wine out of those plums. Since then I've never given up on a wine due to time.

As long as an unfinished wine is fermenting, it has a chance. If it is sulfited appropriately, it has a 98% or better chance of finishing the race unscathed. And, sulfite will preserve it while you try a few things that might solve whatever problem you think you might have. Wine is very forgiving if you don't do anything really stupid. Just pay attention and stay the course.

• Tinned Blueberry, Blackberry, Raspberry, or Cherry Wine, on my site
• Flaws and Faults in Wine, excellent article on the British Columbia Amateur Winemakers Association website
• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

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February 5th, 2010

I was very pleased to read what Charlie Suehs wrote about the WineBlog after reprinting (with permission) part of my January 21st entry, "A Lesson About Oxidation"; "It is perhaps the most intelligent winemaking source on the internet." Thank you Charlie. I hope you can always say that.

Charlie is a well-known Texas winemaker and author of a self-published pamphlet, "Winemaking for Serious Amateurs." If you are interested in a copy, write directly to Charlie at cfoxbcowsuehs@dogsuehs.catnet (carefully remove all 3-lettered mammals from the address to write to Charlie). I refer to it myself.

Jackfruit Wine

Last year I made a jackfruit wine and began drinking it last month. Bottled slightly sweet at a specific gravity of 1.010, the wine's unique and inviting flavor makes a nice dessert accompaniment. It was reviewed very favorably by those who tried it and I am quite proud of this wine.

The jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus) is a species of tree in the mulberry family native to South and Southeast Asia. Its fruit are the largest tree borne fruit in the world, seldom less than about 10 inches in diameter. The largest jackfruit variety can weigh between 33 and 88 pounds, but most are much smaller. Jackfruit flesh is starchy and fibrous, rich in vitamin C and manganese and is a good energy food. Unripe fruit can be eaten after cooking; ripe fruit can be eaten raw. They are an important food wherever grown. Archeological findings have revealed that jackfruit were cultivated in India 3000 to 6000 years ago.

Whole jackfruit (courtesy of virtualherbarium.org), halved, and canned sections

The fruit does not travel great distances well and so can only be found fresh in U.S. markets at great expense due to the necessity of flying it here. I bought the fruit canned in light syrup from a Thai grocer at a reasonable price. I used four 20-ounce cans, including the syrup. Unfortunately, I only had four cans and only made a gallon.

Jackfruit Wine Recipe

• 4 20-oz cans jackfruit sections
• 11.5 oz can Welch's 100% White Grape Juice frozen concentrate
• 1 lb 3 oz granulated sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp acid blend
• Water to 1 gallon
• 1 Campden tablet
• 1 tsp yeast nutrient
• 1 sachet Sauternes wine yeast

Drain the fruit but retain both the fruit and the syrup. Slice the fruit sections and place in primary in nylon straining bag. Dissolve sugar, acid blend and yeast nutrient in 1/2 gallon of water. Pour over fruit and add thawed grape juice concentrate and jackfruit syrup. Remove bag of fruit just long enough to add additional water to make up one gallon of liquid. Replace bag of fruit and add finely crushed and dissolved Campden tablet. Cover the primary and set aside 12 hours. Add yeast in a starter solution and recover primary. Ride out the vigorous fermentation and when it subsides remove and discard the fruit and transfer wine to secondary. Attach airlock and set aside 30 days. Rack, top up and replace airlock. Repeat racking after 2 months; wine should be clear but may require one additional racking in 30-45 days. Stabilize with 1/2 teaspoon potassium sorbate and 1 finely crushed Campden tablet and wait 30 days. Sweeten as desired, wait additional 30 days and bottle wine. Can be consumed after 90 days but is improved at 6 months.. [Author's own recipe]

Sweet Wines, Dessert Wines

In the previous topic I mentioned that the Jackfruit Wine I made was bottled slightly sweet at a specific gravity of 1.010 and that the wine's unique and inviting flavor makes a nice dessert accompaniment. Am I saying this is a dessert wine? No. What I am saying is that it is neither a wine you would drink by itself - a social wine - nor a wine you would drink with the main course of a meal - a table wine. While it could be consumed as a dessert wine, it is neither sweet enough nor high enough in alcohol to strictly qualify as a dessert wine. So what is the difference?

There are many different opinions as to what differentiates a sweet wine from a dessert wine, but there is a larger consensus than not that a wine becomes "sweet" at 2% residual sugar and almost unanimous agreement that at 3% residual sugar any wine is "sweet." In terms of specific gravity, a 12% alcohol wine is "sweet" at 1.008. Here we are speaking of a table wine, but it could be a social wine as well.

A dessert wine will typically have more than 14.5% alcohol (port style wines have 18% or more alcohol) and in the neighborhood of 7% (s.g. of 1.025) or more residual sugar. Syrupy dessert wines have 10% or more residual sugar. Sweetness is obtained by stopping the fermentation quite prematurely, usually by fortifying what would otherwise be a low- alcohol beverage, or allowing a higher alcohol content to develop, stopping fermentation and then adding sweet grape or fruit juice, sugar, or both. There are other ways to predictably stop fermentation but they are difficult without a decent laboratory to accurately monitor a wine's fermentation progress.

Sweet wines, and here I include dessert wines, are somewhat easy to make but difficult to make well. I will explain. Many winemakers make a batch of dry wine and draw off a portion of it to chaptalize into a sweet wine. Such wines can usually be spotted easily because the dry wines are usually balanced while their sweet versions are not. Imbalance increases when the wine is chaptalized further and perhaps fortified to make a dessert wine. These wines are spotted in competitions because the same wine is entered as a dry, a sweet and a dessert wine. The problem is one of balance. Adding sugar, either as a sweet juice or refined solid, usually demands an increase in acidity to balance the elevated sugar. Small increases in tannin might also improve the sweetened wine.

I have a friend whose sweet wines tasted a bit "funny." At first I could not identify the taste, but finally I decided it was glycerine. He confirmed it. I asked how much he added and he said he added something like 2 teaspoons to each bottle prior to filling it with wine. I was horrorfied. One to 1 1/2 teaspoons per gallon is more than enough to increase body while adding to a perception of sweetness, but you must not add an amount that reaches or exceeds the taste detection threshold. Plus, many yeasts can be tricked into making more natural (and fully integrated) glycerol.

To trick a yeast into creating more glycerol, it is first necessary to select a strain noted for glycerol production. All yeasts produce some, but Gervin Varietal A, Lalvin S6U and Lalvin W15 are noted high producers of glycerol. If one adds 6 grams of bentonite per gallon to the must as fermentation approaches vigor, most of the active yeast will settle to the bottom within 3-5 days; careful racking will leave most of the yeast behind and fermentation will practically cease. If the wine is where you want it to be in terms of alcohol and residual sugar, you can sulfite to 50 ppm, stabilize with 1/2 teaspoon of potassium sorbate per gallon, refrigerate the wine to 36-40 degrees F. and either fortify the wine or not. If the wine is not where you want it to be, aerate it a bit while racking but do not stabilize, and the yeast will begin reproducing once again. Fermentation will resume slowly, but as it does the yeast will be pumping out additional glycerol and nutrients will be used up more quickly, making it easier to arrest fermentation later should you want to.

Remember, every wine, whether dry, sweet or dessert, should be balanced. Simply sweetening a dry wine to enter into a sweet wine competition category is not enough. Other constituents, especially acidity and tannin, should be increased to yield balance. Balance is far more difficult to achieve for dessert wines, but certainly is not beyond the skills of even a novice. Simply draw off a known percentage of the wine, bring it to balance using your taste buds as your guides while recording what you do, and then scale up the additions for the rest of the wine. Ancient winemakers did it. You can too.

• Food for the Poor, their donation page for Haiti relief
• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

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January 30th, 2010

Very strange things are happening to my computer. I think it's time for a new one.

Wednesday evening I posted a new WineBlog entry. Within it I failed to close an HTML font formatting tag (a tag turning on italics). I also forgot to upload an image file called by the entry (the photo of the pomelo) - further proof that I should not type an entry while watching the President give his State of the Union address. I spotted both mistakes as soon as the file was uploaded and I opened it, but for some reason I was locked out of my website's access. In other words, the site would not allow me to log into it and post a corrected entry or upload the missing image file.

I tried for over five hours to discover the source of the problem and finally went to bed because Thursday was a work day. Thursday evening I again worked on the problem and eventually discovered that a .dll file called by my FTP program had somehow gotten corrupted. I spent an inordinate amount of time looking for the disc the program came on and eventually found and reinstalled it. Everything loaded fine and I uploaded the corrections to Wednesday's WineBlog entry. Most of you really don't care about this but some do because I received nearly a dozen emails and two phone calls telling me my last WineBlog entry was messed up. I thank those few for caring.

I began this intro by saying strange things are happening to my computer. The corruption of a .dll file while using or closing it is but one example. I won't bore you with others except to say there are others. A new Dell is on it's way.

Apples and Cheese

Many times I have promoted belonging to a winemaking or wine appreciation club, guild or circle. I belong to the San Antonio Regional Wine Guild. I have been a member of other organizations, but SARWG is local and the members are real people, each and every one a treasure to know in his or her own right. At one of our meetings we had a theme wine tasting - Italian or German or some such thing - and the host placed small plates of thin apple slices on each tasting table. These, he announced, were for cleansing the palate between wines. Someone asked, why not sourdough bread or cheese? Good question, and one that led to the most important thing I learned that day.

One of our members is a wine salesman. He drives around a defined area of Texas and does impromptu wine tastings with restaurant and wine shop owners, and others who serve or sale wine to customers. The idea is that they will like what they taste and buy some of his wines. He told us a very interesting thing.

If you cleanse the palate between tastings with cheese, you desensitize the taste buds slightly with a small amount of salt in the cheese and then coat them with a very fine layer of fat (oil). Together, these mask many of the finer imperfections in a wine and make them taste okay. Sourdough bread or biscuits are actually better cleansers and allow you to taste more subtleties in the wine than do cheeses.

Fresh apple, especially Winesap, Granny Smith or other tart varieties, introduces malic acid which actually cleanses away the taste of the last wine and stimulates, freshens and enlivens the taste buds for the next sample. You will taste each wine in a flight (series) as if it were the first. "In the business," he said, "we say buy with apple, sell with cheese. Wineries serve cheeses in their tasting rooms and sell a lot of wine. If you want to see the tasting room manager wince, pull out a ZipLoc bag of thin apple slices and stay away from the cheese."

I might never have learned this if I were not a member of the Wine Guild and had attended that meeting. But my underlying point is that I pick up at least one such gem of knowledge at each meeting. And we freely share our winemaking secrets and seek out solutions to stubborn problems we might be encountering. It isn't uncommon for a member to pull out a bottle and say, "I've got this 6-month old blackberry that leaves a funny little taste in the back of the mouth and I just can't figure out what is causing it." Well, when 6 winemakers with 170 collective years of winemaking experience hold out their glasses, the cause and the fix will very likely be found.

Join a club. If you can't find one, start one. It will improve your knowledge and skills, and you'll meet some nice people.

Corn Sugar and Corn Syrup

A reader recently asked if one could use corn sugar in wine and if so how much. The answer is yes you can and the conversion ratio for fermentation is 1:1. For sweetening a wine after fermentation, corn sugar may not be nearly as sweet as other common sugars such as cane sugar or beet sugar.

Corn sugar is a natural sweetener made by extracting starch from kernels of corn and refining it into a solid sugar called dextrose or a thick liquid known as corn syrup in which the dextrose is converted into a fructose-glucose mixture. Both corn syrup and corn sugar are routinely used in many culinary recipes as well as in the creation of a number of mass produced food products. Corn sugar is slightly yellow and usually refined to a little larger crystal than refined cane sugar. Many experts agree that regular corn sugar provides a little more than half the sweetness provided by the same amount of white refined cane or beet sugar. However, gram for gram it will ferment into the same amount of alcohol as cane sugar.

Corn syrup is a different matter. In recent years the trend has been to make corn syrup as a high fructose syrup to overcome the reduced sweetness of regular corn syrup. I know in baking they say don't replace more than half of the required sugar in any recipe with corn syrup and to substitute 1 1/2 cups corn syrup for each cup of granulated sugar to overcome the lessened sweetness (and, reduce another liquid in the recipe by 1/4 cup). I have never run across a reliable conversion for cane sugar to corn syrup in winemaking or brewing, but I would think one would have to increase the amount by the percentage of water in the syrup. I just don't know how much that is. A website on making liqueurs says to use twice as much corn syrup as you would cane syrup, but the goal there is to mask the taste of vodka, not feed a fermentation. If anyone wishes to volunteer knowledge in this area, I'll pass it on.

Non-White Sugar in Strawberry Wine

I have previously written here about non-white sugars and of course I have a whole section on sugars elsewhere on my site. Despite these attempts to educate my readers, there are still those who will not explore the website beyond the winemaking recipes or simply use the site's search engine. However, a recent question struck me just right and so I don't mind retracing previous steps.

A reader mentioned that he had tasted a strawberry wine I entered (and won Best of Show) in the Kerr County Fair at Kerrville, Texas. He claimed it was the best strawberry wine he had ever tasted and recalled that I mentioned using a special sugar in it, which accounted for the different taste. He now has 12 pounds of strawberries frozen in his freezer and wants to attempt making that wine.

Here's the rub. That competition was in 2001. I'm not even sure I have the wine log for that batch. If I do, it's been packed away in a box in the garage ever since our flood (broked pipe) in 2008 and I have no desire to try to find it right now. However, I do know that I love to use Demerara sugar in strawberry wine and probably did so then. But I could have used any number of non-white sugars, as these tend to enhance strawberry wine flavor over white granulated can sugar.

Dark Brown Sugar, Demerara Sugar, Light Brown Sugar, Maltose, Maple Sugar



Muscovado Sugar, Palm Sugar, Piloncillo Sugar, Sucanat (Raw) Sugar, Turbinado Sugar

Notes: Brown sugar can be dark or light or golden based on the amount of molasses in it. Maltose can be sold in crystalline or non-solid (paste or thick liquid) form. Muscovado sugar is also known as Barbados sugar. Palm sugar is also known as Jaggery; while usually sold as blocks or cakes, it will crumble when broken up. Sucanat is raw (unrefined) sugar.

I would not have used the darker sugars in strawberry wine. My preference would have been Demerara and then Turbinado. If I had it (I doubt that I did) I might have used Maple Sugar or Jaggery (Palm Sugar).

Demerara is a type of unrefined sugar with a large grain and light brown to pale yellow. It comes from sugar cane which has already been pressed to removed most of its sweet juice. The pressed cane is then steamed to extract any remaining juice that forms a thick cane syrup. The syrup is dehydrated to form large golden brown crystals that are rich and creamy.

Turbinado is made by pressing freshly cut sugar cane. The juice obtained is reduced by evaporation from heat until it crystallizes. The crystals are rich in molasses and so are spun in a centrifuge or turbine (thus the name). This removes excess moisture and molasses. The result is large, light brown crystals with a hint (but not the taint) of molasses.

My recipes for strawberry wine are posted elsewhere (see link following this entry). Simply select one you like and substitute Demerara or Turbinado Sugar 1 for 1 for the granulated or light brown sugar called for.

• WineBlog Archives: July-December 2008, my entry on "Non-While Sugars"
• Sugars in Winemaking, on my site
• Sweetening Your Liqueurs, the rules here do not apply to winemaking
• Strawberry Wines, on my site
• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

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January 27th, 2010

I received good feedback on my last WineBlog entry. It pleases me to know it was helpful to some folks out there. I hope some gave to Haiti relief. But beware of scams. The sharks always move in on a disaster (see link following entry). That's why I did the research and decided I would give to and recommend Food for the Poor (see link following entry). The reason I like it is two-fold. First, it is among the top ten charities with the most consecutive 4-star ratings by Charity Navigator (and the only one on that list whose mission is feeding the starving), and secondly because only 2.3% of all funds it raises are spent in administrative and fundraising costs. Compare this to the American Red Cross, which spends 9.9% of the funds it receives on administrative and fundraising costs. This is not nearly as bad as some, which spend as much as 68% in administrative costs (see link following entry).

I recommend against "text to donate" appeals. Yes, some are well known and totally legit, but they will not get your donation until you receive your telephone or cellular bill and pay it, which could be as long as a month from now. The donations are needed NOW. If you are moved to donate, make your donation work immediately and give it to aid, not high administrative costs.

Pomelo Wine

I was recently asked for a recipe for pomelo wine. I have always known this fruit as pummelo or red shaddock in the States or buoi da xanh in Vietnam, but pomelo is also correct. The pomelo (Citrus maxima or Citrus grandis) is a citrus fruit native to South East Asia. It is usually light green to yellowish-green to yellow when ripe, with sweet white flesh and very thick rind. Some varieties have pink or red flesh. It is the largest citrus fruit, 6-10 inches in diameter and typically 2 to 4 1/2 pounds in weight, although Pomelos have weighed in at a hefty 20 pounds and were as big as basketballs! The flesh is sweet, with a hint of mild grapefruit flavor but without the bitterness. In Vietnam I was taught to dip the fresh sections in a salt-sugar-chili powder mixture before eating.

Pomelo pulp must be cleaned of any pith or membrane

The precise number of natural citrus species is unknown, but taxonomists are largely in agreement that C. aurantifolia (key lime), C. maxima (pomelo), C. medica (citron), and C. reticulata (tangerine) are probably the original species of the genus. All other citrus (bitter orange, sweet orange, grapefruit, Persian lime, Imperial lime, kaffir lime, limetta, lemon, Meyer lemon, rangpur, clementine, Satsuma, tangelo, orangelo, kinnow, ugli, and many, many more) are either proto-species or hybrids. I mention all of this simply to point out that the pomelo, while not nearly as well known as many of the citrus hybrids, is almost certainly one of the four (or five) natural citrus species. It therefore deserves our respect.

The pomelo fruit has three distinct parts - four if we include the seed. The peeling in relatively thin and can be used for zest, either fresh or dried. The flesh is sectional, like grapefruit, oranges and tangerines. Between the two is a thick, spongy, extremely bitter pith which must be separated from the flesh before it can be eaten and pared from the peeling before the latter can be used in cooking or flavorings. Any thick membranes between sections will be bitter and should be peeled away before sections are eaten. If this seems like a lot of work, it really isn't. And the sweetness of the pulp is worth whatever work is involved.

Pomelos must be peeled completely before the sections are juiced. Since there is no "average" size for the fruit, the fruit must be juiced for measuring quantity for wine. The recipe below makes one gallon.

Pinapple-Coconut Juice Mead; note the 1-gallon mark

Before we go to the recipe, I'd like to say a few words about primaries. Every winemaker should have a variety of primary fermentation vessels. For 5- and 6-gallon batches, 6 1/2- and 8-gallon food-grade plastic buckets suit the bill and can be obtained, often for free, at bakeries, donut shop, feed stores, and various other businesses that receive food, confections, nuts, grains, and seeds in them. Smaller buckets, all the way down to 1 1/2 gallons, can be obtained free or for a small charge at some of those same businesses. For 1- and 2-gallon batches, I like to use a 3-gallon glass canister jar, seen above. Because the jar isn't graduated, I previously poured one gallon of water into the jar and marked the jar appropriately. A similar mark is on the opposite side, obscured by the label, marking the 2-gallon level. You should similarly mark your primaries so when you need to add "water to make up 1 gallon" or some other amount, you know exactly where to add water to. Just a recommendation....

Pomelo Wine Recipe

• 1 quart + 1 1/2 cups pomelo juice
• 1 11 1/2 oz can Welch's 100% White Grape Juice frozen concentrate
• 1 1/2 lbs granulated sugar
• 1 lemon, juice only
• 1 1/2 tsp citric acid
• 1 Campden tablet, finely crushed
• Water to make up 1 gallon
• 1 1/2 tsp yeast nutrient
• 1 sachet any Champagne wine yeast

Begin a starter solution with the yeast and set aside. In primary, combine all ingredients except yeast starter solution and stir until sugar is completely dissolved. Cover primary and set aside 12 hours. Add yeast in starter solution, stir and re-cover the primary while vigorous fermentation builds. When vigorous fermentation subsides, transfer wine into secondary and seal with airlock. Wait 6 weeks and then rack, top up and reattach airlock. Wait another 6 weeks and rack into secondary containing one finely crushed Campden tablet and 1/2 teaspoon potassium sorbate, top up again and reattach airlock. Wait 30 days; wine should be clear and can be sweetened to taste or bottled dry. If not clear, stir in 1/2 teaspoon pectic enzyme and wait additional 30-45 days. [Author's own recipe]

Fish Tacos

My wife makes killer fish tacos. We try to use kingfish or red drum caught fresh in the Gulf, but have used tilapia, catfish, pollock, and other fish from the market. My wife is in California and not here to make her tacos, but last weekend I was steered to a recipe that looked so good I went to the supermarket, bought a pound of tilapia and came home to make it. After playing with the recipe a bit to personalize it to my liking, I made some to-die-for fish tacos. Here's my recipe. Personalize it to your heart's desire.

• FISH:
  • 1 pound tilapia fillets
  • 1 teaspoon chipotle powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon pepper
  • 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
  • 1 tablespoon melted butter
• STUFFING:
  • 1/4 cup shredded carrot
  • 1/2 cup shredded cabbage
  • 1/4 cup thinly sliced red onion
  • 4 radishes, shredded
  • 1 teaspoon lime juice
• SAUCE:
  • 1/3 cup light sour cream
  • 2 tablespoons chili sauce or salsa
  • 2 teaspoons minced fresh cilantro
  • 1 green onion, minced
• TOPPING:
  • 1 small tomato, diced
  • half avocado, peeled, pitted and diced
  • 1/2 cup grated pepper jack cheese

Pat dry fish fillets; arrange on foil-lined baking sheet. Brush with melted butter. In small bowl, combine chili powder, oregano, garlic powder, salt and pepper; sprinkle over fish. Broil until fish flakes easily when tested, about 5 minutes. Set aside until cool enough to handle.

Meanwhile, in another small bowl, combine shredded carrot, cabbage, radishes, red onion, and lime juice. Toss to mix.

In third small bowl, combine sour cream, chili sauce or salsa, minced cilantro, and minced green onion. Stir until mixed.

Break fish into bite-sized chunks; divide among 8 small flour or corn tortillas. Cover fish with stuffing, dapple with sauce, and top with diced tomato, avocado and grated cheese.

Makes 4 diet-sized servings or two satisfying ones. Enjoy.

• As World Looks to Help Haiti, Scammers Sit Poised, Fox News article
• Food for the Poor, their donation page for Haiti relief
• 10 Charities Drowning in Administrative Costs, on Charity Navigator's site.
• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

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January 21st, 2010

I have but one entry today, but it is one I have given a great deal of thought. If you read it and learn something, I hope you will consider supporting this site. You can do that by supporting the advertisers or by clicking on the last link after any entry and making a support donation via PayPal. However, it would please me just as much if instead you sent a small donation to any Haiti relief effort. If you aren't sure of which organization to support, I have researched many of them and personally sent my own donations to Food for the Poor. I have posted a link to their donation page immediately following today's entry. If you don't like the amounts suggested on their page, send any amount you care to give. No amount is too small.

A Lesson About Oxidation

Last Sunday I drank a hearty glass of 40-year old mustang grape wine made from native Texas grapes. It had remarkably good color for its age - slightly brickish around the edges but still dark, still more purple than red. But it was showing age. It was gradually becoming sherry-like, but just barely. I could still taste the wildness of the mustang grape. But it was more like a 6- or 8-year old mustang than a 40-year old.

The secret as to why this wine did not become highly oxidized may be because the bottle was filled high and closed with a metal screw cap. The only oxygen available to this wine for 40 years was whatever oxygen was absorbed by the wine when it was made and bottled and the small amount in the small ullage - airspace - inside the bottle. If nothing else, this certainly is a strong endorsement for screw caps. But there is more to this story than a screw cap and small ullage.

Most of us have been told that "All wines improve with age". Age, however, is relative. For some wines 6 months would be pushing it, while others are still toddlers at 6 years. The truth is that only a few wines possess the ability to significantly improve out to and beyond 6 years. I read somewhere that only 5-10% of white and red wines, respectively, can improve to 5 years, and only 1% can stretch it out to a decade. All others either slowly or quickly - there are in-betweens - succumb to the ravages of oxygen and/or other death blows. Rare is that magical Chateau Montelena 1973 Estate Cabernet Sauvignon I tasted in 2003, that at 30 years of age was both too young and still the best wine ever to cross my lips. That was a wine for the long haul, that laughed at oxygen and pranced like a thoroughbred.

In relatively few wines, such as Sherry or Madeira, oxidation (to a point) is an asset. For most other wines, oxidation denotes deterioration caused by chemical changes. An oxidized wine smells and tastes like a stale Sherry, dull and lifeless; red wines become brickish-red and then slowly decay into brown, while whites simply darken into progressively brownish hues.

I have several very detailed and expensive books that dedicate numerous pages to explaining how the reaction of oxygen with various constituents of wine results in the loss of electrons and increase in valence and one thing becomes another which then becomes another and combines with or reacts to something else that wasn't there before. It is all mathematical and precise, but it isn't nearly as poetic as saying that the wine lost its fruity identity, darkened into the reddish-browns of a Gobi dust storm, and succumbed to the ravages of oxygen's rape.

Yet the chemist's precision is reality. The poetic attempt may be descriptive, but it explains nothing useful. Why did this mustang wine only begin to show signs of oxidation after 40 years? What was its secret?

I wish I knew more about the wine itself, how it was made, how it was stored. Its bottle was encrusted with a patina worthy of a limestone cellar and earthen floor. The screw cap had been cleaned only enough to prevent accidental contamination of the wine when the cap was removed. There was a thin layer of sludge on the bottom which had become a fixture; it did not stir when the wine was poured. These observations, along with the taste, aroma and color, offer clues enough to speculate.

It is generally accepted that wines with a low pH are more capable of extended aging than less acidic wines. Few grapes anywhere in the world are as acidic as the mustang. Just picking a lug of this grape can leave the softer skin between the fingers red, rashed and itchy for up to two weeks. The juice demands amelioration, lest it blister the inside of the mouth.

High levels of phenolics, especially pigmented tannins, tannin-polysaccharides, tannin- proteins, colloids, and anthocyanins, act as preservatives and increase a wine's ability to age. While I have never seen a chemical breakdown of the phenols in mustang grapes, you can taste them as clearly as you can taste the chocolate on an eclair.

I doubt this wine ever saw the inside of a barrel. Had it done so, I'm fairly certain it would have plunged into undrinkable oblivion long before now. Barrels allow greater oxygenation than this wine was ever exposed to. Barrels, even the very best oak, respire, allowing some volume - probably more water than wine -- to be lost to evaporation through microscopic channels while oxygen travels the opposite way to work its magic within. No, this mustang spent most of its life under an airlock or under a screw cap.

Generally, we say that the ratio of sugars, acids and phenolics to water is a key determinate of how well a wine might age. Partially raisined grapes contain less water than optimally ripe grapes and the resulting wine should have greater aging potential. I have an old friend who knows some vines upon which mustangs hang far longer than is common, and he makes awesome wine from their slightly shriveled berries. But even he ameliorates his mustang juice to dilute the acidity; you simply have to. How much water is the critical key. I suspect this mustang was ameliorated less than is usual, and that helped it attain a long life.

As red wines age, the harsh tannins of its youth gradually bind together into chains too long to remain in suspension and precipitate out of the wine. The result is a softer mouthfeel and loss of youthful color. Affected by gravity, the tannin chains slowly accumulate on the bottom of the wine. Complex chemical reactions, some of which are oxygen-induced, turn the remaining suspended pigments reddish-brown.

Visible sediment in the bottle usually indicates a mature to past mature wine. This loss of tannin leaves the wine softer, less astringent. The wine tastes less acidic even though the total pH remains about the same. This mustang was at about this point in terms of acidity, but in other areas it had slipped over the edge and was deteriorating. It was simply doing so very slowly or had only recently begun its slide. Just which is impossible for me to say.

Eventually, esters form, are released into the small atmosphere within the bottle, and are later reabsorbed. If the wine is not opened while they are volatile, one would probably not know they were ever there. But certain chemical processes say they were. And after they are reabsorbed they become something else. The chemistry doesn't seem to stop changing. Eventually, aldehydes oxidize and new aromas are produced. They may or may not be pleasant, but the wine itself no longer is enjoyable.

This mustang wine was not anywhere close to being this far gone. It was slightly oxidized, but still retained a mustang identity. It was sliding, but just barely. It was still an enjoyable wine after 40 years, and for a homemade wine from a native grape, that is quite remarkable.

• Food for the Poor, their donation page for Haiti relief
• WineBlog Archives, January-June 2008, scroll down "A Personal Testimony" in the February 5th entry
• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

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January 15th, 2010

What a long 27 days it has been since I was last here. I spent the holidays in Nevada, Arizona and California, enjoyed Christmas, a birthday, anniversary and New Year with my wife and family, and returned to a flurry of activity at work. And when I returned Mark had a new background waiting for me, which I like a lot. At my request he made me a new header for my home page, which looks great, but it is just too large a file to impose upon you. I can live with what I have so the page loads faster for you and me.

I did not start any new wines since I was last here, but I sure have consumed a few. Six of my own, three by one viewer of this blog and one of another, four from assorted friends, and two commercial products. The most unusual was a cashew wine a Wine Guild member brought me from Belize. My wife's favorite was my Key Lime-A-Rita; my favorite was a toss-up between Jimmy's Port (which I selfishly did not share) and a Pineapple-Coconut Mead I made that never cleared but is delicious. If these seem unusual, wait until you see the recipes in this entry.

Pawpaw Goodies

A Missouri viewer recently asked, "I have about 6 pounds of frozen paw-paw mush, without peeling or seeds, and want to make wine if possible. Any ideas?" I do have two recipes posted on my site but suppose it is possible to have missed them, so the answer is an unqualified "yes." If it were me, I'd make one gallon of pawpaw wine and two loaves of pawpaw bread and two pawpaw-meringue pies.

Pawpaw fruit (image courtesy of Wikipedia)

The common pawpaw (Asimina triloba) is a small to medium sized deciduous tree that tends to grow in clusters as understory trees in well drained, fertile soil. Several southern species (A. angustifolia, A. incana, A. parviflora , A. reticulata) are evergreen. Their reddish-puple flowers are approximately two inches and are fetid, smelling slightly of carrion, pollinated primarily by fruit flies, carrion flies and beetles. The fruit is actually a berry, with a soft, custard-like pulp with a flavor similar to banana with a hint of mango that is used in baked desserts, singular or mixed fruit drinks, or chilled as a dessert fruit.

The two pawpaw wine recipes are at the first link following this entry. I'll reserve this space for the pawpaw-nut bread and pawpaw-meringue pie recipes.

Pawpaw-Nut Bread

• 1 c melted butter
• 2 c sugar
• 4 eggs
• 2 c pawpaw pulp
• 1 Tblsp. lemon juice
• 4 c sifted all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 3 c pecan pieces plus 16 pecan halves

Preheat oven to 375o F. Grease two 9 x 4 x 2-inch loaf pans. Beat together butter, sugar, and eggs. Add and beat in the pawpaw pulp and lemon juice. Sift the flour and baking powder together, and stir them into the batter. Stir in the pecans and scrape the batter into the loaf pans. Garnish each loaf with 8 pecan halves, and bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes. The top corners of the loaf will burn, but that adds flavor and character. [Recipe from Kentucky State University web site]

Pawpaw-Meringue Pie

Filling

• 1 c pawpaw pulp
• 3/4 c fine granulated sugar
• 2 tblsp flour
• 2 egg yokes
• 2 c milk
• 9" deep dish baked pie shell

Combine sugar and flour and add egg yolks and milk. When thoroughly mixed, add pawpaw pulp and stir. Cook until thick and pour into baked pie crust. Cover with meringue and bake in 350° oven 15 minutes or until meringue is brown.

Meringue

• 1 tsp cornstarch
• 1 tsp water
• 1/3 c boiling water
• 2 egg whites
• 4 tblsp sugar
• 3/4 tsp vanilla

Mix 1 tsp water with cornstarch. Add boiling water. Simmer until stiff. Beat egg whites to soft peaks. Add cornstarch mixture. Add sugar, 1 spoon at a time and add vanilla. [Author's family recipe]

Sour Wine

A viewer wrote in my guestbook, "I am a novice, I have some watermelon, peach, grape juice and tomato ranging from 3 to 5 months old and all have a sour taste." He adds that he has paid assiduous attention to sanitation and temperature steadiness. What, then, could be the cause of the sourness?

The most common cause for a sour wine is acidity. In berries (including grapes and tomatoes) and fruit, the core cause of too much acidity is most likely under-ripeness, followed by insufficient dilution with water, not enough balance with sweetness, or a combination of the foregoing with a secondary cause. Secondary causes of sourness are (a) the fruit or juice spoiled before the wine reached a self-preserving 10% alcohol level (common in watermelon), (b) a lactic acid bacterial infection soured the wine (especially likely if MLF did not conclude or sulfites were not used to prevent MLF), or (c) a souring product such as lactose (milk sugar) or lactic acid was used incorrectly. Fruit that have bruised spots (wind-fall peaches, plums, apricots, nectarines, loquats, apples, etc.) should not be used in winemaking without first cutting out the bruises, as these spots will quickly spoil and ruin the wine. Juice from melons, but especially watermelons, is prone to spoilage if fermentation is not conducted very quickly. For these wines, it is best to use a starter solution into which 2 or 3 sachets of a very fast yeast (such as Montrachet) are added to ensure a rapid build-up of yeast population before introducing it to the must. Hydrate the yeast in the starter solution for several hours before it is needed to allow the yeast population to double and redouble.

Having said this, time very often is the solution for a sour wine if the problem is indeed acidity - unless the acid is acetic (vinegar). Acids do undergo chemical processes that reduce or alter the acidity and smooth out the wine. Bacterial causes, however, seldom can be corrected.

• WineBlog Archives January-June 2009, scroll down to Key Lime-A-Rita recipe at January 11, 2009
• Pawpaw Wines, two recipes, on my site
• Pawpaw Cakes and Quick Breads, scroll down to Pawpaw Bread
• Winemaking Problems, on my site
• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

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December 19th, 2009

This will be the last WineBlog entry of 2009. My suitcase is packed and I am ready to head out to spend the holidays with family and friends. I wish you all a very merry Christmas and happy new year. I said it better in my last blog entry - or did I? An email accused me of being politically correct. Sigh....

Batwing Blood (A Mead)

Somewhere I acquired a recipe for a blood red melomel called "Batwing Blood." I'm sure some of you are thinking this posting would have fit the calendar better around Halloween, but if you start it now it should be aged and ready to serve at your next Halloween party.

I have tweaked the original recipe a bit. It called for a tablespoon of gypsum, but this ingredient is usually used to either adjust the pH of an overly acidic must or to harden a soft water - either conditioned or distilled. If you feel your water needs the addition of gypsum, add it, but my water is hard enough as it flows from the tap. The recipe also calls for Irish Moss, an ingredient I have retained. If you are unfamiliar with this product, it is an old fining agent that can still be purchased at most well-stocked homebrew shops. See the entry below this one for more on this ingredient.

This recipe makes 3 gallons of mead.

Batwing Blood

• 10 lbs light amber honey
• 4 tsp acid blend
• 1/4 tsp Irish moss
• 1 1/2 lbs corn sugar
• 12 oz bag mixed frozen strawberry, blueberry, raspberry, blackberry
• 1 lb blackberries
• 1 lb strawberries
• 2 gallons 1 pint water
• 3 finely crushed Campden tablets
• 1 1/2 tsp potassium sorbate
• 2 1/2 tsp yeast nutrient
• 1/2 tsp yeast energizer
• sachet Red Star Pasteur Champagne wine yeast

Tie the berries in nylon straining bag and crush in a large glass bowl. Combine honey, acid blend, Irish moss and corn sugar in a pan and boil 15 minutes, stirring occasionally and scraping the sides. Remove pan from heat, add nylon straining bag and juice from berries and allow to steep for 20 minutes. Stir while adding water and allow to cool to room temperature. Add yeast nutrient, energizer and activated yeast in a starter solution. Ferment 10 days, transfer to secondary and attach airlock. Set in dark place for 3 months. Rack into a sanitized secondary into which you have added the finely crushed Campden tablets and potassium sorbate dissolved into 1 cup of warm water. Reattach airlock and return to dark place for an additional 3 months. Carefully rack into bottles and store in dark place until Halloween. [Author's adaptation of original recipe by Powderhound]

Irish Moss

Irish moss is a fining agent made from an Atlantic seaweed called Chondrus crispus, known under the common name Irish moss, or carrageen moss (in Irish, carraigín means "little rock"). The active fining ingredient in Irish moss is k-carrageenan, a polymer of β-D-galactose-4-sulphate-3,6-anhydro-a-D-galactose. It is negatively charged and therefore attractive to proteins in suspension.

Irish moss is a relatively small (20 cm long) red alga growing from an anchorous footing into a multi-branching, dichotomous, fan-like structure. The branches are small, firm in texture, reddish-brown in color, sun-drying to a yellowish translucence. The seaweed is washed in fresh water, dried and powdered for use as a fining agent.

Because it must be boiled to become active, Irish moss has a greater use in brewing than in winemaking. But even in the latter it has a long history of use. It is added to a boiling must, or water that will be added to the must, during the last 15 minutes of boil. As it cools, it attracts proteins in the must and they settle together.

• Irish Moss: A Brief Description, in Eric W.'s Homebrew and Chemistry blog
• Chondrus crispus, in Wikipedia
• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

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December 15th, 2009

I am hoping to post one additional blog entry before I leave for the Left Coast, but if I don't get around to it I want to wish each and every one of you a very merry Christmas, Hanukkah or holiday of your choice. I would be remiss if I did not also wish you a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year. By prosperous, I mean that you have sufficient resources to feed, clothe and house yourself, plus have enough left over to save something for a rainy day, a vacation or a luxury purchase. If you have more than that, you'll have more than over half the population of the earth. Be thankful.

As you gather with family, friends or just your pet dog or cat to celebrate your special meaning (I celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ), please pause and wish well the troops and sailors deployed to foreign lands and waters who do the bidding of their respective governments for causes important enough to place them in harm's way. Whether you agree or disagree with the policies that deployed them, they sacrifice for you and me. My first entry below brings home the reality of the ultimate sacrifices made for you and me.

Arlington


One man's gift of honor and respect at Arlington National Cemetery
Rest easily and sleep in peace my brothers.
Your job is done, the line you left has held,
your places quickly taken up by others
who filled the spaces fast where you were felled.

We who live on will evermore remember
as we pursue the fight for Freedom's dream,
those victims from eleventh of September
and you, who made the sacrifice supreme.
[Requiescant, by Hugh Wyles]

Fellow Texas winemaker, veteran and friend Fred Williams informed me of something I simply missed in the news. Readers may be interested to know that the wreaths in the photograph -- some 5,000 -- were donated by the Worcester Wreath Co. of Harrington, Maine. The owner, Merrill Worcester, not only provides the wreaths, but for years covered the trucking expense as well. A wonderful guy, he's done this since 1992.

Today, contributions, volunteers and a 501-c3 organization called Wreaths Across America have expanded the project. By 2008 over 300 locations held wreath laying ceremonies in every state, Puerto Rico and 24 overseas cemeteries. Over 100,000 wreaths were placed on veterans graves. Over 60,000 volunteers participated. Making this even more remarkable is the fact that Harrington, Maine, where this all started, is in one the poorest parts of the state.

Morrill Worcester explains, "I started Worcester Wreath Co. in 1971. That first year I sold 500 wreaths. Over the past 37 years with the help from my family, our business has grown to sales of over 500,000 wreaths.

"I happen to think this incredible growth could only be accomplished in America because of the freedoms we all enjoy.

"Of course, our freedoms did not come without a tremendous cost and sacrifice. Over the past 231 years, nearly 1,000,000 Americans, men and women, have given the ultimate sacrifice for all of us. Millions more gave years of their lives in the military services and were lucky enough to come home safely.

"I know our wreaths placed on the veteran's graves each year is a very small gesture. I only wish we could do more."

Mr. Worcester, you shame me. I sent Wreaths Across America a check two days ago. I urge my readers to do the same. I only wish I could do more.

Wreaths Across America
PO Box 256
Harrington, ME 04643

Mulled (Spiced) Wines, Peaches and Wine-Toddy

'Tis the season and recipes for mulled wine have been appearing in blogs all over the place, but most use a commercial blend of mulling spices. You can save time and possibly money by purchasing such a blend, but if you have a well-stocked kitchen you probably have the ingredients to make your own, and it's both fun to do and leaves you with a sense of accomplishment. I've gone through our recipe files (my wife has a wonderful collection from family members, friends and probably hundreds of printed sources) and selected three very different mulled wine and one spiced-wine peaches recipes. I'll start with the peaches first.

Spiced-Wine Peaches

• 4 lg cans peach halves (24 to 28 peach halves)
• 1/2 c sugar
• 1/4 c wine vinegar
• 2 sticks cinnamon
• Whole strawberries (equal to number of peach halves)
• 1 1/2 c syrup from peaches
• 6 whole cloves
• Zest or very thin peeling from 1 lemon
• 1 c dry pale sherry (commercial or your own)

Combine all ingredients, except fruit (I like to use white peach halves) and sherry. Bring to a low boil, reduce heat to simmer and hold for 15 minutes. Add sherry. Pour mixture over peaches and store in refrigerator until ready to serve. Flavor is best if made 2 to 3 days ahead. To Serve: Drain liquid from peaches. Place each peach in a clear glass dessert server, small coffee cup saucer or grouped in a large serving dish. Place whole strawberry in seed depression of each peach half and dribble 1 tblsp liquid over each strawberry. I like to warm the liquid and the peaches (but not the strawberries) 15 seconds in the microwave before serving. [Author's tweaking of traditional recipe]

Simple Mulled Wine

• 32 oz apple cider
• 2 750-mL bottles Chablis
• 1 orange, very thinly sliced
• 6 3-inch cinnamon sticks
• 1 tsp cloves
• Sugar to taste

Mix all ingredients in large crock pot. Start on high and reduce to low after 20 minutes, then simmer 2 to 3 hours and serve. Perfect for Christmas parties. [Author's wife's recipe]

Hot Mulled Wine

• 46-oz can pineapple-grapefruit or orange-pineapple juice
• 6 3-inch cinnamon sticks
• 18 cloves
• 1 lb clover honey
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 4 bottles vin rosé

Mix cinnamon, cloves, honey, lemon juice and 1 cup fruit juice and boil 5 - 6 minutes. Add remaining fruit juice drink. Boil 3 - 4 minutes more. Remove from heat and add vin rosé. Each glass can be thinly topped with sweet whipped cream and a dash of freshly but finely grated nutmeg. [Family recipe]

Mulled Wine Toddy

• 3 750-mL bottles dry wine (Chablis or rosé)
• 1/2 c RealLemon juice
• 1 c bourbon (or Scotch or brandy)
• 1 c. honey
• 2 tbsp. butter
• 10 whole cloves
• 10 whole allspice
• 2 cinnamon sticks

In a large saucepan combine wine, lemon juice, honey and butter. Stir until honey is dissolved. Add cloves, allspice and cinnamon sticks. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally until heated through, about 20 minutes. Strain out spices, stir in bourbon and serve piping hot. Do not drink this and drive. [Author's own recipe, inspired by a dream]

• Honoring our Veterans, please read this inspiring page
• Worcester Wreath Company, order a product from the red menu bar
• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

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December 12th, 2009

As the year counts down a pending holiday vacation looms before me with much more to do before I depart than time seems to permit. My writing has already suffered and undoubtedly will cease in the near future until sometime in January. I guarantee you I will not post anything while on vacation. But that brings up the purpose of the vacation I'll be taking.

Spending Christmas with family is more important to me each year. Time seems to fly by faster each year and there are only so many Christmas seasons left. Because my family and my wife's family are spread out over many states, family gatherings are rare. I intend to enjoy this time to its fullest potential. I hope each of you finds meaning in the season and gets to spend time with someone you love.

Sand Burr Wine

Back in August I mentioned that I started another batch of an old classic I invented about 8 or 9 years ago that won three golds and a silver - sand burr wine. I said in August I would say more about it later. A reader named Jeff reminded me that I have not yet done so. I'll correct that now.

Sand burrs before and after harvesting, ready to be made into wine

The common grass burr (Cenchrus incertus) and sand burr (Cenchrus echinatus ) are a major nuisance to humans and animals wherever they grow. The half-dozen to a dozen sharp spikelets on each seed stalk grab whatever passes by. There are numerous strategies for getting rid of this unwanted weed-grass. Years ago I devised another... make wine of their spiked seeds. This didn't actually get rid of them, but it reduced future populations to a degree. For several years they completely disappeared from my yard when my St. Augustine grass grew thick enough to crowd them out, but then an infestation of some kind thinned out the lawn and this year they came back with a vengeance. So I put on my cowhide gloves, grabbed a bucket and began the harvest.

I picked the seed stems while the seeds were still green and tossed them into the bucket. When my back ached sufficiently, I went inside and cut the spikelets off the stems. When done, I made two more trips outside to "harvest" more burrs. When at last I had a quart, I placed them in a bowl for a photo and then in a 2-quart pan to which I added a quart of water. I stirred to dampen them, then put on the lid and brought them to a boil. Twenty minutes later I strained them out and saved the dark green water. I knew sufficient tannin was present, but no sugar or acids. The recipe developed from those assumptions. The finished wine is light straw in color, without any hint of green. The wine is very good sweetened from total dryness to 1.002, but your mileage may vary.

Sand Burr Wine Recipe

• 1 qt sand burr spikelets
• 1 11-oz can Welch's 100% White Grape Juice Frozen Concentrate
• 1 1/4 lbs finely granulated sugar
• 1 3/4 tsp acid blend
• 6 1/2 pts water
• 1 tsp yeast nutrient
• 1/8 tsp yeast energizer
• 1/2 tsp potassium sorbate
• 2 finely crushed Campden tablets
• Pasteur Champagne Yeast

Bring the sand burrs to boil in 1 qt water and hold for 20 minutes. Strain and discard the burrs but retain the water. Add sugar, acid blend, yeast nutrient, and yeast energizer and stir well to dissolve. Add grape concentrate and the remaining water. Cover and set aside to cool. When at room temperature, add activated yeast in a starter solution and recover the primary. Stir daily until vigorous fermentation subsides (about 7 days if starter solution was 12-plus hours old when added). Transfer to secondary, stir in one finely crushed and dissolved Campden tablet, top up, and attach an airlock. Ferment to absolute dryness (30-45 days). Rack into a clean secondary, top up and refit airlock. Rack one or two more times, 30 days apart, until wine is brilliantly clear. Stabilize with potassium sorbate and finely crushed Campden tablet (stirred well), then sweeten to taste. It is very good just off-dry, but your taste may vary. Wait 30 days and rack into bottles. This wine is very drinkable after two months but absolutely heavenly after a year. [Author's own recipe]

Why Things Are, Revisited

Several months ago (August 10th, 2009) I posted an entry on why my site remains the way it is in terms of layout and design. I'm not going to repeat that entry. If you missed it and are at all interested, you can navigate to it and read the original posting. But in it I stated that my web sites and blog retain their look because I don't use templates or automatic code generators, but rather create everything, including the code to place things where they are and as they are, myself. A while after posting that entry, something changed on the WineBlog. Some of you noticed it but most probably did not.

A reader, whose name shall remain anonymous because I did not ask permission to use it, decided to offer me a touch of assistance unasked. He sent me a new header graphic for this blog, I loved it immediately, and I have been using it ever since. Some of you noticed. Randy G. said, "I thought you weren't going to change things. You did. It took me a while to figure it out. You changed your banner." Close enough, Randy. Kathy M. wrote, "I don't know what you did to your layout, but I like it." Chase L. quipped, "The new look is very clean." I agree, Chase.

The old header is above. The new is below. Draw your own conclusions, but I really like it. Thank you, Mark.

He also "cleaned up" a few other images, and I deeply appreciate them all. So, things may change slowly at jackkeller.net, but they do change.

• Sand Burr Wine, my original recipe
• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

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December 5th, 2009

During the past two months I opened a couple of wines that were past prime. One was a 5-year old blackberry and the other was a 4-year old strawberry. Both were badly oxidized. Rather than dump them, I used each in various cooking recipes in lieu of water. Both worked very well in this new role and the oxidation passed unnoticed in marinara sauce, spaghetti sauce, roux for sausage and chicken gumbo, and venison chili. The strawberry was noticed in a casserole, but was more out of place as a flavor than unpleasant. My point here is that even wines kept too long can be consumed, but be selective. I had a 5-year old dry plum last year that produced off-flavors in two dishes I tried it in. Not everything works.

A predicted snowfall as far south as Pleasanton, Texas did not materialize unless it arrived last night and melted by daybreak. This I doubt, as the outside temperature was 28 degrees F. on my patio at 5:50 a.m., cold enough to preserve snow had it fallen. I suspect it simply exhausted itself on the way south. That is good news for the insurance companies down here, but bad for the automotive body shops that could have used the inevitable business that would have arrived with the snow. Oh well, winter still lies before us but snow down here is a distinct rarity.

Dead Links at Geocities

Luc Volders notified me from The Netherlands that one of my winemaking links was dead as the link was hosted on the defunct Geocities. While correcting the entry, I went ahead and searched my internet references page and made note of 20 sites linked to Geocities before I stopped searching. I have now run Google searches on each of these sites and found only two were resurrected at a new URL. This means some really great web sites have disappeared, or some might have resurrected under different names.

If you hosted a winemaking or non-commercial winemaking or wine appreciation club through Geocities and now host it elsewhere, or know of one, please contact me with the name and new URL. My email is jackredkellerwhitewine@gbluemail.com (remove the patriotic colors from the address).

I am somewhat partial to Geocities beginnings, as I began posting my first web pages on Geocities when the internet was still young. In those days people were creating "Home Pages" for just about every subject, with "Home Page" insinuating the site already was or was destined to become the definitive website for that particular subject. I thought I could build such a site for winemaking, and so I named the collection of pages I had posted The Winemaking Home Page and set to work building a site that would live up to the name.

I stayed on Geocities until I filled up the free space allocated and even then my bandwidth consistently exceeded what they allowed and I was billed a fee. I decided if I was going to pay for bandwidth, I may as well get my own domain and find a better deal than Geocities. While I was glad to leave the pioneering Geocities, I retained a soft spot for people starting sites there. I'm sorry to see it gone and hope the websites that were there will resurface and contact me so I can relist them on my links page.

Persimmon Melomel

I have twice before posted methods for making persimmon wines here on the WineBlog , but it is persimmon season again and I was asked for a "sure-fire, one-gallon recipe for a persimmon melomel." Well shucks, you don't have to ask me twice for this one.

As I have stated before, persimmons (Diospyros kaki) are technically a berry -- as is the watermelon -- but most people think of it as a fruit. However you consider it, it is one of the sweetest fruits in the world when fully ripe. For this reason the Japanese consider it a divine food. Even the seeds are edible.

Most persimmons, especially the wild orange ones native to the United States and Canada, do not ripen until after a frost but may drop from the tree prematurely. Persimmons in good condition will often then need to be ripened at home. You can leave them out on the counter at room temperature or hasten the process by putting them in a paper bag with a banana or apple. The ethylene gas given off by the other fruit will help the persimmon ripen. A fully ripe persimmon will be slightly wrinkled and may have a few brown or black spots on the skin. These are like the dark spots that form on banana peels as they ripen and simply mean the pulp inside is growing soft. Indeed, handle very ripe persimmons carefully as it is easy to tear the skin and end up with a mess in your hand. At this very soft stage, the pulp is almost like a firm to soft jelly. It's then at the peak of perfection and should be eaten immediately or used in other ways, as in cooking, baking, jelly, or wine.

Most of the large-chain supermarkets offer oriental persimmons. Cultivars Fuyu, Maru, and Hachiya are perhaps the best known. The shape of Fuyu fruit is round and somewhat flattened, Maru is more spherically round, and Hachiya is heart-shaped and pointed at its apex. Fuyu is the most widely planted cultivar in Japan and easily the most popular everywhere. It is most noted for its nonastringent fruit -- even when not yet ripe -- but also for its good yield, vigorous upright growth habit, and ease of training. Maru has more brittle branches, the fruit is astringent, and it matures about three weeks earlier than Fuyu. Hachiya fruit is also astringent before softening to ripeness. When fully ripe, all three are wonderfully sweet and perfect for wine or mead.

The biggest complaint with making persimmon wine is the amount of gross lees one must contend with. Fully ripe persimmon pulp is like jelly and there is no way to avoid its disintegration during fermentation. However, I have found a way to minimize the gross lees. First, scoop out the pulp from halved persimmons and dump it directly into a sanitized lady's knee-high nylon that has been placed inside a fine-mesh nylon straining bag or homebrewer's grain bag. The reason for the double bagging is because the weight of the pulp will cause the lady's nylon to stretch when lifted and the very fine pulp will ooze out, but the outer bag will prevent this stretching and allow you to later remove the pulp from the primary without defeating the purpose of the containment.

Persimmon Melomel Recipe

• 4 1/2 lbs persimmons
• 2 lbs premium grade honey
• 3/4 tsp acid blend
• 2/3 tsp powdered pectic enzyme
• 5 pts water
• 2 crushed Campden tablet
• 1/2 tsp potassium sorbate
• 3/4 tsp yeast nutrient
• 1/4 tsp yeast energizer
• 1 sachet Champagne wine yeast

Bring water to boil. Meanwhile, wash, halve and scoop persimmon pulp into nylon stocking resting inside fine-mesh nylon straining bag in primary; tie both bags closed. Take water off heat and dissolve honey thoroughly into it. Pour honey-water over bags of persimmon pulp. Stir in acid blend and cover primary. Set aside to cool to room temperature. Make a yeast starter solution, hydrate yeast in it and set aside to incubate yeast culture. Dissolve 1 finely crushed Campden tablet and stir into primary. Recover primary and set aside for 10-12 hours. Stir in pectic enzyme, recover primary and set aside another 10-12 hours. Stir in yeast nutrient, yeast energizer and yeast starter solution. Recover primary and gently submerge persimmon pulp twice a day. When specific gravity drops below 1.020, gently ease bag into sanitized colander and allow to drip drain 20 minutes into primary. Discard pulp, recover primary, and continue fermenting until s.g drops below 1.010. Transfer to secondary, top up and seal with airlock. Ferment to dryness but at least 30 days, rack, top up and reattach airlock. Wait 45 days, rack, stir in finely crushed and dissolved Campden tablet, top up and reattach airlock. Wait 45 days and rack again, dissolve and stir in potassium sorbate, top up and reattach airlock. Mead should be clear, light lees may be present. Bulk age 60-90 days and carefully rack again. Sweeten to taste with clearest honey, let rest two weeks, then carefully rack into bottles. [Author's own recipe]

• Persimmon Wine, Scroll down to October 8, 2007 entry, here
• Persimmon Wine, Scroll down to December 14, 2007 entry, here
• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

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November 28th, 2009

To all you RSS-feed subscribers, I apologize about my last feed. It seems I had the links pointed to the wrong entries. I've done it before and promised myself it would be the last time. I should not try to type and watch a football game at the same time.

But football season is in full swing and I have my favorite teams, both college and professional. (For you readers outside the United States and Canada, the sport I am referring to is American football -- not Association Football or Soccer. There is absolutely no similarity between the two games) But I shall try not to let football interfere again in the presentation of the WineBlog.

Elderberry Goo

The subject of elderberry goo seems to crop up just about every time elderberry winemaking is discussed. If you do not know what elderberry goo is, consider yourself lucky. But if you are thinking of making elderberry wine from fresh wild berries, it is a subject you'd better at least be acquainted with. You may or may not encounter it, but if you do, being forewarned is being prepared.

Elderberry goo is a slime that sometimes appears during fermentation of some but not all fresh elderberries in the primary. It adheres to the sides of the primary and for years defied easy removal. Then a small cadre of us on a use group began experimenting with cleaners, solvents and soaps in an attempt to find something that would cut this nuisance. Things that did not work: isoproyly alcohol, methyl alcohol, ethyl alcohol, acetone, Dawn dishwashing detergent, lye soap, turpentine, shellac thinner, hot water, CLR, TSP, nail polish remover without acetone, Cutex nail polish remover with acetone, window cleaner with ammonia, chlorine bleach, Easy Off oven cleaner, a waterless handcleaner, BLC, BTF Iodophor Sanitizer, ammonia, PBW, Sal Soda, Star San, WLC, Porcelain and Enamel Cleaner, Glass and Ceramic Stovetop Cleaner, Lysol Kitchen Cleaner, Quick n Brite, Comet Cleanser with Chlorinol.

Different people reported success with: soaking overnight in TSP solution, soak everything in strong solution of water and Lemon Joy and let sit a week in the sun and then rinse, Goo-Gone, WD-40, and De-Solve-It. But the least expense solution was when someone - Ed Goist, Shawn Gibbs, Greg Cook or someone else - discovered that vegetable oil would cut right through it. Just cut it, wipe it away and then use a degreaser to remove the vegetable oil. What a marvelous discovery - now common knowledge.

The real questions have always been what is this stuff and where does it come from? It doesn't come from dried elderberries, and European Black Elder (Sambucus nigra) appear not to exude it at all, while the American Elder (Sambucus canadensis) seems infamous for it. I do not know which of the many other elder species exude the goo; perhaps readers with personal knowledge will write me with goo or no goo experiences. My email is jackredkellerwhitewine@gbluemail.com (remove the patriotic colors from the address).

My original theory was that the waxy bloom on some of the elderberries was responsible for the goo, but this was proven false when non-waxy elderberries from Oklahoma emitted the goo. My next theory, which is still widely popular, was that the goo was a resinous sap that came from the stems during fermentation. This has pretty much been proven false by many who have meticulously cleaned every stem from the elderberries before fermenting them and still gotten the goo.

Elderberry fruit head [photo by Pollinator, from Wikipedia]

The last time I picked elderberries (two years ago) was when driving back from Lake Charles, Louisiana and I stopped near Orange, Texas to look for wild persimmons. Ripe elderberries were thick along a railroad track, so I just picked whole sprays of berries and tossed them in a garbage bag to destem later at home. What a tangled mess that was.

At the time I had just read about the bang-the-bucket method of destemming the berries and so at home I untangled each spray with considerable difficulty and whacked it against the inside of a 5-gallon pail. The berries that came off by banging-the- bucket became one batch and the remaining berries were hand-picked and went into another batch. I think I spent about two hours separating berries from stems. The first batch was smaller than the hand-picked batch, but the berries were much riper than the hand-picked ones.

Both batches went into ZipLocs, were frozen and eventually defrosted thoroughly before being transferred to nylon straining bags, crushed by gloved hands, and then fermented. The berries were drip-drained and only barely squeezed. The whacked batch yielded a very small trace of elderberry goo but the second batch had a lot. Since both batches were very clean in terms of stems, I think the goo is coming from the underripe berries.

I combined the two batches of fermented berries and made a second wine with their combined volume. I left them in the primary 10 days, squeezing the nylon straining bags twice daily to help extract more of the juices. After a few days I noticed the rubber gloves I wore were sticky with the goo and so I stopped squeezing the bags. The stuff certainly appeared to me as if it were coming out of the berries. Unfortunately, elderberries do not grow wild in my area and I pulled out my cultivated ones when they began spreading beyond the area I reserved for them. Thus, I am unable to do the experiments necessary to confirm this suspicion. I do wish there were some scientific research focused on this substance, its origin and its composition, but perhaps a few viewers live in elderberry country and can investigate.

Salmonberry Wine

A generous soul sent me two bottles of Salmonberry Wine from Washington state just in time to be enjoyed with my Thanksgiving feast. I first opened a cranberry wine, which was good and paired well, but the Salmonberry was sitting on the buffet taunting me and so I opened a bottle. The bouquet hit my nose in seconds and then spread throughout the dining room. Boy, am I glad I opened that bottle. Dry but deliciously fruity. Thanks, Bob!

Salmonberry (Rubus spectabilis) is a caning bramble native to the West Coast of North America from California to Alaska. The plant differs from other caning Rubus species in that it produces perennial woody stems, not biennial as do other species. The 5-petal purple flower produces a a large (1 1/2 to 2 cm) yellow to orangish-red berry with many drupelets -- like a raspberry. The berries ripen from early summer in the Pacific Northwest to early autumn farther north. In Kodiak, Alaska orange salmonberries are often referred to as Russian berries. They are often mistaken for raspberries by persons unfamiliar with them.

Harvested salmonberries [photo courtesy Langdon Cook]

My recipe for salmonberry wine came from an Oregon winemaker who has passed on. I knew him only as Fred G. but his last name was Gibson and he hailed from somewhere near Gresham. He read on my site that I didn't have a recipe for salmonberry wine and sent me his. He left out a couple of steps, so I have tweaked it some.

Salmonberry Wine Recipe

• 4 1/2 to 5 lbs ripe salmonberries
• 1 1/2 lbs granulated sugar
• 3 qts water
• 2 Campden tablets
• 1/2 tsp potassium sorbate (optional)
• 3/4 tsp pectic enzyme
• 1 tsp yeast nutrient
• 1 sachet Montrachet wine yeast

Wash salmonberries and tie in fine-mesh nylon straining bag. Place in primary and crush berries with hands. Bring 1 quart water to boil and dissolve sugar and yeast nutrient. Pour over crushed salmonberries. Add remaining water, cover with cloth, allow to cool. Aside, begin a yeast starter solution. To primary, stir in one finely crushed and dissolved Campden tablet, recover primary and set aside 10-12 hours. Stir in pectic enzyme, recover primary and set aside another 10-12 hours. Stir in activated yeast starter solution and recover primary. Punch down nylon straining bag twice a day for five days. Remove bag and squeeze or press to extract juice. Discard pulp and cover primary. When vigorous fermentation subsides transfer to secondary and seal with airlock. Set aside until airlock says it is finished. Wait one additional week and rack, top up and reattach airlock. When wine is clear, wait two additional weeks, rack, add second finely crushed and dissolved Campden tablet, top up and reattach airlock. If you intend to sweeten wine, withdraw 1/2 cup of wine and into it dissolve 1/2 teaspoon potassium sorbate; pour sorbated sample back into secondary and reattach airlock. Set aside two weeks and sweeten to taste. Wait 30 days and carefully rack into bottles. [Adapted from recipe by Fred Gibson]

• Taming the Wild Elderberry, my article, in WineMaker magazine
• Salmonberry Jam, Langdon Cook's Fat of the Land foraging blog
• Making Wines from Wild Plants, on my site
• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

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November 26th, 2009

Today, the fourth Thursday in November, is the American holiday of Thanksgiving. It is celebrated on the second Monday in October in Canada. In both cases, it is based upon the harvest and is traditionally a feast of thanks for the bounty that will sustain us through the winter.

I have lost all respect for Wikipedia, which has joined the absurdity of political correctness in claiming, "While perhaps religious in origin, Thanksgiving is now primarily identified as a secular holiday." I think not! I have never been to a Thanksgiving dinner in which the thanks expressed were not directed to God. Do the authors of Wikipedia's entry think the majority of people now express thanks to the almighty state for the bounty they enjoy? Nyet! I will file a protest to that entry, but not today. Today I will enjoy the holiday, and some cranberry wine....

Japanese-American Plums, Part 2

Continuing the list I started last weekend, here are some more Japanese-American hybrid plums. I have only indicated which cultivars make the best pollinator for which in a few instances, but obviously pollen donors have to bloom the same time the pollen recipients are blooming. Also, pollen recipients are pollen donors to their pollinators. It's a closed cycle and very efficient if well planned. For the home, certain trees are very attractive and can be sited in the landscape to show them off. Others are less showy and might be grouped to make pollination more efficient. The usual practice is to plant at least a pair of early bloomers, mid-season bloomers and late season bloomers.

MORRIS: Medium to large, red to purple fruit, red flesh. Excellent quality. Needs pollinator.

NUBIANA: Large, reddish-purple fruit with firm, light yellow flesh. Good pollinator for Laroda, substantially self-fruitful.

OBLINAJA: Large, dark red skin, almost black when fully ripe. Spicy flavor, crisp texture.

OZARK PREMIER: Burbank x Methley. Rather large; reddish-purple fruit. Juicy, mildly tart, yellow flesh; clingstone, small pit. Late summer. Fruits hang well for extended harvest, consistently productive. Good variety for South.

QUEEN ANN: Large, purple, semifreestone with amber flesh streaked red. Supurb flavor, fine dessert plum. Small tree needs pollinator.

RED HEART: Medium to large, semifreestone with dark-red skin, firm, juicy, blood- red flesh. Vigorous, hardy, productive with right pollinator; good pollinator for others. Good wine plum for the South.

ROMEO: Large, red fruit with very aromatic, yellow flesh. Vigorous.

ROYSUM: Medium to large, reddish-blue fruit with juicy, aromatic, very flavorful, light yellow flesh. Vigorous, spreading, late ripening, requires pollinator.

RUBY SWEET: Medium-large, bronze-red fruit with firm, bright to dark red flesh. Good quality.

SANTA ROSA: Very large, round to oval, purplish-red fruit covered with light dots and thin bloom. Fragrant, finely textured, clingstone flesh, purplish near skin turning pink-streaked yellow near pit. Excellent quality fruit, large, vigorous, prolific tree. Partially self-fruitful, excellent producer with pollinator.

SATSUMA: Medium to large, almost round, dark red fruit, small pit, firm, juicy, red flesh. Sweet, excellent flavor for wine. Upright tree, partially self-fruitful, pollinate with other Japanese plum.

SHIRO: Medium to large, golden yellow with pink blush, very attractive fruit. Juicy, sweet, translucent, yellow, clingstone flesh. Good, all around quality. Consistent producer, excellent reciprocal pollinator for early varieties. Excellent tree for the homestead in the South.

SIMKA: Large, purplish-red fruit with firm, sweet, yellowish-white flesh.

SUPERIOR: Very large, golden fruit, becoming pink with deep red blush. Skin slightly astringent but peels easily. Firm, finr-textured, clingstone. Fast grower, very early bearing, good pollinator.

TECUMSEH: Japanese x wild American, medium size, dark red with bluish cast. Firm, juicy, sweet, distinctive flavored, yellow, clingstone flesh. Excellent quality for wine. Vigorous, consistent producer, wide ranging tree.

TOKA: Wild American x Chinese plum, medium to large, tapered, reddish-bronze fruit with bluish bloom. Firm, yellow, rich, sweet, spicy, aromatic, freestone flesh, excellent for eating or wine. Moderately vigorous, heavy bearer, exceptional pollinator for Japanese, American and their hybrid plums, hardy to -50 degrees.

VANIER: Medium-small to medium size, bright red fruit, yellow flesh, clingstone. Excellent flavor. Vigorous, productive, requires pollenizer.

WANETA: Largest of all hybrids, yellow skin washed with dark red, small pit, juicy, deep yellow, clingstone flesh. Good quality, highly fertile, early bearing, heavy producer. Pollinate with Toka, hardy to -50 degrees.

WICKSON: Large, heart-shaped, greenish-yellow, firm fruit with very sweet, translucent flesh. Self-fruitful, but heavy cropper with a pollinator.

Japanese-American Hybrid Plum Mead

The 35 plum varieties I've described are but a fraction of what are available, but all I have listed are suitable for making wine or mead. Some are better suited than others, but all can work well in field blends. Sugar content varies from 7 to 13% with 15% possible but rare, tannin is decent, and acid is generally a bit low and malic. The recipe I've selected is tried and true, but the final product's character is determined both by the plum[s] and the yeast used.

Adding more or less plums to the must is perfectly acceptable but changes the chemistry. Even without altering the recipe, I encourage you to measure acidity initially and calculate your additions accordingly. Also, remember that using Lalvin 71B-1122 (Narbonne) yeast will result in lower post-fermentation acidity.

A word about destoning is in order. More plums are clingstone than freestone, which means a lot more work to destone them. I have left stones in many times, but you have to know the variety if you do this. Certain varieties are notorious for pits that split or separate upon ripening and these must be destoned to avoid tainting your mead with cyanogenic glycosides (can you spell cyanide?). I halve each and every plum whether I'm going to destone it or not. Halving them allows the yeast instant access to the juicy flesh, but also allows me to inspect the stone to determine if I want to remove it. I usually remove a couple - sometimes none - but every once in awhile I destone as many as one in five. It isn't difficult, just time consuming.

A word about freezing the fruit is also in order. Freezing ripe plums and thawing them out before fermenting them releases more juice more quickly. However, there is a right way and a wrong way to do this. The right way is to halve the plums, destone any requiring that precaution, placing them in gallon-sized ZipLoc freezer bags, and then freezing them. They should remain frozen at least three weeks, but six is better. To thaw them, allow a full 24 hours so they thaw through and through and at least come close to assuming room temperature. Set the bags on an oven rack set over a utility sink or on the patio. Setting the bags directly in a sink will retard thawing by many hours. If you freeze them in a pail or other bulk storage container, it could take two full days the thaw them thoroughly. Do NOT defrost them in a microwave or sink filled with hot water.

Two final pieces of advice are offered. I sprinkle 1/16th teaspoon (measure a quarter- teaspoon and then divide it into quarters) of potassium metabisulfite into each 10 pounds of halved plums, stir them with a wooden spoon, then transfer them to ZipLocs and freeze them. This protects them from spoilage bacteria when they thaw. Also, after the plums thaw pour then directly into fine-meshed nylon straining bags (or nylon knee-high stockings) in the primary. They are going to completely disintegrate during fermentation, so failure to bag them would be a colossal error a result in great waste of mead later.

The recipe below makes one gallon of mead, is easily scaled to 3 or 5 or 6 gallons (do the math), and requires little (but some) tweaking. Starting specific gravity should be at least 1.080 but no higher than 1.090. Initial water addition is usually sufficient but may require slight topping up in secondary. When bubbling stops, check s.g. It isn't done until it is at least 0.998 - lower is better. It is very good dry, but stabilize it and add 0.25 to 0.75 cup (start low, add more if needed) of honey to bring out subtle flavors of the plums. If sweetened, let age additional month, rack it, and then give it another month to see if it needs another racking. I usually make 3 gallons.

Japanese Plum Mead

• 8-10 lbs plums, halved and at room temperature
• 1.5 to 1.75 lbs orange blossom honey
• 0.5 gallon water
• 0.75 tsp powdered pectic enzyme
• acid blend to 0.60 TA
• 0.75 tsp yeast nutrient
• 0.25 tsp yeast energizer
• 1 sachet Champagne wine yeast

Begin a yeast starter solution the day before mixing the must. In primary, combine honey, water and yeast nutrient/energizer and stir well to thoroughly dissolve honey. If plums were previously sulfited (see above), skip this, but if not stir in one finely ground and dissolved Camden tablet or 1/16th teaspoon potassium metabisulfite. Add plums in nylon straining bags, cover and set aside 8-10 hours. Add pectic enzyme, re-cover and set aside 8-10 hours. Use acid test kit to measure acid and adjust to 0.60 TA. Stir in yeast starter solution and re-cover primary. Punch down bag[s] of plums twice daily. After 5 days push bag[s] aside and float hydrometer; repeat daily if necessary. When s.g. is approximately 1.015, drip drain plums (do NOT squeeze bag) about 10 minutes; discard pulp and transfer must to secondary. Affix airlock and ferment additional week. Top up, reattach airlock, and rack after additional 30 days. Let maturate three weeks, remove 1/2 cup of mead, and then very slowly stir in Bentonite slurry (add a teaspoon and watch for volcano effect; degas if needed; stir in remaining slurry) and reattach airlock. Wait 10-14 days and rack again, stabilizing in new secondary. Bulk age three months. Check bottom with flashlight. If even a fine dusting of sediment, rack again. Sweeten if desired, filter if desired, bottle when ready. [Author's own recipe]

• Thanksgiving, Wikipedia's shameful, politically correct entry
• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

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November 21st, 2009

A few days ago a friend in Australia sent me a notice that Jackie Wong Sue, distinguished World War II hero, passed away in Perth. Mr. Sue was a veteran of the Z Special Unit, a reconnaissance and commando unit which operated behind enemy lines in South-East Asia. Z Special Unit was the predecessor of the current Special Air Service Regiment and played a vital role in the long war against Japanese imperialism. The highly decorated Sue was officially cited for displaying "leadership, gallantry and cold blooded courage of the highest order." They don't write citations like that any more.

WW II Hero Jack Sue, dead at age 84

Why do I mention the passing of one man? Well, for starters he was a friend of my friend and that made him special. But he was also a member of a passing generation that all of us on the winning side of World War II owe so very much to, regardless of where we live or what ethnicity resides in our blood. It is easy to overlook one passing, but it takes only a little effort to recognize it, pay our respects and acknowledge our debt. With all my heart I believe Jack Sue would have done the same for you or me. We are all connected. Rest in peace, Sergeant Sue, and may God's Grace embrace you.

Malay Apple Wine

Last month I was asked for a recipe for Malay Apple Wine. While I do not have an actual recipe, I do have some excerpts from some old emails regarding such a wine. I was trying to develop a recipe because someone promised to ship me some Malay Apples from the Dominican Republic but never did. I now know the fruit would probably never have made it to Texas as it spoils very quickly. Nonetheless, I think I have enough information to make a wine, although the chemistry of the actual must would be required to fine-tune an actual recipe.

The fruit the writer referred to as Malay Apple is botanically Syzygium malaccense and variously known as Mountain Apple, Rose Apple, Otaheite Apple, Tambis, Makopa / Makupa, Fekika Kai, Ke'ika / Ka'ika, plus many other language-dependent names. The tree and fruit are similar to Syzygium aqueum and Syzygium samarangense, although these each have white flowers and fruit and the Syzygium malaccense has red. There are several variants of the Malay Apple, most notable in fruit size and color - red fruit is usual but variegated varieties and a rare albino exist.

Two size and shape varieties of Malay Apples

The fruit vary from pear- to bell-shape and 5-10 cm in length depending on variety. They must be picked as soon as they are fully colored because they fall almost as soon as fully ripe, bruise badly and spoil quickly. After picking they are immersed in boiling water for one minute to destroy surface microorganisms, then halved and deseeded. The whole halves are then pureed, the resulting pulp and juice weighed, and twice the weight in water added to the must in a primary. Because the fruit are not overly sweet, granulated sugar is added in the amount of 1 1/2 pounds per gallon of must. Also, 1 teaspoon of yeast nutrient and the juice of two lemons per gallon are added. I would also add one finely ground Campden tablet per gallon to protect the investment in time and resources and stir the must until all sugar is dissolved - this could take 8-10 minutes for a cold must. Cover the primary and set aside 10-12 hours, then pitch your choice of wine yeast.

Normal winemaking methodology is employed to ferment, clarify and age the wine. I'm told the gross lees will be substantial and should be strained without squeezing through ladies' nylons to salvage as much wine as possible. The wine will fall clear naturally after 3-4 spaced rackings over a 6-8 month period. After the second racking the wine should be sulfited again. After the third racking, pectic enzyme can be added to aid in clearing if it appears this is needed. The resulting wine will be a light rosé. For a white wine, peel the fruit before pureeing and add 1/8 teaspoon of powdered grape tannin to the must.

Japanese-American Plums, Part 1

John Culverson has an excellent memory to recall that many years ago I posted a list of plum varieties on a use group. Now he says he cannot find the list in the archives and thinks it might have been lost. All he is interested in are the Japanese-American hybrids. Well, it so happens I am researching plums and other stone fruit for an article for WineMaker magazine, so I can comment on a few varieties. There are actually hundreds of plum cultivars, so I have concentrated on what I consider to be better or more interesting ones. Because there are so many, even after drastic culling I have a considerable list, so I will post them in two entries.

ALDERMAN: Large, bright red to burgundy fruit with soft, yellow, clingstone flesh, late August ripening. Excellent quality. Winter hardy to -50 degrees F. Very productive and attractive in the landscape with profuse, large white flowers. From Minnesota. Requires a pollinator.

BURBANK: Very large, purplish-red plum with amber-to-yellow flesh. Excellent flavor, sweet, meaty, clingstone, best when picked before fully ripe for eating, when fully ripe for wine.

BURGUNDY: Medium size, cherry-red fruit with sweet, mellow, burgundy flesh. Makes a decent wine.

CATALINA: Large, black plum ideal for home planting - vigorous, productive, self- fruitful.

CRIMSON: Skin and flesh deep crimson. Excellent quality, round, clingstone, very productive.

CRIMSON BEAUTY: A great, new red-skinned and red-fleshed plum. Excellent quality, considered the best flavored of any red-fleshed variety. Good for South.

DUARTE & DUARTE IMPROVED: Large, heart-shaped, deep red fruit with blood-red, meaty flesh. Excellent quality. Semi-self-fruitful, but better production with pollinator.

EARLY GOLDEN: Earliest Japanese plum in north U.S.A.. Yellow skin with reddish blush, medium size round fruit, good quality, freestone.

ELEPHANT HEART: Large, heart-shaped, thick greenish-bronze skin that turns reddish- purple when completely ripe, with blood-red, juicy, freestone flesh. Rich, distinctive flavor makes good wine. Vigorous and self-fruitful, but best production with a pollinator.

FORMOSA: Large, oval, greenish-yellow fruit with reddish blush. Sweet, juicy, firm but melting, pale yellow flesh, excellent flavor, almost freestone but not quite. Prolific tree, but tends to skip fruitful years.

FORTUNE: Very large, bright red skin on yellow background, firm-fleshed, clingstone. Perhaps the very best tasting Japanese plum.

FRIAR: Large, round, dark purple turning black when fully ripe. Firm, sweet, amber flesh, freestone, good quality. Heavy bearer, self-fruitful, but better with a pollinator.

GAVIOTA: Very large, yellowskin overlaid ewith dark red. Firm, richly flavored, yellow flesh, small stone.

HOWARD MIRACLE: Large, yellow fruit with red blush, yellow flesh, tart pineapple flavor. Requires a pollinator.

LARODA: Dark red, almost black covered with small light dots. Pale, violet-red flesh, yellowing toward the stone. Rich flavor, excellent for wine. Requires a pollinator.

METHLEY: Medium to large, reddish-purple fruit. Juicy, sweet, yellow flesh with mild, distinctive flavor. Best for fresh eating or jelly. Best for wine when combined with other varieties. Self-fruitful, heavy producer and a great pollinator for other trees.

• World War II RAAF Officer and Z Special Unit hero Jack Sue remembered, The Herald Sun tribute
• "Z" Special Unit in Australia During WW2, Peter Dunn's page on "Z Force"
• Z Special Unit, Wikipedia's historical summary
• Syzygium malaccense (Malay Apple), excellent fact sheet (13 pages)
• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

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November 14th, 2009

I was going through things I hadn't looked at in nearly 20 years and happened upon a photograph taken in September 1971. It brought back bitter/sweet memories.

In September of 1970 I settled in at Colorado Springs after two consecutive years in Vietnam. After buying the obligatory Rolex at the PX, precious stones and gold while on R&R to Bangkok, and cameras (still and Super-8) and stereo components while on R&R to Hong Kong, there really wasn't a whole lot for a bachelor officer to spend his money on over there, so I had a "nest egg" in the bank.

I had left a year-old VW Beetle at my folks' house and this is what I drove to Colorado, on to Fort Benning for Airborne School, and then back to Colorado Springs and Fort Carson. After 6 months of settling in, sight-seeing in the Rocky Mountains in the VW was getting tiresome. I yearned for something with a little more power so I didn't create a traffic jam at every uphill grade. I found it at a used car lot specializing in exotic cars - Bentleys, Mercedes-Benz's of all classes, Jaguars, Aston- Martins, MGs, Triumphs, a Lotus, a Jensen, a Morgan, a DeTomaso, several others I don't specifically recall, and a Maserati.

Once I discovered this particular car lot I lived there, being educated on each car and test driving anything they allowed me to. The lot's owner had one salesperson, a tall, shapely beauty who wore leathers when she rode her BMW motorcycle to and from work but then changed. Without coaxing from her, I finally decided to buy the Maserati and we were in her office negotiating the deal. She went into another room to get some papers and I saw her leathers hanging from a coat-rack. I was holding up her leather pants when she returned. Momentarily embarrassed to be caught looking at her pants, I inadequately explained, "I was just wondering if I could get into your pants." Without skipping a beat she replied, "Not until you sign these papers." It was a wonderful nudge to close the deal, but neither necessary nor a promise fulfilled.

Probably the only surviving picture of my 1966 Maserati 3500 GTi, September 1971

I only owned the car 7 months. A month after the above picture was taken I was doing 110 miles per hour into the glare of a setting sun when I ran out of Garden of the Gods Road and drove the car through a rock barrier. I am ashamed to have destroyed a work of art such as that car was.

Oh, and yes, the photo above was Photoshopped (by Andre Akers of San Antonio) to subdue the background and highlight the car.

Assmannshausen Active Dry Yeast

Since writing about açai berries and juice a month ago (October 10, 2009), I was given a gallon of açai juice by a merchant who asked not to be identified. I bought some bulk honey from him and used the juice and honey to start a memomel. For this particular mead I selected Red Star Assmannshausen active dry yeast, of which I had a vial obtained from a commercial winery in the Texas Hill Country. Shortly after transferring the açai melomel to a secondary, I used the same glass primary to start a gallon of blueberry melomel, also using pure juice and Red Star Assmannshausen active dry yeast. I wrote about this in my last entry (November 11, 2009), but did not say anything about the yeast.

On my page about wine yeast strains, I say the following about this yeast: "Assmannshausen is a German yeast strain. Germany leads the world in yeast isolation and production. Assmannshausen is best suited for red wines. It intensifies the color and adds a spicy aroma. It first was only meant for Pinot Noir and Zinfandel, but now Cabernet Sauvignon takes advantage of this strain. The only drawback is its ineffectiveness in a high solid content." I'll admit that is a rather sorry and unhelpful entry. I'll have to work on it.

Assmannshausen is a German isolate (Geisenheim Research Institute). It is a slow reproducer and fermentor, but once started chugs along steadily. It tolerates temperatures down to 50 degrees F. and as high as 90, but 68-86 degrees is its comfort zone. Its attenuation is reported by brewers as 80%, which seems to me to be terribly low for a wine yeast and which I therefore question, flocculation is low, and alcohol tolerance is 15%. It is known for producing fruity, spicy aromas. What surprised me is that it appears to be a surface colonizer, which I have not seen reported in any of the articles, blog or forum entries I've read.

Assmannshausen yeast in açai juice, day 3 and day 5

I did not build a yeast starter solution with this yeast despite my normal fanaticism for doing so, but instead sprinkled the yeast on the surface. Within 10 minutes it had disappeared beneath the dark surface of the juice. The next day BB size spots appeared on the surface. These grew as more and more colonies of yeast rose from the depths, probably to enjoy the surface/atmosphere oxygen boundary, but here I am guessing. By day 3 the surface was amply seeded and by the morning of day 5 the surface was 85-90% covered. When I returned home from work that evening, the entire cap of yeast had sunk and a new observer would never have known the yeast had risen and then sunk.

Assmannshausen yeast in blueberry juice, day 2 and day 3

When I constituted the blueberry must, I was curious about the surface antics of the Assmannshausen yeast in the açai so I selected it again and again sprinkled it on top, despite what my recipe says. On day 2 (which is not the day after pitching the yeast, but the second full day after pitching) the yeast had greatly out-colonized the previous batch. The entire surface was covered with thick yeast colonies and foam, with splotches of very fine pulp and pigment particulates lifted onto the top of the foam. The next day (which is today), the surface colonies and particulates had settled and a blanket of foam about 3/8 inch thick covered the must.

The açai must foamed initially after transferring it to secondary, but the foam settled down and disappeared after the airlock started bubbling. Both batches have strong aromas of their fruit origins, but it is too early to tell if these will persist as reported elsewhere. I suspect they will, which is why I obtained the yeast, but will report more at a time when more is known for sure.

Agave Nectar

I was planning on writing an article for WineMaker magazine on sugars, but my concept was to do a photo essay and they wouldn't pay for my photographer so I didn't do it. I understand budgets so I'm not villanizing them for it, but it would have been a valuable and memorable article. But while I was planning it I collected 33 different kinds of sugar or natural sweetner and four different liquid sweetners. One of the liquid sweetners I collected and have used is agave nectar.

Agave (uh-GAH-vay) nectar is made from any number of agave plants. The Blue Agave is the highest regarded, then probably the Maguey Agave, Agave Americana (augustifolia) and Agave Mapisaga, but I believe that all or almost all of the 150 or so species or varieties of agave yield a sweet nectar. The agave nectar I use most is made from Salmiana Agaves. The plants are succulents similar to the Aloe Vera. Slow growing, they form a gradually enlarging core called a pina from which the leaves grow.

Blue Agave pinas, trimmed and ready for pressing

When 8-12 years old, the leaves are cut away revealing the pina. The pina is tapped with a tool and its sap is typically siphoned twice a day until the pina yields no more. When the pina yields no more sap, the pina is harvested, wrapped in a mesh cloth, smashed and pressed for any sap that remains. The harvested pina weighs from 50 to 150 pounds. The sap is filtered and heated at low temperature (118 degrees F.), where enzymes break down complex carbohydrates into simple sugars. Some producers, however, exceed this temperature and heat their product to as high as 170 degrees F.

The juice of the agave contains a great deal of inulin - fructooligosaccharides. Agave nectar is processed so an enzymatic process converts the complex fructose chain into simple monosaccharides -- fructose and dextrose (plant glucose). Agave Nectar varies from 70-90% fructose sugars and 30-10% dextrose/glucose sugars. Because fructose is perceptively sweeter to the human palate than granulated sugar, less is needed to achieve the same level of sweetness.

I have used agave nectar several times to sweeten dry, stabilized wines. It cuts the sharp dryness and adds a smoothness to the finish without the lingering aftertaste of honey. I have never used it for any other purpose related to winemaking.

Numerous Mexicans have told me that fermented agave nectar is quite good. They make a drink "back home" called pulque, which is only 5-8% alcohol. It can be consumed earlier than that, at 3-4% alcohol, as a drink called agua miel (honey water), or it can be made much stronger but takes longer to ferment and is not as refreshing a drink. But if you just want the kick, then distilled pulque is the drink for you. Mezcal or tequila, anyone?

Several people have sent me simple recipes for an agave nectar wine. Having never made it, I cannot say anything about the finished product, including it's strength. Most recipes use 20-25% agave nectar, a lemon or two, some nutrients, and any wine yeast. It takes 7-9 months to ferment, is then stabilized and allowed to rest for three months, racked, sweetened to taste with more agave nectar, and bottled. If you make this wine, please let me know what you think of it.

• Glossary of Winemaking Terms, on my site, read about attenuation, flocculation, etc.
• Assmannhausen, archived thread on GotMead.com forum
• The Awesome Agave, a simple "fact sheet" page
• Agave Nectar, an interesting collection of communications from producers
• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

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November 11th, 2009

We used to call it Armistice Day, but since 1954 it has been called Veterans Day in the United States. Many nations still observe it by its former name or as Remembrance Day. In its former name it commemorated the armistice that ended the slaughterhouse also known as The Great War, the War to End All Wars, the War to Make the World Safe for Democracy, and later, World War I. Even today most people around the world officially celebrate this day by some name by observing a moment or two of silence at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, that moment the guns fell silent in 1919 and ended the greatest casualty-producing war in history. As Armistice Day it would now honor only the dead - the last known American World War I veteran passed away on January 21, 2007. Veterans Day honors millions of both living and dead.

My favorite Veterans Day photograph, of Joseph Ambrose,
an 86-year-old World War I veteran, attending the dedication
parade of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in 1982, clasping
the flag that draped the casket of his son who had been killed
in Korea. May God's Grace be with each and every veteran.

Many fellow veterans send me the Terry Kelly video, "A Pittance of Time," each year about this time. I guess I have watched it between 20 and 30 times because, out of respect for the subject matter, I watch it every time I receive it. If you haven't seen it, I've linked to it following this entry. I could show it here, but instead have chosen to show the following newscast, from last year, about an unbelievably respectful phenomenon in Canada.

Please celebrate this day as you should, by remembering with reverence those who serve[d]. If you meet a veteran today, thank him or her for their service. They serve[d] for you....

Blueberry Melomel

It is not easy to transition from reflections on Veterans Day to winemaking, but I will try. Last week I got to thinking that I wanted to start a wine on Veterans Day to drink the following year. I wanted something that was uniquely American but could think of none. In the end, I decided upon a blueberry mead. I purchased two 64-ounce bottles of R.W. Knudsen unsweetened "Just Blueberries" and began the yeast starter solution yesterday morning before going to work. Last night I mixed the juice and other constituents in the primary, including sulfites. I woke up at 5:34 is morning and pitched the yeast. Two hours later I can see evidence that the yeast like the must, which is how it should be.

I like Knudsen juices because they contain only reconstituted juice from concentrate. Knudsen claims 4 pounds of blueberries are used to make each half-gallon bottle. Nothing is added -- especially preservatives. You know they will ferment.

So why, then, you might ask, did I add sulfites? As Bob Dylan said, the answer is blowing in the wind. There are so many organisms floating in the air in the average American kitchen that it is impossible not to pick up a few simply when the juice is poured and the must constituted. Just to be safe, I add sulfites. You may do as you like.

Blueberry Melomel Recipe

• 2 1/2 lbs clover honey (you can use any honey)
• 1 gallon Knudsen's Just Blueberries unsweetened juice
• 1 Campden tablet
• 3/4 tsp yeast nutrient
• 1/4 tsp yeast energizer
• 1 tsp Red Star Assmannshausen wine yeast

On the morning before, add the yeast to a starter solution. That night, crush the Campden tablet very fine and stir it and all other ingredients into the must except the yeast starter solution and cover the primary. The next morning, pitch the yeast starter solution and recover primary. Stir daily until s.g. drops to 1.010, then transfer to secondary and attach airlock. Ferment 30 days and rack, top up and reattach airlock. Wait 30-45 days and rack again, then repeat after additional 30-45 days. After third 30-45-day period, inspect bottom of secondary for sediment. It should be clean, in which case you can bottle the mead, but if a very light dusting is visible rack once again and bottle after a few days. Bottle age at least 3 months, but longer aging is encouraged. [Author's own recipe]

Sur Lie Aging and Bâtonnage

Sur lie aging is aging the wine on the fine - not the gross - lees. It is necessarity accompanied by lees stirring, an activity known as bâtonnage in French. As yeast cells die and break down, they gradually release a host of compounds into the wine that otherwise would be absent. These offer several physiological as well as sensory benefits to a wine but do so at a small risk. Risk, however, can be managed and greatly minimalized, but not eliminated altogether.

Some of the benefits a wine might accrue through these techniques are:

• Increased roundness, creaminess and viscous feel to the palate caused by the release of polysaccharides;
• Increased mouthfeel length due to delayed release of certain volatile compounds;
• Enhanced flavor and aroma release at the end of the palate and lapsing into finish;
• Release of fatty acid esters associated with sweet/spicy and fruity aromas;
• A slight sweetness associated with the binding of amino and nucleic acids with oak phenols;
• Decreased astringency due to mannoprotein-anthocyanin/tannin binding;
• Released nutrients beneficial to malolactic bacteria;
• Protects certain fruit aroma compounds from oxidation through buffering actions;
• Improves protein stability by preventing polymerization of tannins, pigments and volatile compounds;
• Reduces diacetyl retention during malolactic fermentation by allowing the bacteria to convert the diacetyl to less egregious acetoin and 2,3-butanediol;
• Inhibits potassium bitartrate crystal formation.

On the other hand, some of the risks you will endure using these techniques are:

• Each time you stir the lees, you exchange protective CO₂ and SO₂ for oxidative O₂;
• Hydrogen sulfide (H₂S) is much more likely to form on aging lees than on racked wine;
• Mercaptans, H₂S on steroids, are also more likely to form on aging lees.

As for the first risk, some oxygen uptake is desired or the wine will become reductive. The trick is not to overdo it. Stirring the wine every 5-7 days for 4-6 months may make you uncomfortable, but if you can stir every other time without removing the bung/airlock then you might feel better about it. I happen to have a stir table, a small platform that contains a hidden magnetic arm that spins and causes a plastic or ceramic enclosed stirring magnet to spin inside the carboy and stir the lees. Before I bought that (used, on Craig's List) I used several large glass marbles that could easily be swirled around the bottom of the carboy and stir the lees. The prime consideration in using marbles that the marbles crush some of the dead yeast cells and cause yeast autolysis, which is fine for feeding leve yeast but not desired when all yeast are dead. However, when using marbles I seldom left the wine on the lees more than 3 months and experienced no off odors or flavors as a result.

Hydrogen sulfide is controlled by avoidance of elemental sulfur on grapes or fruit and by yeast selection. There are excellent strains that rarely produce H₂S, so use them. These same avoidance strategies also apply to mercaptans. Finally, if the winemaker is observant and smells the wine each time the bung/airlock is removed, corrective action can be taken as soon as the slightest hint of H₂S is detected.

While the results can be severe if something goes wrong, avoidance is fairly straightforward and the benefits considerable. But remember, as in all things pertaining to winemaking one size does not fit all. Not all wines are suited to sur lie aging and bâtonnage. Certainly white wines are more suited than red, dry wines more suited than sweet, but type and style are determinants. I have tried it with such diverse wines as white Mustang, Blanc du bois, Himrod, Traminette, mimosa flower, kiwi, pear, mangosteen, and cranberry.

• A Pittance of Time, Terry Kelly's inspiring tribute
• Using Lees, one of the best essays on the subject, by Ben Rotter
• Batonnage, an excellent entry on the French wine industry
• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

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November 7th, 2009

An off-topic preface is called for. The senseless wounding and loss of life two days ago at Fort Hood, Texas, where I served back during the late '70s with a unit called "Red Thrust," sliced through the military establishment like a hot knife through soft butter. They are calling it a massacre. By definition, the word fits. It was also the scene of some very selfless comradery, heroic confrontation and exemplary improvised first aid. All in the previous sentence is expected of our well-trained and highly motivated soldiers. What they were reacting to was neither expected nor should it have been allowed to occur. Still, I am not sure it could have been prevented in a free society.

In retrospect, there were ample signs the perpetrator harbored feelings and beliefs counter to the duties his employer - the United States Army -- might demand of him at any time. Obviously, he should have been dealt with before he personified the extremes his religion allows. Exactly how he should have been dealt with will be debated in the upper echelons of the Army for some time to come. Let us hope that we stop tip- toeing around the issues of religious extremism in the name of political correctness and protect ourselves from the few, the bad, the jihadists. But few Muslims become jihadists, so let us not overreact and tread upon the protections inherent within our Constitution. Therein lies the challenge

Here in the United States we still insist upon the innocence of every person until they are caught acting criminally or are proven guilty of an offense. We do not persecute people for expressing ideas or beliefs counter to our own, and I pray we not change course by going down that very dangerous path. You cannot undermine any pillar supporting the temple of freedom without jeopardizing the whole edifice. Proceed cautiously and debate thoroughly. We may have to accept the risk of a Fort Hood massacre to preserve the freedoms we inherited.

Those of us who took the oath of a commissioned officer swore to honor, uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States. That is the essence of conservatism - honor, uphold and defend. Radicals would rewrite the rules and usher in rapid, drastic change, preserving little that restrains them from imposing their will. The French Revolution is the paradigm of radical rule, and it quickly became executive rule by terror. Radicalism is extreme liberalism. Liberalism has fallen from self-identified favor, so overnight liberals agreed to call themselves progressives. A rose by any other name is still a rose, so beware all attempts to deceive by renaming. And please remember that the ideal standard is still to honor, uphold and defend. Your continued freedom depends on it.

The Wild Winter Grape

The wild Fall Grape, Winter Grape, Little Mountain Grape, Spanish Grape, and Uña Cimarrona - different names for the same grape - is known by old-timers as Vitis berlandieri but correctly as Vitis cinerea var. helleri. It is currently ripe and ready to be made into wine. It is acidic until it ripens and then is sweet and quite delicious but too small for convenient eating and not quite sweet enough to make a decent wine without a little sugar being added. It is small (1/5 to 1/3 inch) with 30 to 70 berries per cluster. The clusters are loose and open, the pedicels (stems) long. The skin is thin, the pulp juicy when ripe, usually with one or two seeds of a coffee color. Ripe berries retain enough acid to make a balanced wine. Their small size makes crushing difficult but not at all impossible, so freezing/thawing and pectic enzyme will help extract the juice. Destemming by hand takes a while, but is necessary due to the astringent tannins in the stems.

I have made wonderful wines with this grape although many people consider it too small and difficult to destem by hand (6-8 pounds takes an hour) to bother with. I have also used this grape as the major ingredient in a field blend including any two or three of the following: Vitis monticola, Vitis cordifolia (correctly, Vitis vulpina), Vitis champinii (correctly, Vitis X champinii, a.k.a. "Dogridge"), and Vitis riparia.

I have a recipe posted elsewhere on my site (see link following entry) for this grape, but this one differs slightly in that it contains a slight amount of water to dilute excess malic acid usually present from a few not-fully-ripe grapes that find their way into the must. If you are sure of the ripeness of all grapes used, eliminate the water and add another pound-and-a-half of grapes.

Winter Grape Wine

• 13 to 15 lbs ripe winter grapes
• 1/3 to 2/3 lb finely granulated sugar
• 1 pt water
• 1 crushed Campden tablet
• 3/4 tsp pectic enzyme
• 1 tsp yeast nutrient
• 1/4 tsp yeast energizer
• 1 pkg Lalvin 71B-1122 yeast

Destem and crush the grapes and place in nylon straining bag. Tie bag closed and place in primary. Squeeze bag to extract enough juice to float a hydrometer in its test jar. Calculate sugar required to raise specific gravity to 1.088. Add sugar and stir well to dissolve it completely. Dissolve finely crushed Campden tablet in 1 pint of water and add to primary, stirring well. Cover primary with sanitized muslin and set aside 10 hours. Add pectic enzyme and stir well. Recover primary and set aside additional 10 hours. Add activated yeast, recover primary, and squeeze bag twice daily until active fermentation dies down (5-7 days). Remove nylon straining bag and drain, then press to extract all juice. Transfer juice to secondary, top up if required and fit airlock. Ferment 30 days, rack into clean secondary, top up, and refit airlock. Rack again every 30 days until wine is perfectly clear and stabilize wine. Sweeten to taste if desired and set aside 30 days, or forego sweetening, set aside 10-14 days, and rack into bottles. Age three to six months. [Author's own recipe]

Medicinal Odors - Causes and Treatment

The single word "medicinal" is often used to describe a variety of individual smells, each of which is more specific and offers clues as to what may be the cause. Knowing the cause does not mean the offensive smell can be removed or prevented, but often it does. Any number of other, more specific terms might be used synonomously with "medicinal," and include iodine, band-aids, isopropyl alcohol, ethyl acetate, ethyl phenol, cork taint, ether, nail polish remover, peroxide, mouthwash, a doctor's office, a dentist's office, menthol, and anesthesia.

By far the major causes of many of the "medicinal" smells in wine are a number of compounds created by the yeast Brettanomyces bruxellensis (simply "Brett" in most conversations) and its anamorph relative Dekkera bruxellensis. According to Richard Gawel, the three most important aroma compounds are 4-ethyl phenol, which has been variously described as having the aromas of band-aids, antiseptic and horse stable, 4-ethyl guaiacol, which has a rather pleasant aroma of smoked bacon, spice or cloves, and isovaleric acid which has an unpleasant smell of sweaty animals, cheese and rancid oils. These compounds never exist alone as there are hundreds of constituents of wine, so there are rarely simple, single step solutions. A 1999 study indicated that what is considered Brett aroma in wine "is a complex mixture of odor-active compounds, including acids, alcohols, aldehydes, ketones, esters and phenolics."

My experience with home wines is that three things may help if the odor is not too strong. The obvious first step is to raise the sulfur dioxide (potassium metabisulfite) level of the wine to an aseptic level to arrest the growth of Brett, treat with activated charcoal for 3 to 8 weeks, and sterile filter (0.45 microns or less) to remove residual yeast cells. If the Brett infection is strong, the drain is the answer.

There are treatments available to commercial wineries to treat wines for Brett infestation and odors. These treatments are impractical for home winemakers due to their cost, but if you continue making wine after hitting the lottery and happen to get a Brett infection, the link is down below....

• Native North American Grapes, for correct nomenclature, on my site
• Native North American Grape Wine Recipes, see the first recipe, on my site
• Brettanomyces Character in Wine, Richard Gawel's excellent, in-depth article
• Recent Developments in Brett Management and Monitoring, in Wine Business Monthly; scroll down to "Winetech's Brett Off-Flavor Treatment"
• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

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October 31st, 2009

Today is Halloween. I have great memories of this holiday when I was young, but the incomprehensible meanness of a few mentally sick members of the populace have taken the fun out of "trick or treating" for many years now. If this year is like the previous 25-30 years, in subsequent days I will eat most of the candy bars I bought for the youngsters I hoped would knock on my door.

But at least I attended one Halloween party - yesterday at work. There was a scavenger hunt, games, plenty of food, and even a costume contest (I did not enter). One gal wore a tee shirt printed with the words "Go Ceilings." I didn't get it until someone told me she was a "ceiling fan." She didn't win, but she was very cute. Because the party was on a military base where political correctness has long reigned, there were no adult beverages served. In the old Army it wouldn't have been a party without them, but - as with trick or treating -- the world has changed. But we won't let that affect this blog. It is still about wine - and mead.

A Very Good Metheglin

Yes, another mead! I normally make no more than two meads a year, but over the past three years I have made quite a few. I did so because I considered them a distinct challenge to be mastered. I think I have gotten it (except for Show Mead as redefined in my October 17th, 2009 entry). Anyway, here is a metheglin I made loosely based on a recipe I found somewhere. This calls for the five traditional Asian spices and a Celestial Seasonings herbal blend containing Chamomile, orange peel, natural honey and vanilla flavors with licorice, roasted chicory and West Indian lemongrass. This is so good I'd like to patent it but copyright will have to do.

I did not boil the honey, but did boil the water so I could infuse the flavors. Therefore, this is not a brewed mead but a honey wine, although I doubt many of you even care about such distinctions.

The recipe makes three gallons of mead. Starting specific gravity is 1.100 and it took 7.25 pounds of the honey I used to obtain that. Your honey may be more or less sweet, so start with 6.5 pounds and add quarter-pounds until you get the s.g. right. Since you will be dealing with hot water, dissolve the honey, draw off a cup, place that in your freezer about 15 minutes, then pour into a hydrometer test cylinder and measure it. Be sure to put a thermometer in the sample immediately before inserting the hydrometer and make any temperature adjustments to your reading required. Most hydrometers are calibrated to give correct readings at 59-60 degrees Fahrenheit. Higher temperatures thin the liquid slightly and result in lower readings than you'd get at the correct temperature. At 70 degrees F., the reading will be 0.001 low. To correct it, add 0.001 to the reading. At 77 degrees F., add 0.002. At 84 degrees F., add 0.003. At 95 degrees F., add 0.005.

Jack Keller's Metheglin

• 5 lbs fancy clover honey
• 2 1/4 lbs fancy orange blossom honey
• 15 teabags Celestial Seasonings Honey Vanilla Chamomile herbal tea
• 2 1/2 gallons water
• 2 tsps ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp ground allspice
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 3 finely crushed and dissolved Campden tablet
• 2 1/4 tsp yeast nutrient
• 2 1/4 tsp yeast energizer
• 1 sachet, mead or any Champagne yeast

Boil water. Meanwhile, tie teabags together and drop in water. Tie spices in a closely woven jelly bag (or in 6-inch square of finely woven muslin) and add to water. When water boils, remove from heat and stir in honey (you can boil the honey in the water, skimming off the surface scum as it forms, but I did not do this). Transfer to primary, stir in yeast nutrients and energizer, cover, and set aside overnight to cool. Meanwhile, prepare a yeast starter solution (1 cup water, 1 tablespoon honey, pinch of yeast energizer, sachet of wine yeast). When must is cooled, remove teabags and spices and add yeast starter solution to must. Cover and stir daily for about 10 days. Skim off any scum that rises from the must and transfer to secondary. Do not top up yet, but do affix an airlock. Rack, add finely crushed and dissolved Campden tablets, top up and reattach airlock after 30 days. Repeat racking (without adding additional Campden) 2-3 more times at 30-day intervals until no new sediment is dropped. Bulk age 4-6 months, bottle, and age an additional 6 months. {Author's own recipe]

Measures of Dry and Liquid Volume

I have exchanged several emails over two months with a gentleman in Indonesia who asked for a conversion chart for volume measurements, both dry and liquid, so that he might better use my recipes. At first I simply pointed him to my conversions page, but he wrote back saying it did not cover all the measurements some of my recipes used and also he did not own a computer. He used one in a shop where you can rent computer time and maintain an email account, and he desired one or two charts he could print. After several exchanges, each a week or two apart, I understood his needs and circumstances and tested the waters with the following chart that he loved. Thank you, Hamzah, for your patience.

Dry Volume

American Standard	Metric
1/8 teaspoon	0.5 mL
1/4 teaspoon	1 mL
1/2 teaspoon	2 mL
3/4 teaspoon	4 mL
1 teaspoon	5 mL
1 tablespoon	15 mL
1/4 cup	59 mL
1/3 cup	79 mL
1/2 cup	118 mL
2/3 cup	158 mL
3/4 cup	177 mL
1 cup	237 mL
1 pint	474 mL
3 cups	711 mL
1 quart	946 mL
1/2 gallon	1.89 liters
1 gallon	3.79 liters

This was followed with a chart for liquids - not as long but containing an extra column to equate common American standard units with ounces and then metrics.

Liquid Volume

American Standard	American Ounces	Metric
2 tablespoons	1 fl. oz.	30 mL
1/4 cup	2 fl. oz.	60 mL
1/2 cup	4 fl. oz.	125 mL
1 cup	8 fl. oz.	250 mL
1 1/2 cups	12 fl. oz.	375 mL
1 pint	16 fl. oz.	500 mL
1 quart	32 fl. oz.	946 mL
1/2 gallon	64 fl. oz.	1.89 liters
1 gallon	128 fl. oz.	3.79 liters

It is easy for us, wherever we are in the world, to think of our units of measure as universal. None are, although metric units are universally understood within the contexts of science and engineering. Even in countries sharing a common language such as English, standard units of measure can (and do) differ. We have to strive to remember that an Imperial gallon is approximately 750 mL larger than an American gallon and sometimes the only clue is the use of the word flavour in the discussion, as opposed the the Americanized spelling flavor.

• Concersions and Equivalents, on my site
• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

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October 24th, 2009

I am going to offer some advice. I hope I am not out of line for doing so, but I think it necessary. Consider it a public service announcement. Do not drink two very generous low sodium V8 Bloody Marys and then decide to mow the lawn on the riding lawn mower when you have 48 very sizeable trees scattered around the property. Avoiding the trees is difficult enough without a wee bit of impairment, but remembering to duck under the low-hanging oak branches the size of my leg is a task too many. It wasn't really a bad scrape, but because I am on Plavix it took a while to get the bleeding stopped. Lesson learned.

This naturally brings up the question, what time did I consume the two very generous low sodium V8 Bloody Marys? Okay, I admit it was early, but V8 is so very "morning" that it seemed right, and the generosity of the pour was strictly dictated by my desire to finish the bottle of 100-proof vodka and be done with that large, mostly empty bottle. Surely you understand....

Sugar Beet Wine

The first time I encountered sugar beets I was driving near Fort Collins, Colorado when I encountered a bunch of grapefruit-sized, conical, whitish-gray things on the highway I thought were huge parsnips that obviously had fallen off a truck. I stopped and picked up one, examined it and had no idea what it was. I collected perhaps a dozen, maybe 15, and tossed them in the very small trunk well of my Ferrari 250 GT SWB Berlinetta (oh, what fond memories!). When I next stopped for gas I showed the attendant one (they still pumped your gas and cleaned your windows for you back then) and he identified it - was even a little amused I didn't know what it was. All of this came back to me when I read a recent Guest Book entry requesting a sugar beet wine recipe.

Sugar beets

The sugar beet is large, weighing from 2 to 4 1/2 pounds. It need not be peeled, but must be scrubbed with a stiff brush and rinsed well to remove soil trapped in its irregular surface. Each beet contains up to 20% sugar. My first sugar beet wine was just that, a wine made with sugar beets and little else. I used 10 pounds of beets to extract 2 pounds of sugar and the result was disappointing. The flavor was between bland and herbaceous and I figured that was the end of that. Several years later I tasted two very good sugar beet wines and developed the recipe below from discussions with the two winemakers.

I have not made this wine as I no longer live in sugar beet country, but I believe it will produce very good wines similar to those I sampled. The ginger gives it something that beet alone sorely lacks. I can think of other herbs that might work as well, but cannot experiment without the sugar beets. You can grate the beets by hand, but if you have a food processor with a rotary grating blade then do the smart thing and use it.

Sugar Beet Wine Recipe

• 5 lbs grated sugar beet (about 2 beets)
• 1 1/4 lbs granulated sugar
• 3 Valencia oranges, juiced
• 2/3 oz ginger root thinly sliced
• 1/8 tsp powdered grape tannin
• 1 gal water
• 1 finely crushed and dissolved Campden tablet
• 1 tsp yeast nutrient
• 1 pkt general purpose wine yeast

Scrub beets well and grate. Pack into a nylon straining bag with ginger and tie closed. Place bag in pot and cover with water. Bring to hard boil, reduce heat and hold low boil for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, place sugar, orange juice, tannin and yeast nutrient in primary. Remove bag from pot and drip drain in colander over primary about 20 minutes, at which time it will have cooled enough to handle. Apply light, gentle pressure to bag to extract last of free liquid, but do not squeeze or mash or wine will not clear. Discard beet pulp, cover primary and allow it to cool to room temperature. When cool, stir in Campden and recover Primary. Set aside 10-12 hours and add activated yeast in starter solution. Recover primary and allow to ferment through vigorous stage. When vigorous fermentation subsides, transfer to secondary, affix airlock and ferment to dryness. When wine is still (or in 30 days) rack, top up and reaffix airlock. Wine should clear in three rackings 30 days apart, but if not then treat with amylase and wait it out. This is a dry wine, but if you want a sweeter wine stabilize it and sweeten to taste. Bottle and age 2-3 months. [Author's own recipe]

Wine Corks

A few weeks ago at a competition the steward told me he could not open a particular bottle. I looked at it and it was a 4-year old wine sealed with an agglomerated cork. These are corks that are made from granulated cork that is bound together with food-grade glue and either molded or extruded to the appropriate size. According to APCOR, the Portuguese Cork Association, "Agglomerated corks are an economical solution in assuring good sealing for a period that should not, in general, exceed 12 months."

Corks are tools used to accomplish a given task, and in the wine business the task is sealing the bottle for a given period of time. A better solution for the wine in question would have been a colmated cork. Colmated corks are natural corks with their pores (lenticels) sealed with natural cork dust coated with FDA approved natural resin and rubber glues. Colmation improves the visual aspect of the cork closure, and it improves its performance. A heavily pored cork can be made to look like a quality closure, but it is rated for only 4 years use.

Agglomerated, Colmated, Tech 1+1, Tech 2+0, Tech 2+2, and Natural Corks

In between agglomerated and colmated are technical corks, also called composites, end capped, 1+1s, and other names. Technical corks were created for bottled wines which are consumed within a period of two to three years. They consist of a very dense agglomerate cork body with natural cork disks glued on one or both ends. Technical corks with a disk on both ends are 1+1 technical corks. With two natural cork disks at each end, they are known as 2+2 technical corks. Those with two disks on one end are called 2+0 technical corks. An FDA-approved food contact glue is used to bond the disks to the agglomerated cylindrical body.

Natural corks are excellent seals when compressed into the necks of glass bottles. Over time, natural cork promotes wine maturation and allows noble ageing through the innumerable chemical and physical processes that occur between its components and the internal bottle environment.

With a quality cork of the appropriate diameter and length, we can expect a perfect seal for at least 20 years. This period may be extended to dozens of years if the cork is of a high quality and is kept in ideal wine storage conditions -- adequate temperature, pressure, humidity, and with minimal thermal variation throughout the years. Factors contributing to the quality of corks include the amount and size of pores (lenticels), bark, belly and cracks found on a cork's surface; its compressibility and elasticity; it's moisture content (between 3 and 5%); its surface treatment or coating (paraffin or silicone) if any; its extraction force rating; and the sampling size and standard. A cork should not compress more than 6mm from natural size to sealant size - 2mm is standard.

Agglomerated, colmated and technical corks are quality graded A, B or C, or I, II, or III, with A or I being the best and C or III being the lowest grade. Natural corks are graded according to visual criteria as "Superior," "Extra," "Flor," 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th in declining order, but some manufacturers have created their own unique grades. If you are not sure of what the relative grade is that is assigned, ask. Also ask how long the cork is rated as a closure. I buy 7-year corks for most wines, but 12- or 20-year corks for certain types of wine with a judged potential to age that long.

• Cork Stoppers, the APCOR website
• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

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October 17th, 2009

An email woke me up. The writer conveyed that he secretly made a mandarin-chocolate wine for his girlfriend from a recipe I posted here and they were drinking it when he proposed and she accepted. It is now "their wine" and he makes it twice a year. He was thanking me, but he should be thanking the couple I got the recipe from. Allan and Nedra, thank you and take a bow.

I just opened a 2007 Cranberry-Raspberry wine, semi-sweet, so good I just might drink it all tonight! I keep telling people that cranberry is one of the unheralded heroes of fermentation and so many things blend well with it that one could make a career discovering them all. How fortunate we are to have this under-appreciated little berry.

Zingimel: Ginger Mead

I recently mentioned that I had bottled a ginger mead and that very night received the first of several requests for the recipe. One writer asked, "Exactly what kind of mead is ginger? Is it a type of hippocras?" No. Although many call hippocras a mead (I do simply because it could be a mead), it usually is a spiced wine sweetened with honey. Ginger is but one of the several spices used to make it. Another spiced mead is metheglyn, but this too generally has several spices but can have but one. Since I know of no name for a mead flavored with just ginger, I have coined one based on the botanical name for the plant, Zingiber officinale; I will call it zingimel. If anyone knows of an earlier designation I will concede to it, and if you object to zingimel then go ahead and call it a metheglyn. And with that out of the way, lets discuss ginger and the recipe.

Up to 3% of fresh ginger root's weight is a mixture of zingerone, shogaols and gingerols, volatile oils responsible for its characteristic flavor and odor. Multiple laboratory studies have shown gingerols increase movement in the gastrointestinal tract with favorable results and can kill ovarian cancer cells. Ginger oil effectively prevented skin cancer in mice and has been proven to kill salmonella and other harmful bacteria. Ginger and citrus tea, often sweetened with honey, is popular for medicinal as well as flavor reasons, and fresh, pickled, dried and ground ginger is popular are widely used in baking, cooking and beverages such as ginger ale and ginger beer. It just begs to be used in mead.

I think most people know - or should -- that mead was traditionally brewed to remove impurities from the honey. With centrifugal processors, it is possible today to obtain honey with near optical clarity, so brewing is not always necessary. Indeed, some would say brewing is undesirable as it compromises certain compounds that contribute to aroma, flavor and perhaps mouthfeel.

Even when making mead with lesser grades of honey, one can make it without brewing; it just takes longer for the impurities to fall out and even then brilliance might not be obtained without fining or filtration. I used a fancy grade of clover honey and so I didn't boil it. However, I did warm one quart of water to help dissolve and integrate the honey. This may have been unnecessary, but it worked. I also decided to make an infusion with the ginger to avoid leaving the root in the must too long. Finally, I decided to acidify the must with one orange, reasoning that citric acid would meld better with ginger's flavor than would malic, tartaric, succinic or lactic acids and if one orange was insufficient I could add citric acid later (I did not need to).

Zingimel Recipe

• 2 1/2 lbs clover honey (you can use any honey)
• 1/2 oz ginger root, peeled and sliced crosswise
• juice of one large orange
• water to 1 gal
• 1 Campden tablet
• 1/2 tsp yeast nutrient
• 1/4 tsp yeast energizer
• 1 sachet Lalvin 71B-1122 (or Red Star Pasteur Champagne) wine yeast

Heat 1 quart water to perhaps 120 degrees F. and stir in the honey. Cover and remove from heat. Meanwhile, brought a separate 2 cups water with the ginger root slices to a gentle boil. When ginger slices begin to turn translucent carefully strain water into honey-water, discarding the root or saving for a mild tea. In primary, combine two quarts cold water, orange juice, yeast nutrient and energizer, and combined honey- and ginger-waters. Bring volume up to one gallon, cover and allow to cool to about 80 degrees F. Pitch activated yeast and recover primary. After 2 days stir daily until s.g. drops to 1.010 (mine did this on day 9), then transfer to secondary and attach airlock. Ferment 30 days and rack, add a finely ground and dissolved Campden tablet, top up and reattach airlock. Wait 60 days and rack again, then repeat after additional 60 days. After third 60-day period, inspect bottom of secondary for sediment. It should be clean, in which case you can bottle the mead, but if a very light dusting is visible rack once again and bottle after a few days. Bottle age at least 3 months and serve chilled. [Author's own recipe]

For some reason I was distracted when I pitched the yeast and did not take a starting specific gravity reading so I didn't know how much alcohol this mead had. Because it fermented dry (0.998), I used a vinometer and measured about 10.5% alcohol. At bottling time, this mead tasted marvelous. An ounce or so I chilled tasted even better.

Show Mead

A mead enthusiast wrote me to object to my definition of show mead. Well, my definition came from popular books on mead, but that doesn't mean the definition hasn't evolved - especially in the world of competitions, where it counts. He wrote, "The definition of a show mead according to current BJCP style guidelines (and many mead makers in general) is one composed of honey, yeast and water without other additives. Adding nutrients, acids, oak, or other additives produces what is generally called a 'traditional mead.' A show mead can be made with a single varietal honey or a blend of more than one type." I am grateful for the correction.

The writer continued, "As you can imagine, making a mead using no nutrient supplements can be quite challenging, but with proper yeast selection, honey choice, and management it can be done successfully (and consistently). I think reserving the term 'show mead' for those meads made with this minimalist approach is certainly warranted." I not only agree, but have already edited my glossary to reflect these points.

• WineBlog Archives Jan-Jun 2007, scroll down to January 17, 2007 for the Mandarin-Chocolate Wine recipe
• Hippocras, an historical discussion
• Ypocras or Hippocras, a pictorial discussion
• Traditional Mead, in "BJCP Style Guidelines," look under "Ingredients" of any style on this page; while this guide is outdated, this portion is identical with the 2008 Guidelines
• BJCP Style Guidelines, the 2008 edition; scroll to page 54 for "Traditional Mead"
• Types of Mead, good discussions, at the "Mead Made Complicated" website
• Show Mead, at the "Home Brewing Wiki"
• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

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October 14th, 2009

I just bottled a ginger mead that was so good that I didn't even cork the last bottle, but started at once to empty it. In fact, I am enjoying a glass right now. If I were to critique it, I would say it has a tad too much alcohol. It delivers a slight "thump" at the back of the throat as it goes down, but the finish is otherwise smooth and enjoyable and the ginger and honey meld well. I haven't thought about food pairings yet, but it goes well with blog writing.

I am honored that Joel Sommer, founder and guiding light of WinePress.us, included me among previews of a DVD WinePress will be releasing soon. Joel Sommer's "Introduction to Winemaking" is exactly what the title claims and is aimed at introducing and guiding the beginner through the essential techniques of making wine at home. He begins with the basic equipment and additives used by winemakers -- often a dazzling array of non-intuitive or technical names like racking cane, wine thief, hydrometer, and potassium metabisulfite -- and explains or demonstrates them so their roles become clear. He then guides the viewer through the various steps in making wine from commercial kits, from fresh or frozen fruit, and wraps it up with making wine from fresh Cabernet Sauvignon grapes. At every turn, Joel guides the viewer through the essential steps, explains how and why things are done, and opens the path to more advanced techniques. Thanks, Joel.

Speaking of WinePress.us, the first subject below is a rework of entries I made to a discussion on that forum. It occurred to me as I wrote my original comments that a greater discussion might be useful.

Clarity of Country Wines

A writer noted he had made apple, almond, and banana wines, all of which required pouring boiling water over the base ingredients prior to pitching the yeast. He found all three were very stubborn to clear. He added amylase to the banana wine and SuperKleer to the apple wine with relatively good results. He then questioned the practice of adding boiling water to fruit bases because he had heard that this causes the fruit to "set."

I have a lot of recipes, both adapted and original, that call for pouring boiling water in the primary, mostly to dissolve the sugar but also to kill wild yeast, bacteria and fungi that ride in on the skins of the fruit used to make good wine from. When one pours boiling water over the fruit and sugar, you can usually get away without adding sulfites to the must until later, to preclude browning and oxidation, but prudence says to play it safe because Murphy's Law says it can always go wrong. Luc Volders even reminded me of 30 liters of dandelion must that went south when sulfites would have saved it. Play it safe even if logic says you don't have to.

Because boiling water is poured over cold (or at least room temperature) fruit, the water quickly cools down from boiling to just very hot (perhaps even scalding). It does not "cook" the fruit, but it sure does things to the skin and pulp that is exposed to the heat. It softens tough skin so the yeast can get into it and work on the pigments, tannins and other phenols beneficial to wine. It also assists is dissolving sugars and flavorings from any pulp directly exposed to the hot water.

This brings me to the use of the word "set." The writer seems to use it as if it were a bad thing, but to experienced country wine makers "set" has a specific meaning that is not undesirable. Some pigments (mostly anthocyanins) are suspended in the juice and then the wine, while others are totally dissolved. Anyone who has made blackberry wine may have emptied a bottle and discovered the inside was coated with deposits of pigment -- anthocyanins -- that are no fun to remove. If you pour boiling water over the crushed blackberries the heat helps to change the anthocyanins so that more of them actually integrate into the must and become part of it. We say that the heat "sets" the fruit in that it "sets" the pigments so that more of them do not cling to the sides of the bottle but rather cling to the wine.

Does this heat "cook" the wine? What effect would it have on pectins in the fruit? First, water boils at 214 degrees F. (at sea level) and, if winemaking instructions involving boiling are followed, it is then removed from the heat and poured over the fruit. The much cooler fruit begin to absorb the heat from the water and reduces the temperature rapidly. Does it cook it?

If you've ever wanted to freeze a bushel of peaches you might do some reading and discover that people have been doing this for a long time. The best way to do it is to boil some water, drop a peach into it for 30 seconds, then remove it and under cold water scrape or pull the skin off the peach. The peach can then be cut into wedges, packed into containers and then frozen. Did the boiling water "cook" the peaches? Nyet! It simply cooked the skin and allowed it to detach from the peach easily.

What about pectin? At sea level, pectins begin to "set" or jell at 220 degrees F. and at 222 degrees F. they are all "set" (there are different pectins, so different temperatures come to play). If one removes the water when it comes to a boil (most instructions say something like, "Bring water to boil and pour over sugar and fruit in primary") it will never reach 220-222 degrees. Still, pectin may be there (most fruit have it) and prudence dictates that pectic enzyme be added at some point to negate it. Adding SuperKleer will clear an apple wine, but so will simple pectic enzyme.

To the originator of the thread I said bananas contain starch so adding amylase, a starch enzyme, is prudent. Bananas are actually 75% water, 23% carbohydrates, 1% protein, and 1% everything else. Only about 5% to 5.5% is starch, but it is starch locked in soft tissues and easily released by fruit breakdown and yeast activity. Pectins are found in trace amounts only. Thus, clarity problems with banana wines are almost always related to starches first and proteins second. Amylase neutralizes starch and dying yeast, excess tannins, bentonite, and Kieselsol all attract protein. With so little of the latter present, protein should not be a problem.

Almonds probably have a different problem, as their primary constituents are water, fat, crude protein, sugar, and ash (see Some chemical contents of selected almond (Prunus amygdalus Batsch) types). There is nothing in there that cannot be dealt with. If any oils (fats) managed to get micro-suspended in solution, they can be removed in several ways, but SuperKleer should do it. Certainly half-micron filtration will. But the SuperKleer will also remove protein, so that is probably your best bet.

I have made almond wines many times. They all cleared over time (I may have filtered one -- I don't really remember), but I bulk age most wines 9-15 months before bottleing. Most people don't, then get different results and wonder what went wrong. You don't compare an under-aged thing with an aged one. Sixteen-year old single-grain scotch cannot be compared to a 5- or 7- or even 12-year old.

The use of boiling water is not as cut and dried as I made it out to be. There are areas of controversy, but generally not over the statements I made regarding pyrophysiology. The biggest controversy is whether the heat destroys aroma and delicate flavor constituents in the must, especially in flower and certain fruit wines. I think the heat is fine. My opinion is empirically derived -- I make wonderful wines using this method. Others disagree based on some deductive belief that heat destroys.

The beauty of making wine for you own enjoyment is that it is okay to do it your way…as long as it works and as long as you don't misrepresent it to others. If cold maceration yields better aroma to you than hot, then by all means omit the heat.

I like to remind readers that with wine having been made for 8,000-10,000 years and under intense scientific scrutiny during the last 100-plus years, the things that work tend to be reflected in the thousands of recipes floating around while the things that don't are generally not mentioned. People don't write books about winemaking screw-ups.

On the other hand, there are bad books out there. I have a collection of winemaking books that encompass the epitome of bad winemaking practices. I have seen some of those recipes posted on popular forums, so they still circulate. Just because it is in print does not mean it is wise, worthy or true.

Study the methods and see if they make sense in light of what you know or what appears to be common practice. If something really sounds off-the-wall, it probably is. On the other hand, if it simply does something slightly different or in a different sequence than usual, it might (or might not) have merit. You will be better equipped to determine what is plausible and what is just way out there if you understand the underlying chemistry, physics or whatever science is at work. But if you have no interest in understanding the underlying sciences then just follow the best methods you can find, and if one appeals to you more than another then embrace it. Over time, successes and failures will dictate your choices.

Financial Values and Winemaking?

Today I listened to a financial planner talk about instilling attitudes and habits in your children that translate into sound financial values. These are not at all overtly obvious, like "put some money into savings each payday," or "always let interest work for you" or other traditional advice. No, these lessons include:

Develop a sense of gratitude.

Children who are grateful for what they have are less likely to grow up chasing status symbols or keeping up appearances. This skill of comparing value and cost serves them well when investing as they compare the price of an investment to its intrinsic value.

Build strong relationships.

Children who build a community of friends and loved ones are less likely to spend an entire weekend in malls and restaurants simply to be near other people. Calling up friends is a low-cost form of social entertainment.

Prepare simple, nutritious meals.

Teach your kids to scan the pantry and refrigerator, decide on an entrée and side accompaniments, get out the cookbook, and make a meal. Even a second- grader can learn how to throw together a quick breakfast or lunch, which arms them with skills necessary to avoid one of the single-most deterrents to adequate regular savings -- eating out.

Develop a low-cost hobby.

Hobbies force people to stop rushing around, focus their attention and developed discipline, whether making something by hand or sitting patiently. It also encourages "Get It Right" and "Try It Again" attitudes.

Upon hearing this last lesson I naturally though of winemaking as an excellent hobby. True, one can get caught up in buying kits and the latest and greatest winemaking gadget, but that's where a well-developed sense of gratitude acts as a balance. If you are genuinely grateful for the bounty you are blessed with, you won't need to get caught up in consumerism. I think this especially applies to foraged ingredients.

Some of my greatest wines were from foraged bases -- wild strawberries, blackberries, dewberries, huckleberries, blueberries, elderberries, mustang and other wild grapes, persimmons, plums, paw paws, dandelions, and on and on and on.... Going out into the country and collecting wild ingredients is part of the whole experience. Admittedly foraging doesn't fit everyone's lifestyle, location, circumstances, or desires but it is a lot of fun if it does and you manage to collect an ice chest of winemaking goodies while avoiding poison ivy, stinging nettles and chiggers.

It's something to think about.

• An Uninvited Guest, Luc Volders blog entry about his heartbreaking dandelion experience
• Bananas, Raw: Nutrition Facts, percentages are evident using the "small" serving size
• Clarity of Country Wines, original thread on WinePress.us
• History of Wine, see "Earliest History," on Wikipedia
• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

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October 10th, 2009

I found a bottle of 2005 tomato wine I didn't know I still had. I opened it with the fervent expectation I would dump it down the drain, so much so that I opened it in the sink! But, because you never know, I gave it a tentative sniff, then just tilted the bottle up and took a sip, ready to grab a glass and rinse. No need, It was terriffic -- much better than when it was just a year old. Had I known it was this good, I'd have saved it for the competition on the 18th.

Changing subjects, I use the word "fad" in my first subject title below. Maybe "fad" is the wrong word for some of you and I apologize if it is. "Compelling awareness" is far more accurate for some people I know, but "fad" still fits most. However, if your dietary supplement choices are guided by balanced, credible research and weighted decision-making, then by all means exclude yourself from the faddish majority. As for me, I'm somewhere in between the two extremes.

Açai Berries or Juice and the Super Antioxidant Fad

Several times in the past two months the subject of açai (pronounced ah-sah-ee) berry wine has come up, which is unusual, and that kindled a desire in me to write about it. I have in fact made two wines with açai juice, but as I sat down to write about it little nagging issues crept into my consciousness and could not be ignored. These had to do with where did this interest in açai come from? I think it arose from several quarters, but three have registered in my memory - appearance in markets, an avalanche of printed references, and Oprah reportedly said she loves it. I'm not sure if the appearance preceded the avalanche but that is how I noted it, and for the record I do not watch Oprah - I just see her mentioned in ads. The question, to me at least, then becomes, so what? Why should I buy this super-expensive juice, let alone consider making wine from it?

Marketing it as a "newly discovered wonder fruit" does not work with me. I have a built-in resistance to things I've never heard of before suddenly becoming the health supplement fad du jour. Gogi (a.k.a. goji), noni, wolfberries, xango, mangosteen, açai, and jaboticaba are all just fruit or berries from foreign lands that had limited export potential to the United States until their antioxidant values were hyped and marketed. We have fruit and berries here in the States with high antioxidant levels -- aronia, black raspberry, prune, bilberry, pomegranate, raisin, red raspberry, blueberry, and blackberry are all high in antioxidant value as measured by oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC) assay. Oh, but comparatively the foreign stuff has "super antioxidant" levels. That has to be better, right?

ORAC scores are just numbers. What is important is which phytochemicals that produce the scores are in the source and whether these compounds are metabolized extensively or absorbed effectively so that the antioxidants get used beneficially by our bodies. If you're marketing this stuff on the internet (and tens of thousands of people are), you're not interested in telling the whole story - just throwing out numbers you hope will drive up sales. I don't know for sure, but I think it probably works.

I'm sorry, but when it comes to health foods and dietary supplements I think the average American is a very poor shopper - some of you are excellent, I know, but I'm talking average. On average, we have no idea what antioxidants and free radicals are, just that they are good for you and the more the better. But that isn't necessarily true.

Let us suppose that you understand that effectively metabolized antioxidants scavenge free radicals and this is good for you, and that the United States Department of Agriculture recommends we consume 3,000 to 5,000 ORAC units of antioxidants daily to optimize our health and mitigate unhealthy risk factors. According to the USDA, just 0.7 ounces of açai berry or wolfberry will deliver 5,000 ORAC units, so just get this stuff, take a full ounce "just to be sure," and go out for a bacon-double-cheeseburger, right? Of course not, and it isn't just because you forgot to put avocado on that bacon-double-cheeseburger.

There are several rules of life you ought to memorize and follow. Three of them apply here. First, with rare exceptions, simple solutions to complex problems are always inadequate. Second, with even rarer exceptions, one size does not fit all. Third, also with rare exceptions, more than the optimum is wasteful.

Because all antioxidants and free radicals are not the same, we need to consume a variety of types of antioxidants to do the most good. Although açai and wolfberry may indeed be extremely high in antioxidants, we still need to eat garlic, spinach, yellow squash, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, beets, ground cloves (really high), vitamins C and E, cocoa powder, dark chocolate, red onions, avocado (just without the bacon-double-cheeseburger), and all those healthy foods many of us eased out of our diet once we were on our own.

Many berries get their high ORAC scores from anthocyanins in the pigments that produce the blue, purple and red colors, but anthocyanins are not terribly stable and a great deal of it does not get absorbed into our bodies. And, unfortunately, our bodies normally absorb only so many antioxidants, so exceeding that amount is simply wasteful. Knowing that amount may require consulting a dietician, but they are educated in these matters and most of us are not.

Açai Berries or Juice and Wine

Açai juice has been appearing in more and more supermarkets in small, rather costly bottles, usually displayed with other refrigerated "super juices" adjacent to or near the produce department. It has become one of those juices you never heard of before but suddenly it is mentioned everywhere healthy diets or supplements are discussed. Third, everyone peddling this stuff as dietary supplements feels compelled to mention that Oprah loves it or some such meaningless attribution. Okay. She's a billionaire and can afford to fill her swimming pool with açai juice if the itch strikes her, but what about the rest of us? Does the stuff make such an outstanding wine that you should suffer the expense to try it?

Açai berries: the wine may not be worth the price

I have tried and have not yet been able to obtain açai berries here in Texas, although one gourmet store said they would try to get some (I fear the price and have not returned). I have had no problem finding the juice, which is also quite expensive but different brands differ greatly on that. I've done side-by-side label comparisons and it appears the ones claiming to be pure juice are just that and cost the most. I don't trust the less expensive ones that are "reconstituted from concentrate (filtered water, concentrate)" as they could easily over-dilute the concentrate by 20% and, not knowing what the full flavor is, I would never know. Anyway, I have made two rather expensive batches of açai wine.

The first batch was mixed with blueberry juice before fermentation and I think this was a mistake. The wine came out nice I think, but possessed a minor fault. The mistake was in combining the two juices before fermentation. I had no idea what the fermented açai should taste like and could not judge whether a slightly sharp fruitiness experienced along the back sides of the tongue was natural, an off-taste due to a minor winemaking fault or the result of the two juices possessing a minor incompatibility. I added sugar to the finished wine in an attempt to mask the annoying imperfection and in the process the wine became sweeter than either my wife or I care for. Other people liked it, but at $11 a bottle I really wanted something I liked.

My second batch was even more expensive as I used just açai juice and additives but did dilute it by half. However, my purpose was to do some blending trials and see what worked and what didn't. I drew off several 500 mL samples and blended these with Niagara, Concord, blackberry, pomegranate, cherry, and blueberry. Interestingly, I never found a blending ratio with pomegranate or cherry that I liked at ratios of 80/20, 60/40, 40/60, and 20/80. Blackberry came close to blending well, but lacked something I could not identify. Blueberry blended well, but as a minor (30%) component; heavier than that and I began to notice that sharpness I noted in the first batch. It blended well with both grapes and in various ratios, but I think the Niagara allowed the açai to shine better than did the Concord.

In retrospect, I wish I had had some apple wine to try blending, but I didn't. That might be a better choice than Niagara, as might rhubarb and possibly even banana. It also occurred to me that there are two muscadine wines that might blend well with açai -- Tara and Southern Home. Magnolia is a potential third and Nobel a fourth. It might also blend well with white mustang, but probably not the red -- the mustang flavor would surely overwhelm the açai.

As you can see, I would like to play with this berry some more, but I'll have to wait until the price comes down to where the rest of the economy resides. Açai juice is good, but I don't think its flavor (or its "super antioxidant" value) warrants the current price.

If someone wins the lottery and wants to try this, I would I would suggest you consider fermenting straight açai juice (you probably wouldn't want to dilute it if you won the lottery) and do blending trials as I did. That way if you get it wrong you are only getting a small sample wrong, and once you find the best ratio you can even correct the one(s) that went wrong.

Finally, I only blended dry wines. I well know the results could differ significantly if blending sweet wines, or a dry and a sweet, or two drys and a sweet, etc. The only compound blend I did was I added some Niagara to the açai -pomegranate in an attempt to rescue it, but I really needed more açai wine to explore that avenue adequately. I was shy because I drank the remaining 780 mL of açai wine. It was good, but not fantastic -- not as good as jaboticaba or aronia are as straight wines.

Flavoring Extracts

On a popular winemaking forum someone asked about flavoring extracts he saw on a winemaking supplier's website. I read the various replies and was surprised at how readily some of the respondents embraced a practice I consider to be on the line between what is and is not acceptable in winemaking. I then expressed that opinion and stirred up a controversy that is still drawing comments. There is much to discuss on this subject, and I wanted to revisit and flesh it out here.

I take pride in taking base ingredients and making wine from them. Well, not always. I've dumped a few batches I was not proud of. But when the flavor is not what I want, I work with it -- tweak it if I can -- before rushing to the drain. By tweak I mean any of several things.

• The desired tweak is adding a little of the unfermented juice of the base, if I have it; this is called adding a "sweet reserve" whether the juice is sweet or not (if not, I usually add a little sugar, as sugar usually does bring out flavor).
• If I don't have any unfermented juice, I might just try adding a little sugar. Often it just takes a little to rescue a "thin" flavor. By the same token, adding a little acid will also often rescue a wine -- add the dominant acid of the fruit or acid blend.
• I will add frozen concentrate if I have it (I have about 12 varieties in my chest freezer). This requires drawing off a sample and playing with it to find the optimum amount to add lest you add to much. Once you add too much to the whole batch, you've flawed it.
• If I do not have the same flavor to add (as a reserve or concentrate), then I add a flavor that will complement the base. Adding cranberry, grape, chokecherry, aronia, serviceberry or any number of things to a weak cherry will almost always work; it changes the wine, but rarely for the worse and usually for the better. Think about it and you will come up with many complements for other wines as well.
• You can also blend wines to rescue a weak wine, but do trials first lest you simply create a larger batch of weak wine. You have to have a strong blender or you are spinning your wheels, but even if you don't have one you can make one. The weak wine will wait.
• There are flavored fruit syrups - all kinds. These can be added to a must prior to fermentation and fermented with the base. They increase the flavor and add some fermentable sugars to the must - some add a significant amount, so add them before you add sugar so your specific gravity is correct. But be very careful with fruit syrups. Many contain sorbic acid or benzoic acid to prevent the syrups from fermenting, so obviously you do not want to add these to your must.

One thing you did not see in the list above is reaching for an artificial flavoring extract. Color me old fashioned, but I was taught to take pride in my work, work out any problems honorably, and don't "fudge" and pretend you didn't. Those flavorings may be fine for you, but to me they are artificial and don't belong in wines made from scratch. However, if you do use them, they should be listed on the label. When I say label, I am specifically speaking of the bottle tag or label used to list essential information for wines entered in competition. What you put on the label of bottles you drink or give away is your affair, but competitions have rules and all flavored ingredients are routinely required to be listed. That means you don't list yeast nutrient or Campden tablets, but do list oak essence ("oak" is usually sufficient), fruit syrups and candies added for flavor (Jolly Ranchers, mints, etc.).

A question was asked about Island Mist Premium Fruit Flavored Wine Kits, which use an "F-Pack" of fruit flavoring to create such wonders as Peach Apricot Chardonnay, Black Raspberry Merlot, Blackberry Cabernet, Green Apple Riesling, Blueberry Pinot Noir, etc. Island Mist claims the "F-Packs" contain "natural fruit flavoring and concentrate" which sounds natural to me, but the L.D. Carlson Fruit Flavors for Wine and Beer sold by local homebrew shops do not use natural fruit flavors and concentrate. Regardless of flavor, they are decidedly clear and colorless. The writer of that comment was not insinuating there was equivalency between the Island Mist "F-Pack" and the L.D. Carlson flavorings, but rather he equated natural flavored syrups to "F-Packs," something even I did that in my list up above.

Someone else commented on McCormick extracts, available in almost every supermarket in America. I went in the kitchen and looked at my wife's collection of extracts. We have a mix of three brands - McCormick, Watkins and Adams. Every single McCormick extract we have (we have seven) begins with the word "Imitation." Every single Watkins extract we have (we have six) contains the word "Artificial" on the front label. We only have two Adams extracts, and both claim to be a "blend of propylene glycol, water, alcohol, and oil of [almond or anise]." However, I know Adams also makes imitation fruit extracts

People, especially new winemakers, want their strawberry wine to taste like fresh strawberries, their blackberry wine to taste like fresh blackberries, and so on. I don't know why it takes time to learn this, but the process of fermentation changes the flavor profile of the base significantly. Grape wines do not taste like grape juice, so why would one expect a peach wine to taste like fresh peaches or a cherry wine to taste like fresh cherries? I think it is the disappointment of not tasting what one unrealistically expected to taste that leads people to doctor their wines with flavorings. Well, if you do that and don't say so, expect to be embarrassed. Any experienced winemaker will know the flavor is too fruity, more like fruit juice than wine. But they will often taste an off-flavor as well because extracts have a certain off-ness to them. It doesn't show in cookies or cake or jelly - maybe the oven or stovetop heat drives it off -- but it sure steps forward in wines.

My wife and I visited a number of area wineries while attending a Pierce-Arrow annual meet in Kalamazoo, Michigan. There were lots of fruit wines to sample, but we absolutely loved the cherry wines. They did not, of course, taste like fresh cherries, but they did taste like very good cherry wines. While in a tasting room, we heard a member of the winery staff tell a young lady, "You just haven't developed your wine buds yet, those taste buds that taste the fermented juice - the wine -- and still recognize the essential flavor of the unfermented juice."

I've thought about that comment many times. I'm not sure I totally accept what she said, but quite often I taste a wine and somewhere up in my brain a profound connection is made with some essential quality of commonality between the flavor of the wine and the flavor of the unfermented fruit. This isn't just recognition, but something deeper. Maybe it's my "wine buds," but more than likely it is something else, something cognitive. Whatever it is, I like it and don't want it ruined with artificial flavorings.

• Acai Berry Wine, the original thread at WinePress.us
• Does Anyone Use Fruit Extracts?, the original thread at WinePress.us
• Adams Extracts, 6 of their 17 extracts are narural
• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

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October 4th, 2009

Bottling a mead this morning sent me to the keyboard to discuss varietal meads. I wanted to provide the recipe I used, but also wanted to discuss making dry, semi-sweet and sweet varietal meads. The method does not vary, so I was able to do this in an abbreviated format. I hope it is as understandable to you as it is to me.

Then my day was interrupted by a nap, lunch and a trip over to the county fairgrounds to see how my entries did. I entered 5 wines, a jar of Cabernet Sauvignon Wine Jelly, a jar of Black Cherry, Orange and Walnut Marmalade, and a pint of pickled 'Moon and Stars' Watermelon Rind pieces. Everything entered won at least a first place, plus I picked up Grand Champion with the marmalade and a Lemon Wine and Reserve Grand Champion with a Strawberry Wine. On the way home, I decided to share the Lemon Wine recipe. So today's entry contains four recipes, an unusual occurrence.

Varietal (Show) Meads

I woke up at 4:43, too early to think about breakfast, and so I bottled a varietal mead. Varietals are traditional or show meads, made with honey and water and prudent additives, but no additional flavorings. The difference between a common, generic show mead and a varietal is the latter is made with a single-source or varietal honey and assumes the source's name. My mead was made with mesquite honey originating from the Uvalde, Texas area and therefore is a mesquite mead, but there are many varieties available.

My first varietal mead was orange blossom, then clover, columbine, sage, and wildflower. I went through a long period without making any mead at all, but at a shop on a day-trip my wife and I tasted a number of Texas honeys and I bought several. Our favorite was the lightly colored huajillo, a native thorned brush of the Legume family with mimosa-like flowers, but we also bought some mesquite, bluebonnet and huisache. I only made mead with the huajillo, as the other honeys were bought in insufficient quantities for this purpose.

I have bought a number of honeys since then in 25-pound cans from Homebrew Adventures and other sources. Among my favorites for mead were raspberry, tupelo, blueberry, firewood, and heather. But a couple of years ago at a county fair I met a honey producer who had lost most of his bees due to the honey bee die-off and was liquidating his inventory and retiring. As the fair was closing up, I met with him and got a good deal on 15 pounds of mesquite honey, which I used to make the third mead below.

These recipes are, I believe, the best for varietal meads. Different honeys, however, may require adjustments. The method is the same for each recipe and each makes one gallon. For more, do the math.

Varietal Mead, Dry

• 2-2 1/2 lbs quality varietal honey
• 1 tsp yeast nutrient
• 1-3/8 tsp citric acid
• 1/4 tsp yeast energizer
• Water to make up 1 gal (about 3 liters
• 1 sachet Montrachet yeast

Boil the honey in half the water, stirring occasionally until the honey is dissolved. Reduce heat to simmer for 30 minutes, skimming all scum off top as it forms. Stir in citric acid, yeast energizer and yeast nutrient. Cover primary and set aside until it assumes room temperature. Add activated yeast as a starter solution and recover the primary to keep dust and insects out. Stir daily until fermentation ends - about 2 weeks. Transfer mead to secondary and attach airlock. Retain in secondary for 60 days from transfer date. Rack to a sanitized secondary, top up and reattach airlock. Set aside undisturbed for 60 days and rack again. If brilliantly clear, wait 30 days to see if light dusting develops on bottom. If so, wait additional 30 days and rack, top up and reattach airlock for another 30 days. If not brilliantly clear, wait full 60 days and rack, top up and reattach airlock. Then follow previous instructions when mead is brilliantly clear. Sulfite with one finely crushed and dissolved Campden tablet, bottle and set aside to age one year minimum. [Author's own recipe]

Varietal Mead, Semi-Sweet

• 2 1/2 - 3 lbs quality varietal honey
• 1 1/4 tsp yeast nutrient
• 1 1/2 tsp citric acid
• 1/4 tsp yeast energizer
• Water to make up 1 gal (about 3 liters
• 1 sachet Montrachet yeast

Method: Same as for Varietal Mead, Dry. [Author's own recipe]

Varietal Mead, Sweet

• 3 - 3 3/4 lbs quality varietal honey
• 1 1/2 tsp yeast nutrient
• 1 5/8 tsp citric acid
• 1/4 tsp yeast energizer
• Water to make up 1 gal (about 3 liters)
• 1 sachet Montrachet yeast

Method: Same as for Varietal Mead, Dry. [Author's own recipe]

Grand Champion Lemon Wine

Lemon wine surprises people. They expect an alcoholic lemonade and instead get a full-bodied wine with thirst-quenching, lemony taste. It is best as an off-dry wine, but I have made it semi-sweet for competitions and it just claimed Grand Champion. Easy to make, it does require bulk and bottle aging to come into its own.

There are basically six medium-sized, tart, juicy, commercial 'real' lemons most of us are familiar with. 'Eureka' originated in California and forms an open, spreading tree, with virtually thornless branches and twigs and is the most widely available variety. 'Lisbon' originated in Australia and is characterized by a rather dense tree having numerous upright, thorny branches. Most lemons in the supermarket will be one or the other of these two varieties. But you might also fine 'Armstrong' or 'Femminello Ovale,' both of which grow on thornless trees, or 'Genoa' (very thorny) or 'Villa Franca' (moderately thorny). All are very tart. Rarely encountered in the U.S., 'Dorshapo' is a true lemon from Brazil that closely resembles 'Eureka' in fruit and tree characteristics, but is a sweet lemon of very low acidity.

Then there are hybrids. The 'Meyer' has almost completely been replaced with the 'Improved Meyer,' which is mildly tart, thin-skinned, yellow-orange skin and flesh, medium-sized fruit highly prized for eating. 'Monachello' is similarly sized and mildly tart, but not very juicy. 'Rough' and 'Sungold' are moderately tart and medium sized; 'Rough' has a rough-textured skin and 'Sungold' has yellow skin with greenish stripes. 'Perrine' is a lemon-lime hybrid with some lime flavor. 'Ponderosa' is a very tart, juicy, very thick-skinned lemon of grapefruit size. 'Millsweet' is another lemon-lime hybrid of medium size, with yellow-orange, bumpy skin and pale yellow, low-acid interior with few seeds.

I used two specific lemon varieties - 'Implroved Meyer' and 'Millsweet' - you may or may not be able to acquire. Both were gifts from friends who have trees and I used four fruit of each type. You will note above that these possess mildly tart and low acid character, which muted the intensity of the flavor. Do not expect the same results if you cannot obtain one or the other of these varieties (both would be hoping for too much), but if you cannot obtain lemons with mild or moderate tartness, then use only six lemons and two sweet, juicy 'Valencia' oranges.

Grand Champion Lemon Wine Recipe

• 4 'Improved Meyer' lemons, juice, plus zest from two
• 4 'Millsweet' lemons, juice only
• 11.5 oz. can Welch's 100% White Grape Juice frozen concentrate
• 2 lbs finely granulated sugar
• 2 finely crushed Campden tablets
• 1/2 tsp. potassium sorbate
• 200 mL Finest Call Premium Triple Sec Syrup
• Water to make up 1 gal (about 3 liters)
• 1 1/4 tsp yeast nutrient
• 1 sachet Montrachet yeast

Boil water and dissolve sugar in it. Grate the zest from 2 lemons into primary. Juice all lemons and add juice to primary. Add grape juice to primary and add sugar water. Cover primary and set aside to cool to room temperature. Add yeast nutrient and one finely crushed and dissolved Campden tablet. After 12 hours, add yeast. Ferment until specific gravity drops to 1.010 (6-8 days). Rack into secondary, top up if required and fit airlock. In 6 weeks, rack, add potassium sorbate and second finely crushed and dissolved Campden tablet, top up and refit airlock. Age 6 months, checking water in airlock periodically. Add Triple Sec Syrup, refit airlock and wait two weeks. Rack into bottles and age additional 6 months before tasting. [Author's own recipe]

• Honey Locator, National Honey Board's search engine, by country, state, supplier, floral type, etc.
• Four Winds Citrus Variety List, scroll down to Lemons
• Lemon Wines, three other recipes on my site
• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

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October 2nd, 2009

I spent the last six nights watching Ken Burns' magnificent 12-hour series, "The National Parks," on my PBS channel. I am so glad I did. Not only did I learn much of the incredible history of the parks, I was utterly overwhelmed by the shear beauty of the ideas expressed, the poetic prose used to express them, the music that assisted so very well in the telling, and of course the breathtaking photography.

I was fortunate enough to have visited many of the western parks with my family as a youngster and on my own as the Army moved me to Texas, California, Washington, Virginia, and Colorado - all richly blessed with their own caches of unrivalled beauty.

The series stirred many memories and awakened within a yearning to return to familiar valleys, vistas and heights, and then go on to see the many national treasures I have missed. You don't know what this country is until you have seen the awe-inspiring wonders our predecessors were wise enough to preserve for us and the generations yet unborn. That each and every step of this preservation was bitterly fought by selfish interests makes the whole that much more astounding. That anyone could stand on the floor of Yosemite Valley or on the rim of the Grand Canyon or in the reflection of the Grand Tetons and not naturally think of preserving them unspoiled is beyond my comprehension. I sincerely hope it is beyond yours, too.

And now, let's talk about wine.

Mixed Fruit and Berry Wine

A wonderful couple in Tennessee who has been so generous to me by sharing their wines, recipes and secrets have sent me a number of wines and meads made from mixed berries and fruit. While drinking one of these, I became inspired and rummaged through my freezer for hidden treasures. I found a few worthy ingredients and one I questioned but used anyway. I am truly glad I did.

I found some Kiowa blackberries, a gift from a fellow who traded them for a white mustang rooted cutting. They would form the backbone of my wine. I then dug out some freezer-burned mission figs, some chokecherries a friend brought me from San Juan, Colorado, about a cup and a half of blueberries I didn't know we still had (or they would have gone into pancakes long ago), and an unrecognizable mass I had to thaw to identify as oriental persimmons. As I weighed and contemplated my finds, my eyes kept returning to those pathetic looking mission figs. I almost didn't use them, but they made the total weigh 4 pounds 5 ounces - 69 ounces - and the number seduced me. The figs were in.

I bottled the wine tonight. Do not question magical numbers. They are magical for a reason. I drank the 3 1/2 ounces left over from the bottling and I am so glad I used the figs. I could not specifically taste them, but I am certain they counter-balanced the chokecherries and contributed significantly to the heavy fruitiness. I added the grape concentrate as an afterthought when I needed to top up. That, too, worked out well, so I am writing it up as I did it. Neither you nor I will ever have the ingredients required to duplicate this wine, so use it as a guide and be your own chef.

Mixed Fruit and Berry Wine Recipe

• 1 lb 6 oz frozen Kiowa blackberries
• 1 lb 3 oz frozen Mission Figs
• 13 oz frozen chokecherries
• 10 oz frozen Oriental persimmon pulp
• 5 oz frozen blueberries
• 1 cup Welch's frozen Red Grape Concentrate
• 1 lb 5 oz granulated sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp acid blend
• 3 quarts + 1 cup water
• 2 finely crushed and dissolved Campden tablets
• 1 1/2 tsp yeast nutrient
• Lalvin RC212 wine yeast

Thaw the fruit and berries thoroughly. Chop the figs and crush the chokecherries and anything else needing it. Inside a primary, pour the fruit and berries together in a nylon straining bag and tie closed. Add sugar, acid blend and yeast nutrient, then add water and stir until sugar is dissolved. Add activated yeast in a starter solution and cover the primary. Stir and punch down the bag twice a day until s.g. drops below 1.020. Drip drain bag about one-half hour but do not squeeze. Discard pulp. Transfer to secondary and add 1 cup thawed grape concentrate. Attach airlock and set aside 6 weeks in dark place. Rack, top up, reattach airlock, and set aside additional 6 weeks in dark place. Rack again, add 1 finely crushed and dissolved Campden tablet, top up, affix airlock, and set in dark place for six months. Add second finely crushed and dissolved Campden tablet, reattach airlock, allow Campden to integrate for a week, then carefully bottle. I will age it for 6 months before tasting. [Author's own recipe]

Grams, Useful for Precision

Long ago I made a decision to write for the beginner as well as the advanced winemaker. The beginner uses teaspoons, cups, pints, pounds, ounces, et cetera, and their fractions. The advanced winemaker uses grams, kilograms, milliliters and liters. The primary difference between the two genres of measure is precision, and when measuring non-base ingredients (chemicals, enzymes, etc.) to be added to wine, you really do want to be precise. Asked what instrument I would recommend a winemaker obtain after a hydrometer, without hesitation I say an accurate, reliable gram scale.

The gram was originally defined as "the absolute weight of a volume of pure water equal to the cube of the hundredth part of a metre, and at the temperature of melting ice." Today it is easier to think of it simply as one one-thousandth of a kilogram.

As long as we are discussing precision, we should also talk about correctness. Just as one can be precise by using exact measures, so too can one be correct by using accepted conventions. Together, precision and correctness leave nothing to interpretation. There is a difference between gravity and specific gravity. Do not say one and mean the other. There is also a correctness in abbreviations for measures. I have seen people abbreviate gram/grams as gr, gm, grm, gms, and grms, but correctly it is simply g whether singular or plural. It should always be separated from the numeric value by a space, so 17 g is correct and 17g is incorrect. When recording sub-decimal numbers, they should be preceded by a number or a zero, so 0.44 g is correct and .44 g is incorrect. The same rule applies to specific gravity; 0.994 is correct, but .994 is incorrect.

Incidentally, gr means grain, which is 64.7989 milligrams (mg), so if you write "add 1.5 gr" but mean "add 1.5 g", your instruction is to add 97.198 mg when you actually mean 1500 mg.

Here are some useful conversions from "spoons" to grams:

Chemical	¼ Tsp	1 Tsp	1 Tblsp
Acid blend, powder Ascorbic acid, powder Bentonite, agglomerated Calcium carbonate, powder Citric acid, powder Diammonium phosphate, powder Fermaid Yeast Nutrient, powder Fumaric acid, powder Gelatin, powder Grape tannin, powder Isinglass, powder Malic acid, powder Oak-Mor, special and premium Oak-Mor, toasted Polyclar V, powder Polyclar VT, powder Potassium bicabonate, powder Potassium bitartrate, powder Potassium caseinate, powder Potassium metabisulfite, powder Potassium sorbate, prilled Sparkolloid, powder Tartaric acid, powder Yeast hulls, powder Yeastex 61, powder	1.2 grams 0.9 grams 0.8 grams 0.5 grams 1.1 grams 1.2 grams 1.0 grams 1.3 grams 0.8 grams 0.6 grams - 1.1 grams - - - - 0.7 grams 0.8 grams 0.7 grams 1.4 grams 0.6 grams - 1.3 grams 0.6 grams 0.8 grams	5.1 grams 4.6 grams 3.4 grams 2.6 grams 4.9 grams 4.9 grams 4.6 grams 5.3 grams 3.2 grams 2.8 grams 2.4 grams 4.5 grams 1.2 grams 1.4 grams 1.3 grams 1.2 grams 3.3 grams 3.8 grams 3.0 grams 6.2 grams 2.5 grams 1.0 grams 5.0 grams 2.8 grams 3.3 grams	14.4 grams 13.8 grams 11.1 grams 06.7 grams 14.4 grams 14.7 grams 14.7 grams 16.0 grams 09.6 grams 07.8 grams 07.2 grams 13.2 grams 03.6 grams 04.2 grams 04.3 grams 03.9 grams 10.6 grams 10.2 grams 09.0 grams 20.0 grams 03.6 grams 07.5 grams 15.2 grams 08.7 grams 09.6 grams

You can actually get by with a gram scale that only measures down to a tenth of a gram - I used a small balance scale for years that did just that and now use a digital scale that does the same - but there are specific additives that require measurement to the hundredth of a gram to achieve accuracy. For example, if you use potassium benzoate instead of potassium sorbate to stabilize your wine before sweetening, the correct dose is 0.44 g per US gallon, not 0.4 or 0.5. Such scales are available in a wide variety of prices. As with most products, you get the quality you pay for.

• The National Parks, the PBS site about the series and the parks
• Measuring Additives in Winemaking, these and other measures, on my site
• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

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September 30th, 2009

Last Sunday I drove to Victoria, Texas to judge the Czech Heritage Home Wine Competition. This has always been a fine event with a wide variety of entries and this year was no different. Best of Show was taken by a wonderfully fruity table wine made from a hybrid grape known as Favorite. Runner-up was a blueberry port. I have often written about blueberry-elderberry port, but only once have mentioned blueberry alone. I will correct that today.

There are several highway routes from Pleasanton, Texas to Victoria, but for speed and ease I usually take Interstate 37 south to U.S. 59, then take 59 northeastward through Beeville and Goliad to Victoria. It is not the shortest route, but it is certainly the quickest. It offers a bonus. There is a stretch of U.S. 59 bordered with hundreds if not thousands of acres of wild Texas sage, and if it has rained within the previous two weeks the sage is adorned with a profusion of purple flowers.

Wine from the Texas Purple Sage

Due to recent rains, as I drove through sage country last Sunday I was greeted with a show of millions of purple flowers. Since my arrival at the wine competition could not be delayed, I drove past the showy display and promised to stop on the trip home, which I did. It took me about 25 minutes to pick two quarts of flowers. An hour later I was at home and prepared to make a wine.

Wild Texas purple sage brush and close-up of blooms after rains

Texas Sage (Leucophyllum frutescens) has several other names, with Texas Ranger and Silverleaf Sage being the two most common. After observing it in bloom, many people mistakenly call it Purple Sage. True Purple Sage has leaves with a purplish upper surface, which this does not have. I will combine the names and call it Texas Purple Sage for popularity's sake, not for strict correctness. I beg the botanists to forgive me.

Mixing bowl with two quarts of Texas purple sage blossoms

When I picked the flowers I purposely tried not to pick the leaves, knowing this was a futile effort. I actually did want some leaves in there for flavor, just not too many, and trying to avoid them turned out to be the right strategy. The ones I accidently picked with the blossoms turned out to be just about the right number. I measured the flowers and had slightly more than two quarts, not packed. Since I have never made this wine before and had no recipe to guide me, two quarts would do fine.

Texas Purple Sage Wine Recipe

• 2 qts Texas Sage flowers
• 1 lb 12 oz finely granulated sugar
• 11-oz can 100% White Grape Juice frozen concentrate
• 2 1/2 tsp acid blend
• 1/2 tsp pectic enzyme
• 7 pts water
• 1 1/4 tsp yeast nutrient
• 1 tsp dried wine yeast

Bring water to boil in large pot and stir in sugar until dissolved. Remove from heat and stir in flowers and grape juice concentrate. Cover the pot and set aside to cool. When under 90 degrees F., transfer to primary and stir in remaining ingredients less yeast. Cover the primary and set aside 8-10 hours. Add activated yeast as a starter solution. Re-cover, set aside and stir daily. After three days strain out flowers but leave must to ferment in primary. When vigorous fermentation subsides, transfer to secondary, affix airlock and wait until all evidence of fermentation ceases. Rack, top up, reattach airlock, and set aside for 30 days. If clear, rack again, stabilize, sweeten to taste if desired, top up, reattach airlock, and wait final 30 days. If not clear, rack and wait additional 30 days before racking, stabilizing, sweetening, and waiting final 30 days. If no new lees form during this final 30 days, rack into bottles. If even a fine dusting appears, wait an additional 30 days and very carefully rack into bottles. Taste at three months but be prepared to wait longer if needed. [Author's own recipe]

Blueberry Port

The Best of Show wine at the Home Wine Competition last Sunday in Victoria, Texas was a blueberry port. I do not know what recipe, if any, the winemaker used, but I know the recipe below makes an excellent blueberry port. This recipe differs slightly from another recipe appearing elsewhere on my site. This recipe calls for 6-8 pounds of blueberries. I have made it with both weights and can honestly say that the port does not suffer using the lesser amount. As for the red grape concentrate, I used Welch's frozen concentrate (Concord) one time and a Zinfandel concentrate the other time. They were both excellent.

Blueberry Port Recipe

• 6-8 lbs blueberries
• 1/2 pt red grape concentrate
• 1/2 c light dry malt
• 1 3/4 lbs granulated sugar
• 1/2 tsp pectic enzyme
• 1 1/2 tsp acid blend
• 4 pts water
• 1/2 tsp potassium sorbate
• 1 finely crushed Campden tablet
• 1 tsp yeast nutrient
• 1/2 tsp yeast energizer
• dried wine yeast

Wash and crush blueberries in nylon straining bag in primary fermentation vessel. Stir in all other ingredients except potassium sorbate, yeast and red grape concentrate. Stir well to dissolve sugar, cover primary, and set aside for 24 hours. Add yeast, cover, and daily stir ingredients and press pulp in nylon bag to extract flavor. When specific gravity is 1.030 or less (about 5 days), strain juice from bag and siphon liquor off sediments into glass secondary fermentation vessel. Volume may be low, which is okay at this time. Attach airlock. Rack in three weeks, top up and reattach airlock. Wait two months and rack into clean secondary containing finely crushed and dissolved (1/4 cup water) Campden tablet and potassium sorbate. When wine is clear and stable, rack into larger secondary or primary and add red grape concentrate and 3/4 cup 100 proof vodka or brandy. Stir gently to mix and integrate and then bottle. Allow a year to mature. [Author's own recipe]

• Leucophyllum frutescens, information on the plant
• Leucophyllum frutescens, more information on the plant
• Texas Sage: Leucophyllum frutescens, still more information on the plant
• Winemaking Recipes, my site, scroll down to Blueberry Port Wine
• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

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September 26th, 2009

There are people out there watching out for me and I appreciate them. I posted my September 23rd entry late at night and then headed for the shower. I didn't visually confirm the page, which I usually do. Too bad. It wasn't there. In fact, nothing was. I had edited a minor #include file and uploaded it to the wrong directory. When the page tried to load it couldn't find the #include and the whole thing failed. I was unaware until I woke up and turned on my email. Whoa! Lots of people looking out for me! Thank you one and all!

It's easy to forget - well, not exactly forget, but not be thinking about - that just because it is midnight here it does not mean it is midnight everywhere. Thankfully, people on the West Coast, in Hawaii, the Philippines, Australia, etc. are still up, even if some are in a different day (think about it), and some of them read my blog. Thank you all for your emails, and everyone else who wrote that there was something wrong with my alignment of the heather images. There certainly was. HTML 101: whenever you open a feature with an opening tag, you have to close that feature with an ending tag. Duh!

Thanks again, all. I appreciate the concern (or annoyance, or whatever motivates you to tell me something is wrong).

Pluots

I received phone call last night from an old acquaintance in California who asked if I could help him make a pluot wine. Pluots, a complex hybrid crossing of plum and apricot, were an oddity just 15 years ago but now are widely grown and marketed, with fruit readily available from late May through October. Pluots are typically larger than plums and sweeter than either ancestor. They make an excellent wine, but first a word about pluots themselves.

Pluots should not be confused with plumcots (simple plum X apricot crosses) or apriums (3/4 apricot, 1/4 plum). Plumcots were developed by the legendary Luther Burbank over a century ago; they lack the intense sweetness and flavors of pluots. Apriums are about as sweet as pluots but have a completely different flavor profile. They, too, make a wonderful wine. Pluots range from being 60% to 75% plum, and everyone I know who has tasted pluot wine prefers it to plum wine any day.

Pluot varieties Dapple Dandy (l), Flavor Queen (c) and Raspberry Jewel (r)

Pluots vary in color, both outwardly and in the flesh. Their skin tends to be mottled, speckled, dappled or non-specific multicolored in a wide range of colors. Their flesh can vary from almost cream to green to yellow to orange to pink to red to purple to anywhere in between. Pluot varieties include (only a partial list):

• Crimson Sweet: Sweet flavor, medium-sized, Crimson skin with pinkish flesh. Available in June.
• Dapple Dandy: Large size with mottled pale green to yellow, red-spotted skin, red or pink juicy flesh. Available July through August and easily shipped (due to the firm nature of the flesh).
• Early Dapple: Good flavor, medium-sized, mottled green over red skin with pink flesh. Available mid June.
• Flavor Delight: Medium-sized, fuchsia-honey colored skin with pink flesh. Available in June.
• Flavor Fall: Large size, average flavor, Red skin with yellow flesh. Available the end of September and the first of October
• Flavor Grenade: Large size, oblong shape with red blush on green background, yellow juicy flesh. Available the end of July through August.
• Flavor Heart: very large, black with a heart shape, and yellow flesh.
• Flavor Jewel: Sweet flavor, heart shaped, red over yellow skin with yellow flesh.
• Flavor King: Fruit punch flavor, medium size, with burgundy skin and red super sweet juicy flesh. Available end of August first of September. Flesh of this is hard until fully ripe which takes time to complete.
• Flavor Prince: large round and purple, with red flesh.
• Flavor Queen: Medium to large size, very juicy flesh. Taste is very sweet and when fully ripe (golden yellow colour). Available the end of June to mid August.
• Flavor Rich: medium-sweet, large black round fruit with orange flesh.
• Flavor Royal: very sweet, medium-sized, dark purple with crimson flesh. Available end of May through first weeks of June.
• Flavor Supreme: medium or large, greenish purple skin, juicy red flesh.
• Flavorosa: very sweet , medium-sized, flat round dark-purple fruit with red flesh. Available end of May through first weeks of June.
• Raspberry Jewel: medium, dark red skin, brilliant red honey-sweet flesh.[6]
• Red Ray: medium, bright red with dense, sweet orange flesh
• Splash: Small to medium sized red-orange colored fruit, with very sweet orange flesh. Available mid July.
• Sweet Treat: Super sweet with hints of thompson grape flavor, green golden skin with yellow juicy flesh. Available end of June and first of July.
• Tropical Plumana: Tropical punch flavor, medium-sized, red over greenish yellow background with yellow flesh. Available middle of June.

Ripe pluots are firm, yet juicy within. Those that are slightly soft are at the tail-end of ripeness and those that are yielding to the touch are over-ripe. The latter might make excellent wine but I have only used them for jelly, and it was wonderful!

Pluot Wine

You could make this wine with a mixture of pluot varieties, but I would not. Each variety posses its own unique flavor and I have always tried to capture that as purely as I can. I have made this wine using Dapple Dandy, Flavor Queen and Red Ray varieties. I had to ask the grocer to check his paperwork to get the name of the third, but he did so willingly. The first two are easily recognizable after you've studied the fruit a while.

• 6 lbs pluots
• 1 lb 6 oz finely granulated sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp acid blend
• 3/4 tsp pectic enzyme
• 1/8 tsp tannin
• 1 tsp nutrient
• Red Star Montrachet yeast

Put water on to boil. Wash the fruit, cut in halves to remove the seeds, then chop fruit and put in nylon straining bag in primary. Pour boiling water over fruit. Add the sugar and stir well to dissolve. Cover and allow to cool to 70 degrees F. Add acid blend, pectic enzyme, tannin, and nutrient, recover primary, and wait 12 hours before adding yeast. Allow to ferment until vigor subsides (about 5-7 days), stirring twice daily. Strain, transfer to secondary, and fit airlock. Rack after 30 days, top up, refit airlock and repeat every 30 days until wine clears and drops no more lees. Wait two additional weeks, rack again, stabilize wine, sweeten to taste, and allow to rest a final 30 days before bottling. This wine can be sampled after only 4 months. If not up to expectations, let age another 6 months and taste again. Semi- to slightly sweet (1.004-1.008 SG), this wine will delight you even if you prefer dry wines. [Author's own recipe]

• Luther Burbank, in Wikipedia
• Fruit of the Month: Pluots and Apriums, general information, photos
• Plu-What?, good article in Slate
• Pluots, in Wikipedia
• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

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September 23rd, 2009

I cannot believe the U.S. Senate Finance Committee today voted 12-11 along party lines NOT to post the whole health care bill online, thereby denying every citizen even the right to see what their senators are voting on. One Democrat voted with the 10 Republicans, but 12 Democrats voted against the public's right to know the details of the laws that are being proposed. What a low moment this is in United States history!

It is difficult to think about wine after that revelation, but I shall try.

I judged a couple of wine competitions this weekend and endured a few bad wines in order to experience some really fabulous ones. The punishment was minor when compared against the rewards. I do like the perks of wine judging....

Explaining Balance

I had the pleasure of being paired with a novice judge during one event. To be honest, he isn't a certified judge at all but makes wine, enjoys wine and was recruited as a "judge in training." That was fine with me. It required that I mentor him through the process and that forced me to think harder and judge better. While certain aspects are fairly easy to explain, understand and judge (aroma, bouquet, color, clarity), balance is just a little more complex and difficult for some to grasp.

Balance, harmony and equilibrium are closely synonomous. In judging balance, we look at body, sugar, acid, alcohol, and tannin both individually and in relation to one another. Each should be detectable, but none should be pronounced or deficient. In other words, each element should be present but in harmony with the others. At the same time, the variety, type and style of wine also delineates detection parameters for some elements. For example, a white wine is not expected to possess pronounced tannin, but if the tannin content is too low the wine is without "bite" and tastes lifeless and demur. Big reds, on the other hand, require tannic fullness to accompany their bold and rich flavors.

Alcohol contributes to sweetness subtly, but also provides an underlying heat that should never be so distinct as to dominate the flavor profile. Such wines are derisively referred to as "rocket fuel", while a wine with alcohol in balance will be smooth along the back edges of the tongue but just lively enough to be noticed.

One should remember that residual sugar, glycerine and alcohol all contribute to sweetness, which is as distinct a taste as is sourness, saltiness, and bitterness -- and for those trained to detect it, the fifth taste, umami (savory).

The most common balance problem we experienced, and is evident in most wine competitions, is excessive acidity. A wine with a slight acid edge is not unappealing unless the acid itself is out of place. Excessive malic acid, for example, denotes at least some underripe grapes went into the wine and often delivers an impression of "greenness."

Balance is a fickle mistress. I have tasted wines that barely but perceptibly lacked balance but, during the time I was evaluating them, they warmed up just enough to "slide" into perfect balance. This probably is not as rare an occurrence as it seems, but if the wine is not tasted a second or third time the "slide" will be missed. I cannot prove this, but when I have experienced it I realized how serendipitous the experience actually was and each time I wondered how many wines were just a degree or two away from being in perfect balance. This will remain an unknown.

Heather Wine

A Guest Book entry asked if I had a recipe for a heather wine. Most certainly I do. However, I suffer a great misfortune in that only cultivated heather is grown in this locale, not the common wild heather of the Rockies I enjoyed in Colorado or that the Irish, Scots, Scandinavians and even Russians enjoy in magnificent abundance.

According to Biology-Online, Calluna vulgaris is the only species of heather, despite the fact that it practically circles the globe in the northern third of the Northern Hemisphere. While well over a thousand cultivars have been bred from this single species, none are as hardy as the original in the wild. Nor are any as prolific as the wild heather, with one bush capable of producing 150,000 seeds.

Wild heather thicket and close-up of blooms

Heather flowers and new leaves each exude different but distinct fragrances with varied uses. For example, the new growth is cut, dried and placed on burning peat to create dense smoke that both dries and flavors the malt in certain Scotch whisky production. Quite apart, heather honey is distinctly flavorful and highly prized in making a varietal mead. But for making heather wine, it is the flowers that are needed, either alone or in conjunction with the small leaves.

Heather Wine Recipe

• 1 1/2 lbs Heather tips (in full bloom, woody stem removed)
• 1 lb 12 oz finely granulated sugar
• 2 small lemons, juice only
• 2 small sour oranges, juice only
• 2 thin slices of ginger root, 1 X 2 inches
• 11-oz can 100% White Grape Juice frozen concentrate
• 6 1/2 pts water
• 1 tsp yeast nutrient
• 1 tsp dried wine yeast

Cover heather with 2 quarts water, place on high heat and bring to a boil; hold at low boil for 50 minutes, add ginger slices and remove from heat after additional 10 minutes. Strain off solids and retain liquid only in primary and add grape concentrate, citrus juice and sugar. Stir until completely dissolved, cover and set aside to cool. When cooled to room temperature, stir in yeast nutrient and then activated yeast as a starter solution. Re-cover, set aside and leave for 14 days. Transfer to secondary, affix airlock, and wait until all evidence of fermentation ceases. Rack, top up, reattach airlock, and set aside for 60 days. Rack again, stabilize, top up, reattach airlock, and wait 30 days. If no new lees have formed, rack into bottles. If even a fine dusting appears, wait additional 30 days and very carefully rack into bottles. Age at least six months. [Author's own recipe]

• Heather, a traditional recipe can be found here
• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

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September 18th, 2009

Today is the 222nd birthday of the United States Constitution. Although I think the framers of that enduring document would be quite pleased with how infrequently it has been tampered with on paper, I am absolutely certain they would all be appalled at the way the Supreme Court has found meaning in it totally absent from its words. Their intent, so clearly expounded in "The Federalist Papers," was to create a small federal government whose primary duty is the defense and protection of its citizens and thereafter the negotiation of affairs of trade and state with other nations. And they granted it power to create and regulate a national infrastructure, recognizing its essentiality in promoting the free movement of people and commerce.

The architects of the U.S. Constitution specifically vested a greater degree of governance of the people and their affairs in the individual states than in the federal government. We learned this in 7th and 8th grade civics classes - when they still had 7th and 8th grade civics classes. Thus, I am equally certain those architects would be astounded at how enormous the federal government has become, by how much power it has usurped from the states and how liberally it assumes jurisdiction over matters not enumerated to it in the document whose birth we celebrate today.

We forget at our own peril that Benjamin Franklin, upon leaving the Constitutional Convention on September 18th, 1787, was asked by a woman whether they had crafted a republic or a monarchy. He responded, "A republic, if you can keep it." I have bookmarked the reminder that Franklin could have simply said, "A republic", but he added the five words, "if you can keep it." In so doing (I shall quote from my bookmark), "Franklin was suggesting that a republic is not something that can be expected to survive without nurturing and constant attention. Much like an infant, a republic requires the supervision and disciplinary hand of a watchful guardian. If that guardian takes his responsibility lightly, it can be expected that the republic will stray from all that is good and pure and will grow into an unrecognizable monster that knows not how to function properly, defiant and thirsty for self-gratification." Please look around and note a defiant Congress, thirsty for self-gratification. I think Doctor Franklin would simply say, "You were warned."

A Substitute for Yeast Nutrient

I am often asked if one can substitute something else for one or another winemaking ingredient. The answer in most instances is simply of course you can. But you should only do so with the understanding that you are changing the outcome of the process. You will still end up with wine, but it almost certainly will not be what it could have been if substitutions were not made. A dozen or so years ago a couple wrote to me from Senegal, asking what could be used as a substitute for yeast nutrient. I am going to repeat here my advice then, for I think I answered exactly as I should have.

There are numerous authorities that cite different ingredients and proportions. Proprietary yeast nutrients usually contain DAP (diammonium phosphate), which supplies nitrogen and phosphorus; urea, which supplies nitrogen; citric (and perhaps other) acid; trace amounts of biotin; and yeast hulls. The formulations of these nutrients are not generally public knowledge.

Less secret are the formulations of yesteryear. Pre-World War II recipes used malt extract and lemon juice as nutrient, while many post-war recipes used to use ammonium sulphate, magnesium sulphate, potassium phosphate, and citric acid for yeast nutrient. Both, I am told, worked well enough, but not as well as today's formulations. I would suspect that it would be easier to order a packaged nutrient from an out-of-country supplier and pay shipping than to find DAP and the other constituents locally and experiment with proportions. Still, a chemist (or druggist) might be able to mix the following nutrient for you without problem:

• ammonium sulphate...........130 grains
• magnesium sulphate........... 20 grains
• potassium phosphate.......... 70 grains
• citric acid .......................... 260 grains

This makes an ounce of nutrient, enough to make four gallons of non-grape wine or two gallons of mead. While not as good as commercial formulations, it still should work well enough. The absolute against-the-wall substitute is malt extract and citric acid (lemon juice) mixed half-and-half. By "against the wall" I mean "last resort" -- if you absolutely cannot find DAP at a garden supply store or a chemist to mix the above, but somehow can obtain malt extract.

A Substitute for Pectic Enzyme

Many years ago I was asked if there is a substitute for pectic enzyme. Technically, yes there is, but if you cannot obtain a simple, inexpensive powder (or liquid) available at any homebrew shop, you almost certainly will not have the means to hydrolyze pectin molecules. However, there is a substitute for commercial pectic enzyme.

Years ago I was asked this and replied that the best substitute for pectic enzyme is papaya peel. The layer of green immediately under the skin of the papaya contains natural pectic enzyme.

At that time I was familiar with a rather small papaya imported from Mexico that was seasonally available at a local market. Basing my experience on that size papaya, I advised that one could "... use the peeling from half a papaya as a substitute for one teaspoon of pectic enzyme, noting you can freeze the other half in a ZipLoc bag for later use. Just put the peeling in the primary and ferment it along with the other ingredients. It would be best, however, to order some pectic enzyme from a winemaking supplier over the internet."

Small and large (but not very large) varieties of papaya

Since that time the availability and variety of papaya in my local markets have dramatically increased. Very large papayas are now more common than the smaller ones I had in mind when I originally wrote the above advice, and every now an then some really huge ones appear. I am just guessing, but I would estimate only an eighth of the peeling from a very large papaya would be sufficient, but using more will not harm the wine.

A final reminder: the peeling needs to be thinly removed so the green layer is visible, not the gold or orange or reddish color of the papaya pulp.

• A Republic, If You Can Keep It, a remarkably short and well-penned essay by "Heather D."
• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

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September 15th, 2009

I went to the supermarket to buy some fruit and saw a "bargain bin" set up filled with mesh bags containing 20 key limes each for $.80 a bag. Why the bargain? Because the limes had all turned yellow, the exact color they become when ripe. There were eight bags in the bin. I wanted three, but spotted the produce manager on another aisle. I wheeled my cart around to him and offered him $.50 a bag for all of them. He said to wait and disappeared into the back room where records and stock are stored. After a few minutes he came out and said he would sell them for $.62 a bag. I said okay and he grabbed a pricing gun, set it for $.62 and changed the price on each bag.

What a deal! People don't realize that yellow limes are riper than green ones. I hope that produce manager doesn't read my blog.

Honeybush Mead

About six months ago I visited a health food supermarket in San Antonio and came across bulk honeybush (Cyclopia intermedia) tea leaves. Later, on the tea aisle, I ran across TAZO brand Honeybush tea. Having made wine before with Tazo Passion Tea, an idea formed and I went back to the bulk tea. Not really knowing how much I might need, bought 4 ounces (which was a lot). The aroma of the leaves was slightly herbaceous, but reminiscent of spun honey. I decided to make a mead with it and picked up a 3-pound jar of honey.

When I checked my notes on the Passion Tea Wine, I saw that I only used 1.7 ounces. I brewed a cup of honeybush tea with a teaspoon of leaves and savored it. The flavor was very nice - creamy, vanilla-like, honeyish, yet almost fruity. I decided to use 2 ounces in the mead. A little on-line referencing and I noted that honeybush contains no caffeine and very little tannin.

Honeybush in full flower in the wild
Honeybush Mead Recipe

• 2 oz honeybush tea, loose, or 29 Tazo Honeybush tea bags
• 3 lbs honey
• 11 oz can Welch's 100% White Grape Juice frozen concentrate (optional, for body)
• juice of 2 small lemons
• water to make 1 gallon
• 1/4 tsp dried grape tannin
• 1 1/2 tsp yeast nutrient
• 1 sachet Lalvin DV10 wine yeast*

Pour the honey into a pot with a 1-gallon gradient line on the side and add water to that mark (NOTE: if you are going to add grape concentrate for body, mark must be 11 ounces shy of a gallon). Put honey-water on to boil while carefully measuring 2 ounces of crushed leaves; tie these in a very fine-meshed infusion bag with two glass marbles for weight. Stir the water intermittently until it comes to a high-boil, add lemon juice, then reduce heat to maintain a low boil for 15 minutes, skimming off the scum from the honey as it rises. Take pan off the heat, submerge the infusion bag (or add tea bags) and cover the pan. About four hours later remove the infusion bag, squeeze it well, and transfer the must to a primary. Add thawed grape concentrate if desired (I did not use it). Stir in tannin, yeast nutrient and activated yeast in a starter solution. Cover primary and set aside. When vigorous fermentation subsides (about 8-10 days), transfer to secondary and attach an airlock. Ferment to dryness and rack, top up and reattach airlock. Wait 45 days and rack into sanitized secondary containing 1/2 teaspoon potassium sorbate and one finely crushed and dissolved Campden tablet. Carefully rack into bottles 30 days later. Allow to age 6 months before consuming. [Author's own recipe]

*If you wish a sweet mead, use Red Star Montrachet yeast. Do not sweeten after fermentation stops, but trust residual sweetness. Adding the grape concentrate will increase the residual sweetness.

• Honeybush, Wikipedia article
• Honeybush: Healthful Beverage Tea from South Africa, Institute for Traditional Medicine article
• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

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September 13th, 2009

Friday I had one of those magnificent Cajun meals that require you to loosen your belt halfway through. My dog knows enough to stop eating when she's full, but not me. I swear I gained 6 pounds. I've barely eaten since and still need to shed 4 pounds (my doctor says 14, my wife says 24).

For those who never thought about it, Smoked Burgundy pairs excellently with smoked barbeque pork. If you don't know what Smoked Burgundy is, read on. I won two blue ribbons with my 2001.

Smoked Burgundy Wine

Smoked Burgundy started out as a kit wine. I don't recall the brand (and that log is definitely boxed up in the garage) but it was still in a 5-gallon format, something I dearly wish they would return to. And it was, I'm quite sure, still called "Burgundy" rather than "Bourgeron," something else I wish they would return to but for treaty reasons will not. So, looking at the evidence, it might have been an older kit that was marked down for reasons I didn't really think about at the time. It had a mid-line label, a lower-line price, and I wanted to make a Burgundy.

Upon opening the box the kit came in, I scanned the instructions and tossed them out with the empty box. Those were the days when some wine kit manufacturers were still competing with beer kit manufacturers to see who could bottle their product first. Thank God those days are past. Anyway, I began making my wine.

I had made a decision that I would oak this wine. I dug around and found a gallon-baggie of small, untoasted oak cubes a fellow in Missouri (I think) sent me, made from barrel staves discarded by a cooperage for defects. My wife had recently bought me a small smoker and I laid down a layer of charcoal briquettes and let them reduce considerably in size before applying a layer of water-soaked mesquite chips to the coals. As huge amounts of smoke began engulfing me I set the grill in place, laid a piece of hardware screen on it, and then spread out a layer of the untoasted oak chips on the screen. I closed the lid, choked the damper and went inside to watch a football game.

As I recall, I turned the cubes every 30-45 minutes and added new mesquite about as often. After about 4 hours (there are 6 sides on each cube), I took my mesquite-smoked oak cubes, now well toasted on two sides and medium-to-mildly toasted on the others, tied them in a nylon straining bag with about 30 glass marbles (for weight), and patiently worked these into the carboy. I think I left them in the wine about 8 weeks. I made the wine my own way, in my own time, but pretty much used their ingredients (except yeast and the smoked oak). And now you know my secret. The flavor is unique and complex, and two bottles survive. But I doubt they will see Christmas.

Propagating Vines from Grape Seeds, Part 3

Well, I am surprised by how many of you are interested in this. Your questions, for the most part, have been good ones, but I want to correct an impression I may have left you with and expand upon selected other aspects of the subject.

If this and previous entries have left you scratching your head wondering what I'm talking about, you can turn to Google and Wikipedia. For those wanting deeper understanding, I highly recommend investing in The Grape Grower: A Guide to Organic Viticulture by Lon Rombough.

In my September 11th Part 2 entry on this subject I stated near the end that if your seeds came from a Merlot and your pollen came from several different cultivars and species, "the resulting seedlings would be very different and only the Merlot X Merlot should be expected to yield vines with fruit resembling the original mother vine. All the others will be hybrids, some good and some less so." This is only partially correct. There will be a great deal of variation even within the Merlot X Merlot seeds. This is because the Merlot grape is a variant created by crossing many previous variants of the parent species, V. vinifera. Each crossing resulted in unique gene encoding and each of those uniquely coded variations is stored in the DNA of the ovary and the pollen that combine to form a seed. Which variations will manifest themselves is anyone's guess.

Think of it another way. My father is 88 and still has a full head of hair. One of my brothers and myself have a growing bald spot while two others do not. Two have receeding hairlines while two do not. My father has black hair and my mother has brown. None of us, their offspring, have black hair. Yet any of us could have children with black hair because we carry our father's genes. However, if our spouses have no immediate history of black hair then the odds increase that our offspring will not. And yet, even several generations into the future, the possibility of a black-haired child is real because our father's genes will still be carried into the future and could become determinate.

Merlot is an ancient grape whose mother was a previously unknown cultivar from northern Brittany, cultivated in the late Middle Ages in at least four places in Charentes and now named Magdeleine Noire des Charentes, and whose father was Cabernet Franc. This parentage is deduced from inheritance at 55 nuclear and three chloroplast microsatellite loci and is fairly definitive. But we do not know the generational lineage of the grape, so do not know what latent characteristics are lurking in the DNA of Merlot. Also, there are many clonal variations of Merlot, meaning they possess the same genes but express them slightly differently just as my brothers and I express different genes for hair retention, height, eye color, skin hue, and even right-hand/left-hand dominance.

The preferred method of grapevine propagation that yields new vines identical to the mother is rooting cuttings from the mother herself. The new vines are, in fact, clones of the mother and express the same genes as her. However, over time ever so slight mutations can occur in buds that grow into fruiting wood from which cuttings are taken, resulting in "clonal drift". The easiest mutation to explain is when cuttings are taken from "sports." A sport is a somatic mutation in a new trunk, cane or lateral shoot of perennial fruits. The first navel orange, for example grew on a bud sport of a seeded Citrus sinensis, yet was itself seedless.

The point here is that just as you get great variety from seedlings, you are not guaranteed of getting an exact clone of the mother vine even if you root cuttings. The latter, however, is still thousands of times more likely to produce vines "true" to the mother vine.

Do not shy away from growing seeds from the grapes you like simply because you probably won't grow an identical grape. Plant the seeds, transplant the seedlings, grow the vines, evaluate the results. If you aren't satisfied, plant some more seeds. Once upon a time someone did that and the result was V. vinifera cv. Merlot. Who knows what you might grow?

• The Grape Grower: A Guide to Organic Viticulture, order a Kindle edition or used copy here through Amazon.com
• Clonal Search Yields New Wine Varietals, from Western Farm Press, demonstrating clonal variation
• Molecular Characterization of a Bud Sport of Pinot Gris Bearing White Berries, abstract from American Journal of Enology and Viticulture, characterizing one sport mutation
• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

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September 11th, 2009

It is hard to believe it has been eight years since the guy on the radio said, "Wow, this is weird. A plane has just crashed into one of the World Trade Center buildings in New York. No other details are known but we'll keep you posted as we learn them." Sweet Jesus, what a horrible day that turned into.

My friends, we have to remember it. And I mean remember it as it really unfolded, not the way Michael Moore and all the latter-day, Bush-hating revisionists want you to believe it was. Remember the reality, not their propaganda. It was real, a day of disbelief, of dawning realization, of fear and terror - totally surreal as every private and commercial aircraft over and inbound to the United States and Canada was landed and parked somewhere ill-prepared to receive them, their passengers and crews accommodated somehow, and nothing, absolutely nothing flew overhead but emergency and combat aircraft.

On a dime, the world changed. Remember it. Remember the 3,000 victims. Remember the first responders who went bravely into the twin towers and climbed those endless stairs into the arms of the Lord. Remember it vividly and emotionally so that in 50 or 60 years when some hate-mongerer in Tehran or some other backwater of civilization says it didn't happen you can look your great-grandkids in the eye and say with certainty, "Oh yes it did, and I remember it well!"

Keep it with you, securely preserved, as life goes on, as we turn to other, more ordinary things.

Propagating Vines from Grape Seeds, Part 2

My piece two days ago on propagating grape vines from seeds generated a lot of questions. Most revolved around my statement, "You can [plant seeds], but you probably will not get a vine that produces fruit anything like the grapes you got the seed from." There were other issues as well, and I promised I would address them in time, but this was the key topic.

As I explained two days ago, most grapes are "open pollinated," meaning the inflorescence [grape flowers] that developed the grapes was pollinated by what ever pollen was blowing in the wind which could have come from any flowering grapevines near or far away. People are insisting it's "good pollen" because the grapes are all Merlot or Syrah or whatever because they simply don't understand the role of pollen in producing fruit and then in producing seed. A mini biology tutorial is necessary.

Some grape flowers are strictly male or female while others contain both male and female parts. The latter can actually pollinate themselves and often do, but windblown pollen can also slip in there and "do the deed" before the flower's own pollen matures enough to release itself to the whims of gravity and the wind. The female part of the flower is ready to accept any viable grape pollen, and once it does it rapidly begins producing a berry containing one or more seeds (seedless grapes are beyond this discussion, so don't even ask).

The berry (grape), unless somehow mutated, will always be true to the genetic coding in the mother vine and will look, smell and taste like just about every other grape borne by that vine. The pollen that triggered the formation of the berry can be from any other type of grape without affecting the size, shape, color, aroma, or flavor of the newly forming grape in any way. It's legacy, if there is to be one, is strictly confined to the genetic coding of the seeds developing within the individual grape. Each grape's character is solely determined by the genes of the mother vine. The seeds within each grape are determined by the genetic union of the vine contributing the pollen and the vine contributing the ovary. If both come from the same vine, then the seeds will be true (within a natural range of variation) to the single parent.

If you understand the preceding two paragraphs, you should also understand that it is possible for every single grape in a cluster to be pollinated by a different vine. The vines may all be of the same variety or they can be from different varieties or even species. This is not likely, but it is possible, and if it were true then the seeds of each individual grape would contain different genetic coding. If all were extracted, dried, stratified (wintered), and planted and just one from each grape germinated and grew into a vine, each vine and its fruit would be uniquely different.

This is not to say that the fruit would not be good, although we might expect some not to be. It is just that if the mother vine were a Merlot and the pollen came from Merlot, Riesling, Muscat of Hamburg, V. labrusca cv. Concord, V. aestivalis var. lincecumii, and V. monticola vines, the resulting seedlings would be very different and only the Merlot X Merlot should be expected to yield vines with fruit resembling the original mother vine. All the others will be hybrids, some good and some less so.

That's a layman's explanation of a complex subject with a lot of qualifiers left unexplained, but I hope you at least get the general picture. If you do, then you should recognize that planting OP (open pollinated) grape seeds is like rolling dice. You might get some really good vines from your effort but you might get a few you'll want to cull. Don't be afraid to plant the seeds just because the odds of you getting 30 Merlot vines from those 60 Merlot seeds are slim to astronomical. You may get a vine or two that are in fact superior to the vine that gave you the original grapes. It is the crossing of genes by professional and amateur breeders alike that give us new varieties in the first place. So do it, and you have my permission to name any outstanding prodigy after me...or not

Watermelon Rind Pickle Recipe

Okay, okay, I give up. My mentioning of watermelon rind pickles has generated a number of requests for the recipe. It isn't a secret or anything, so I'll gladly share it. Let me just preface the recipe with a couple of remarks. First, don't attempt this if you do not have the canning jars, fresh lids and canning pot for the boiling water bath. Second, thick rinds make better pickles than thin ones, but thickness is relative.

Two pints of watermelon pickles

The pickles above were made with the "Moon & Stars Watermelon" I mentioned in earlier entries. I apologize for not wiping the outside of the jars clean after they were lifted and sat a few moments in the hot bath while I readied a cooling rack, but what's done is done and the slight film does not affect the taste. Every single person who has tasted these pickles has raved about them. They are really good semi-sweet pickles that utilize a huge portion of the melon we almost always throw away. My last melon made 9 1/2 pints; I am down to 6. The pickles are very attractive if a thin layer of pink flesh is left attached.

Preparation

Slice melon rind into 1-inch wide strips and then cut away the hard, green, outter peel and discard. (I sliced with a chef's knife, laid the strips on their side and used a paring knife to separate the peel from the inner rind.) Cut strips into bite-sized pieces. The size depends on the thickness of the rind, but 2/3 to 3/4 inch pieces worked well for me.

I processed half the melon's rind at a time, a little over 2 quarts each batch. This will all depend on the size of your melon, how many bowls and saucepans you have, and how much refrigerator space you have free.

Watermelon Rind Pickles

Preparation Time: 3 days. For each quart of melon pieces you will need:

• 1/4 cup pickling salt
• 1 quart water
• 2 cups granulated sugar, added in stages
• 1 cup white vinegar
• 1 medium lemon, thinly sliced
• 2 cinnamon sticks, 3-4 inches long
• 2 very thin strips fresh ginger root, 2 inches x 1/2-inch wide
• 1 teaspoon whole cloves
• 1 teaspoon whole allspice berries

First Day:

• Place rind pieces in large, non-reactive bowl. Dissolve salt in water and pour water over rind, cover and let stand for 4 hours. Drain off brine and rinse rind twice.
• Place rind in large stainless steel or enamel pot. Cover rind with cold water and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce to low boil, cover and boil gently for 8 -10 minutes -- until just tender and slightly translucent. Drain and return to large, non-reactive bowl.
• Combine half the sugar (set other half aside in air-tight container), vinegar, lemon slices, cinnamon, ginger slices, cloves and allspice in non-reactive saucepan. Bring to a boil, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Pour over rind. Insert a plate into bowl to weigh down rind and keep it submerged. Place in refrigerator for 24 hours.

Second Day:

• Place half the remaining sugar into saucepan and drain liquid from rind over sugar. Bring to a boil while stirring to dissolve sugar, then pour back over rind. Replace plate weight and return to refrigerator an additional 24 hours.

Third Day:

• Before beginning next step, fill canning pot with water to level sufficient to cover jars being used. Place jars in water and put on high heat to bring to a boil. In small saucepan, cover ring caps and lids in water and bring to a boil.
• Place remaining sugar in pot or large saucepan and drain liquid from rind over sugar. Bring to a boil while stirring to dissolve sugar. Add the rind pieces to saucepan and return to a boil. Remove from heat.
• Using tongs or jar grips, remove jars and ring caps and lids. Remove cinnamon sticks from rind liquid and stand one inside each jar; place one slice of ginger in each jar. Remove rind pieces and lemon rings with slotted spoon and pack into jars. Pour liquid over rind to within 1/2 inch of rim. Using wet paper towel, wipe rim clean. Using hot mitts, assemble ring caps and lids and tighten onto jars.
• Place jars in hot bath and return to boil. Process 10 minutes for pint jars, 15 minutes for quart jars. Remove from water bath and place on cooling rack.
• Refrigerate overnight before opening to crisp rinds; keep refrigerated after opening.

• And Our Flag Was Still There..., my simple page for remembering 9-11
• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

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September 9th, 2009

I just received the new Fourth Edition of Jon Iverson's Home Winemaking Step by Step. I'll be comparing it over the next few evenings with the July 2000 Third Edition to discern the changes - certainly there were some as this edition is notably larger than the last. Thank you, Jon.

I also received some SB, Gervin and Unican yeasts in the mail from England. It's getting expensive to order them this way. I do wish someone would import and distribute them in the United States.

Dried Cherry Wine

I picked up a pound of bulk dried cherries from Whole Foods. I recall how good the wine was the last time I used dried cherries - took a gold medal as I recall. I don't need another medal, but I sure would like a few bottles of the wine.

Dried Cherry Wine

• 1 lb dried cherries (sweet)
• 1 11-oz. can Welch's 100% White Grape Juice Frozen Concentrate
• 1 lb 10 oz finely granulated sugar (to S.G. of 1.090)
• 1 tsp acid blend acid
• 3/4 tsp pectic enzyme
• 1/4 tsp tannin
• 7 pts water
• 1 tsp yeast nutrient
• 1 pkt Montrachet or Champagne wine yeast

Soak cherries in 2 quarts water for 24 hours. Bring water to a boil, lower heat and simmer 8 minutes. Strain, stir sugar in liquid until dissolved, cover and set aside to cool. Add remaining ingredients except yeast, stir and re-cover. After 12 hours, add activated yeast in a starter solution, re-cover, and stir daily until specific gravity drops to 1.010. Transfer to secondary, attach airlock and ferment to dryness. Rack when fermentation ceases, top up and reattach airlock, Rack, top up and refit airlock every 60 days for 6 months. Stabilize and sweeten to taste, wait additional 3 weeks and rack into bottles. Age another 6-12 months before tasting. [Author's own recipe]

Propagating Vines from Grape Seeds

Shortly after answering one email on propagating grapevines by use of cuttings (in which I discouraged propagation by use of seeds) I received a phone call on that very subject. A very excited novice (his word, not mine) had been given quantities of grapes sufficient to make a gallon of wine each from three different varieties. He wanted to know if he could simply save some of the seeds from each variety and plant these in the spring.

I said, "You can do this, but you probably will not get a vine that produces fruit anything like the grapes you got the seed from. This is because the seeds were almost certainly 'open pollinated,' meaning the inflorescence [grape flowers] that developed the grapes was pollinated by the wind and the pollen could have come from any flowering grapevine within a few feet to a mile away, depending on the wind."

Some years back I received two shipments of Vitis californica from two kindred souls who went to considerable trouble to collect the seeds. After reading the letters accompanying each batch of seeds, I selected one batch over the other because I could only plant so many seeds and this batch seemed more likely to have "true" seeds as the seeds came from vines in "deep woods" in the Russian River Valley.

I wintered the seeds in the refrigerator to simulate winter and in early spring I removed then and planted 30 seeds very carefully in a flat of vermiculite and sand. Eventually, 16 seedlings made it past the first leaf stage. The first leaves presented a variety, but I was more interested in the third and fourth leaves, as these would prove the seedlings sporting them were thriving and would also be closer to what the adult leaves would look like.

I wish I had photographs of those seedlings. There were at least eight different shapes of grape leaves on those seedlings. So much for the isolation of "deep woods," but I had identified three that most likely were closer to true V. californica than any of the others. Unfortunately, the seedlings all died when my wife and I went on a trip and the friend who looked after our plants while we were gone simply never saw them in their flat next to the garage and therefore never watered them.

Still, if you want to try your luck and see what grows, you can collect seeds from any wild or cultivated grape and plant them next year. Wild grape seeds are easier to germinate than V. vinifera or even French-American hybrids. Simply remove the seeds from the grapes you wish to grow and air dry them for a couple of weeks.

Place the dried grape seeds inside a moist paper towel and place the towel with seeds inside a Ziploc freezer bag (you can annotate the bag with the type of grape seeds) and seal it. Place the bag containing the seeds in the refrigerator until spring. This needs to be done because the seeds have to experience a "winter" so they know when it is time to germinate. But do NOT place the seeds in the freezer.

Consult the Farmers Almanac, your county extension agent or otherwise determine when the last frost occurs in your area. About a month before this date, remove the seeds from the refrigerator and plant them in a grid pattern in a nursery flat containing at least two inches of potting mixture. I place the seeds about 1 1/2 to 2 inches apart and then add about 1/2 inch of potting soil to the whole flat, covering the seeds with that much soil. Use a hand mister or refillable spray bottle to slowly moisten the soil. If you have a watering can with a really fine-spray head, you can use it to moisten the soil but you risk digging up the seeds if the spray is not fine and gentle. The soil should be damp but not soggy all the way down and the flat has to drain evenly and without restriction. Place the flat in an area that gets natural sunlight most of the day or, if inside, is exposed to a grow light. The area should be approximately 70 degrees during the day and no cooler than 50 degrees at night. If placed outside, be sure to bring them in just before any cold spell arrives.

Seedlings pushing and sporting 2nd leaf set

The seeds should germinate in about 30 to 40 days, but don't expect them all to sprout. Half would be a good number. There are techniques you could employ to raise the percentage, but you can research this yourself.

Seedlings inside and growing out of grow tubes

When the seedlings have fully developed their second set of leaves, transplant each seedling into a separate pot. By the time they reach a height of 8 to 12 inches, all danger of a late frost should be past and you can plant them permanently in the prepared ground where you want them to grow. Give them at least a month to get established and then fertilize as needed to promote healthy growth. I place a 30- to 36-inch grow tube around each vine and leave it in place until each vine grows past the top.

Vines grown from seed tend to require an extra year or two to establish a healthy root system. Small doses of fertilizer will do them more good that twice-yearly larger doses. Also, after they have been in the ground about three months a quarter- to half-inch surface application of compost in a 12- to 18-inch radius around the vines will greatly assist them in developing winter roots. This, in turn, will help them make a vigorous start the following spring.

• Dried Cherry Wine, original recipe on my site
• Growing Grapes from Seeds, a thread in the Grape Vine Blog
• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

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September 7th, 2009

Today, the first Monday in September - not May 1st - is Labor Day in the United States, a holiday with origins in Canada and codified following the deadly Pullman Strike in 1894. This holiday is the last chance for a summer outing for many - especially families with school-age children - and commercially is the occasion for final "back to school" sales.

Labor Day formally honors the strength and spitit of trade and labor organizations. That is the serious and reflective side of the holiday. But in this country, it also marks the beginning of college and professional football seasons (and I am talking about American football, not rugby or soccer). And therein lies its hidden charm for millions of fans of the game. I don't wish to belabor (pun intended) this point or debase the seriousness of the holiday, but I do have my favorite college and professional teams.

Dragonfruit Wine

Several years ago I received three requests for a Dragonfruit Wine recipe. I posted one and since then have only received 8 emails referencing it, but 6 have come in the past two weeks from one gentleman. Some of his questions are about alternative ingredients because of his inability to find winemaking supplies in the Philippines, so if anyone knows of a source of supplies there please write to me so I can pass it on. Other questions cover basic steps and processes, which are well enumerated on my site. I don't know if he simply hasn't read them, they aren't clear or I have left aspects out, but I will repost the recipe here and explain it in detail. I simply cannot exchange 9 emails explaining each recipe, so perhaps if I do the job well here I can avoid similar exchanges. It isn't that I don't want to communicate with you, but I have very little free time to answer email and I do want you all to learn how to do this.

The dragonfruit, or dragon fruit if you prefer, is the name variously given to Hylocereus undatus and Selenicereus megalanthus. It is also known as the red piyata, thang loy, dragon pearl fruit, strawberry pear, cactus fruit, and, in the case of Selenicereus, yellow pitaya. They are a type of pipe-organ cactus, although their trunk and branch segments are not round. These cacti can form very dense thickets and are cultivated for barriers, for their large, white or yellowish-white, strongly scented flowers, and for their spineless, very tasty fruit.

Dragonfruit (Hylocereus undatus)

The flesh of the Selenicereusmay be white or various shades of red whereas that of Selenicereus is white only, but their fruit are both sweeter and smaller. Numerous small seeds are embedded in the flesh and may be eaten. The fruit of Selenicereus has many fine spines which rub of upon ripening. Selenicereus fruits have many scales. They contain glucose, fructose, and sucrose sugars and are eaten raw, made into refreshing drinks, or dried for later use. Of course, they also make a very good wine, for which they may be washed and chopped with their outer skin intact or peeled to the white pulp and then chopped. Chopping the whole fruit produces a wine with a slightly pinkish tint. The recipe below makes one gallon of wine.

Dragonfruit Wine Recipe

• 6 lbs ripe dragonfruit fruit
• 2 lb sugar
• 6 pts water
• 2 crushed Campden tablet
• 1/2 tsp potassium sorbate
• 1 1/2 tsp acid blend (or juice of two lemons)
• 1 tsp dry pectic enzyme
• 1 tsp yeast nutrient (or DAP -- diammonium phosphate)
• 1 pkt wine yeast (Red Star Pasteur Champagne works well)

Put the water on to boil. Meanwhile, carefully trim the greenery from the fruit, wash the fruit well, and chop it coarsely. Put chopped fruit, acid blend, sugar and yeast nutrient into a primary container. When the water boils, pour it into the primary and stir until the sugar dissolves completely. Cover the primary with a sanitized cloth (I use muslin, but a very clean towel will do) and set aside to cool.

When the water is at room temperature, add a finely crushed and dissolved (in 1/4 cup of water) Campden tablet (or 1/16 teaspoon of potassium metabisulfite) and stir; this will kill any spoilage bacteria in the must that survived the boiling water. Re-cover the primary and set aside for 6-8 hours. Add the pectic enzyme, stir, re-cover the primary, and set aside another 6-8 hours; this will help break down the fruit so the sugars, flavors and other constituents are more easily extracted by the yeast. Add the yeast, activated several hours earlier in a yeast starter solution. You can use baker's yeast, but it might stop fermenting before all the sugar has been converted into alcohol, leaving a sweeter wine than desired, and/or it might produce slightly yeasty off-flavors (although some people actually like this).

Stir the must at least twice daily for 7 days. The fruit will rise to the top, pushed there by the CO₂ created by the yeast. You must stir the must at least twice a day to keep the fruit moist, the yeast working on all surfaces, and prevent the tops of the elevated fruit from drying out and sporting mold.

After 7 days, strain the must through a nylon straining bag and gently but with slightly increasing firmness squeeze the trapped juice out of fruit pulp. Homebrew shops sell nylon grain bags for brewing that winemakers use for straining, but any nylon bag will do - paint stores sell nylon mesh bags for straining paint, but the legs of ladies' pantyhose work just fine. Strain into another sanitized primary or into a large funnel directly into a sanitized secondary (gallon jug). If you strain into a primary, transfer all liquid immediately into the secondary. Top up with good water (distilled or boiled) if required and attach an airlock.

Wait a month and then rack, top up and refit the airlock every 30 days until the wine clears and no new sediments form during a 30-day period. Stabilize the wine with 1/2 teaspoon of potassium sorbate and one finely crushed and dissolved Campden tablet [or 1/16 teaspoon of potassium metabisulfite] to prevent renewed fermentation later. These chemicals (and diammonium phosphate) can be obtained from any homebrew shop or good chemist and they really are essential if you are going to sweeten the wine. Sweeten the wine with simple syrup made with two parts sugar dissolved into one part of boiling water. Add two tablespoons at a time and stir until it suits your taste. Wait 3 weeks to make sure fermentation does not restart (the potassium sorbate might be old and not work) and then rack the wine into bottles and cork them. Like most wines, it should improve with age. [Author's own recipe]

• Labor Day, history of the holiday in Wikipedia
• Dragonfruit Wine, the original recipe on my site
• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

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September 5th, 2009

I mentioned earlier (August 23rd) I had made watermelon rind pickles from a large "Moon and Stars" watermelon and that they were quite good. After prodding, I typed up the recipe for the pickles and sent it to those who asked for it as well as a few who didn't, including my uncle in Florida. He replied that he has never acquired a taste for watermelon rind pickles. My immediate reaction was (sorry Gordon) "Duh!"

With few exceptions it is the pickling brine, not the thing being pickled, that imparts the taste. If you don't like dill pickles, try non-dill Kosher. If you don't like sour pickles, try sweet ones. I like dill pickles, but not those made with too much vinegar. The point is, it isn't the watermelon rind one acquires a taste for, but the type of brine used. My recipe makes semi-sweet pickles and they are quite good.

If these thoughts tie into my blog entry in any way it is that they illustrate faulty thinking. In this case it simply restricts my uncle's potential enjoyment of what I consider to be a very good pickle. In other cases, like the one I will discuss next, it can create anxiety where none is warranted.

Potassium Sorbate Shelf Life

Sorbic acid is used in conjunction with sulfite to render a sweet wine biologically stable so it does start fermenting again in the bottle, an event that could have explosive consequences. Sorbic acid is stored in a dry form called potassium sorbate that produces sorbic acid when added to wine. A forum reader asked about the shelf life of the acid. "If it does expire when dry, it should also expire in solution which makes me wonder if my sweetened wines are ticking timebombs for refermentation once the sorbate has expired." This worry was compounded when the reader discovered that 90% of sorbic acid in solution decomposes within a year. This was, I thought, a very good question, but one based on faulty understanding.

I replied that sorbic acid in wine effectively neuters any residual yeast, leaving them incapable of reproducing. Within a month or two, most will simply die of old age. Even if some of them somehow manage to outlive the half-life of the sorbic acid, they are physiologically incapable of reproducing and kindling a wholesale refermentation. If a winemaker uses appropriate doses of potassium sorbate in conjunction with potassium metabisulfite, the wine will become biologically stable and the winemaker can sleep well without worrying about ticking timebombs.

As for whether potassium sorbate has a shelf life, the answer is most decidedly yes. It is considered effective for up to three years from date of manufacture if immediately and properly stored. However, once the sealed vial, jar or container is opened, it has a shelf life of about six months - less if exposed long to high humidity.

If you are new to winemaking, you might wonder why I mentioned using sorbic acid in conjunction with sulfite. The reason is that if a wine that has been treated with sorbic acid later undergoes malolactic fermentation, it will produce a byproduct compound called 2-ethoxy-hexa-3,5-diene that produces an offensive odor reminiscent of geraniums; an aseptic dose of sulfite will kill any malolactic bacteria present and prevent the wine from undergoing malo-lactic fermentation in the bottle. Sulfites are added in the form of crushed Campden tablets or potassium metabisulfite.

Bitter Flower Wines

A reader made both elderflower and honeysuckle-rose petal wines. He claimed, "The bouquet of each is great, the color and mouthfeel good. Only one thing mars the taste...." He then describes an herbal bitterness that hasn't gone away after a year in storage. He said he was careful to remove all greenery beforehand and used boiling water poured over the flower petals as both an extraction means and a sanitizing agent. He naturally wondered if that could have been the source of the herbal bitterness and, if so, there might be a better technique for extracting color and aroma from flower petals?

I replied that I use the boiling water extraction method and do not get a bitterness. However, once I used about twice the recommended amount of elderflowers that resulted in a bitter wine. More is not always better. I asked if this might be his problem too? I then recounted that solved the problem by making a gallon of Niagara wine using Welch's white grape juice frozen concentrate and then blending the two wines. I did not simply mix them one to one, but actually did taste trials to see when the bitterness disappeared. This experience led me to devise the following recipe.

Elderflower Wine

The white or whitish-yellow flowers of all species and varieties of elder are pleasantly fragrant and impart a muscat flavor to wines, ciders and vinegars. They are also edible and can be fried in a fritter or beer batter, added to pancake or muffin batter, cooked into pies and tarts, and added fresh to salads or many other food dishes. Obviously, they can also be used to flavor wines.

Elderflower wine is an acquired taste and not appreciated by everyone. Too many flowers will yield a bitter, almost undrinkable wine, so do not exceed the amount specified below. I have made several batches of elderflower wine using different recipes, but the recipe below yields a fuller-bodied wine and is more drinkable to a wider population than others I've made because of the addition of the grape juice concentrate.

• 1 pt fresh elderflowers
• 12 oz can frozen white grape juice concentrate
• 1 lb 12 oz granulated sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp acid blend
• 2 finely crushed and dissolved Campden tablet
• 1/2 tsp potassium sorbate
• 7 pts and 1/2 cup water
• 1 tsp yeast nutrient
• Red Star Pasteur Champagne wine yeast

Thaw grape juice concentrate and then put water on to boil. While water rises to a boil, wash flower heads to remove insects and road dust and then separate flowers from stalks. Put flowers, sugar and grape juice concentrate in a primary container and pour boiling water over them. Stir well to dissolve sugar, cover with sterile cloth, and set aside several hours until cool. Add acid blend, one finely crushed and dissolved Campden tablet and yeast nutrient, stirring briefly. Recover with cloth and set aside 12 hours. Add activated yeast in a starter solution. Ferment 5-6 days, strain off flowers, pour liquid into secondary, and attach an airlock. Rack when specific gravity is at or below 1.005, top up and refit airlock. Set aside additional three months, rack, stabilize with potassium sorbate and remaining finely crushed and dissolved Campden tablet, and sweeten to taste. Wait three weeks to ensure stillness and rack into bottles. Age six months before tasting. [Author's own recipe]

• Sorbate Shelf Life, original thread on WinePress.us
• Elderflower Wines, on my site, the second recipe is an earlier variant of the one above
• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

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September 1st, 2009

There are six deer in my back property as I write - two bucks, three does and a fawn - eating the grass where the sprinklers overshoot the fence. They are in the back acreage, not in the yard itself where my grapevines are planted. They used to jump the six-foot chain link fence and eat the grapes, but I now have mustang grapes growing on the fence and they don't jump over it anymore. An old-timer told me that one - deer won't jump a fence higher than themselves that they can't see through, so let some wild grapes grow on the fence and they'll stay out. It worked. They haven't jumped the fence in the three years since the mustangs filled out the fence.

I wonder if they would be so brave if they knew what was going on inside the house. Last night I took 3.8 pounds of precooked venison neck meat out of the freezer and am in the process of making venison chili. It smells wonderful, so I know it will taste great. The neck was heavily rubbed with Cajun spices, wrapped in foil and cooked in a roasting pan at 200 degrees F. overnight. What didn't fall off the bones was pulled off with a fork so it is mostly shredded, just the way I like it in my chili.

Hmmm, another doe and fawn have joined the herd. The doe jumped the back cattle fence out and the fawn sort of stepped through it. One of the bucks has ten points. The other has six. My dog is sleeping through it all but will be up half the night barking at things that like the dark. What a job...!

Sugar in Recipes

A winemaker recently complained in a forum that many recipes call for way too much sugar. He gave as an example a blueberry wine recipe that called for 2.5 lbs per gallon. He starting with 2 pounds, and when he checked his specific gravity it was 1.115! My reply really was a quick, off-the-cuff recitation of points I have made many times but new-comers fail to read because they don't search for past entries on a given subject. Because I penned a hasty reply, it was incomplete. Below is my reply. Please note that the writer was actually asking about elderberry wines and mentioned the blueberry experience to punctuate a point about too much sugar in recipes.

"The question of sugar amounts called for in recipes has been addressed many times. I cannot speak for others, but I usually top up with plain old water. If I rack a wine 3-4 times (average for wines made from fresh fruit), I'm going to lose anywhere from a cup to a pint per gallon the first racking (possibly more if the fruit totally disintegrates) and a half-cup to a cup each racking thereafter. Since most of my wines are intended to be table wines, I want to start at around 15-16% PA so that I end up with 12-13.5% alcohol after dilution from topping up.

But fruit do contribute sugar to the must. It just may not be as much as you thought. Blueberries are typically 7-7.5% natural sugar (although superior blueberries picked just right can go as high as 13%), so crushing 100 pounds of blueberries typically only provides about 7-7.5 pounds of sugar. Go to Sugars in Winemaking (see link below) and scroll down to the table, "Sugar Content of Selected Fruit and Fruit Juices, 100 Grams". I don't have the data on elderberries, but [another member] might."

What I failed to question was his s.g. reading of 1.115 for the blueberry must. It is roughly 0.010 points higher than it should have been. Assuming his hydrometer was correctly calibrated and temperature adjusted, either his blueberries were exceptionally sweet or his must had a lot of minute suspended pulp in it. The former is possible for home grown berries picked just as the firmness in the berry relaxes, while the latter is not at all unusual under any circumstances - but especially if the berries were frozen.

Many of my older, "adapted" recipes call for more sugar than even the above can justify ("adapted" recipes originated with another winemaker and was "tweaked" by me). There are several possible reasons for this. I cannot speak to the motives of other winemakers but can often infer a rule or inclination from the body of their work. I think many of the "old school" winemakers used 3 and even 4 pounds of sugar per gallon to ensure the wine was very sweet. This is both a matter of preference for sweet wines on the part of the original winemaker and recognition that sugar is a natural preservative. Then again some recipes are for Imperial gallons, which are roughly 1/5th larger than American gallons (while American gallons are about 1/6th smaller than Imperial gallons). I usually adjusted these amounts to allow for the difference, but sometimes I missed it. To adjust, add 20% to go from American to Imperial gallons and subtract 16.7% when down-sizing from Imperial to American gallons.

Brown Red Wines

A reader wrote to ask why a number of red wines would start browning prematurely. By prematurely, he meant in 2-3 years. These are French-American hybrids fermented with minimal sulfites and without cooling jackets, barrel aged for less than a year, and bottled without sparging with inert gas. Three possibilities come immediately to mind.

The first is obvious - oxidation. This would not be too surprising given the low sulfite additions and possible warm fermentation temperatures. Also, barrel aging can be a double-edged sword. The edge cuts as intended if sharp and used properly - in this case the barrels are properly maintained between usage and kept topped up when in use. If either one is lacking, the wine suffers. Finally, while not sparging your bottles is probably more common than using a gas, it is just one more thing that can contribute to excessive uptake of O₂.

The second thought was that excessive phenolic compounds could contribute to premature browning. Red French-American hybrids can be rich in phenols, even richer if not destemmed during crushing and if fermented too long on the skins, pulp and seeds. Oak barrels also contribute phenolic compounds, but good barrel management should negate any deleterious effects. For example, wines are not held nearly as long in new barrels as they are the second or third times the barrels are used.

A third possibility is that a very acidic wine can brown if the acid is neutralized with a base rather than manipulated to remove excess acid as tartrate or malate.

There are other possibilities, but they were not suggested by the limited conditions mentioned by the writer. Also, certain possibilities exist for white wines that don't apply to reds; the reverse is also true. More information would be helpful and may be offered, but the above are the common reasons for browning of reds.

• Exceptional Elderberries?, Not much sugar needed, original thread at WinePress.us
• Sugars in Winemaking, on my site
• Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support

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August 29th, 2009

The media knows no restraint. There was WAAAAAY too much coverage of Michael Jackson's death, and now there is too much Ted Kennedy. The man served Massachusetts for the better part of five decades and he certainly suited his state's liberalism, but he, more than anyone, proved that if you are rich enough and have the right last name you can get away with manslaughter. I hold no esteem for a man who would swim to safety while leaving a woman to drown in his car. I do believe he lived his life thereafter trying to overcome this singularly profound failing in character, but my personal measure of honor required that he step down as Senator. If you strongly disapprove of my litmus test for honor and character, then we can either agree to disagree or you have my blessing to navigate elsewhere. I will not hold it against you.

If you're sticking around, I hope you enjoy today's WineBlog entry. The first topic is dear to my heart, literally. The second is an examination of possible ways to make a specific wine.

Chocolate and Red Wine for a Healthier Heart?

In an 8-year post incident study of 1169 non-diabetic heart attack patients, Swedish doctors have found that survivors who eat chocolate two or more times per week reduce their risk of dying from heart disease about threefold compared to those who never eat chocolate. Consuming chocolate less frequently confers less protection, but less is better than none.

Antioxidants in cocoa are thought to be responsible for these and other beneficial results of consuming chocolate, which include a reduction in blood pressure. Antioxidants are compounds that offer protection against free radicals, cumulative molecules believed to contribute to heart disease, cancers and aging.

With evidence mounting that both chocolate and red wine can contribute to a healthier and longer life, the golden years are looking decidedly brighter. While I am not suggesting that chocolate should replace tofu in your diet, I have to admit it appears that a healthy diet can allow a few indulgences previously discouraged. But you must remember one important thing; chocolate consumption and weight management are almost always in conflict. Perhaps a little longer exercise session after chocolate consumption would balance things out. I don't know. Ask your dietitian.

Cranberry-Raspberry Wine

I posted a tweet last night that I was drinking my last bottle of 2006 Cranberry-Raspberry Wine (with a tiny splash of Elderbe