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May 6th, 2008
I want to thank all of you who wrote or called with condolences for the loss of our beloved Springer
Spaniel, Colita. Your kindness and understanding are greatly appreciated by my wife and me, and I do
indeed intend to call the UC-Davis Pet Support Hotline at 1-800-565-1526; thank you Bill. I also found
them on the net and many other nice websites for those who have lost pets.
Two days ago I went online for a couple of hours and stopped in at the General Winemaking forum
at WinePress.us. I posted comments to two threads and logged off to attend to some chores.
Last night I received a phone call from a fellow in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He apologized for bothering
me, told me how he obtained my phone number and then got to the point. He said he had been "lurking" at
WinePress.us for slightly over a year and greatly enjoyed some of the discussions, but he thought others
were too "chatty" and devoid of real content or value. Yesterday he read my two comments and followed
some links I had left to my site and decided not to waste his time on the forums any longer. My site
and my WineBlog, he said, were all he needed to read. He just wanted to call me and tell me how
much he appreciated my work - and offer his condolences for the loss of Colita.
Yeah, I know this sounds like I'm blowing my own horn (and I guess I am), but I'm using his phone
call as an introduction to the two posts he mentioned as I am going to post edited versions of them here.
But posts on a forum do not exist as isolated posts, but rather as part of a thread that might get rather
involved. It is difficult to capture a whole thread so I won't try. I'll just cover what I think needs
covering.
Strawberry and Pectic Enzyme
A forum member wrote, in part, "I'm making my second batch of strawberry wine based on Jack K's
recipes and since my first was just a gallon I'm curious if you should multiply all ingredients
(excluding yeast) by five to make a five gallon batch. The ingredient that is really unclear is Pectic
Enzyme since in none of the five recipes is it the same. I will be using the number three recipe but I
do freeze the berries before using." He went on to describe how he intended to alter the recipe and
mentioned he was going to freeze the berries before fermenting them.
There are several things I wanted to say, including apologies for not being online much during the
previous week to speak to these issues earlier.
First, on some of the early "Requested Recipes" pages on my site, I neglected to identify the source
of the recipes if not my own. The "Strawberry Wines" page was the 5th such page. I have corrected this
omission on most, but have missed this one, I'll put it on my "to-do" list. The reason this is important
is because you ought to know if the recipe is originally my own or originated with someone else. If
someone else, you might visit the original source and discover a different winemaking philosophy. Only
one recipe on the "Strawberry Wines" page is my own, and it is not my latest or my best.
Secondly, my recipe for "Frozen Strawberry Wine" assumes (but does not say) these are loose
strawberries flash frozen whole and individually. These berries really do not require pectic enzyme to
break them down, as they will break down just fine when they thaw. I have another, as yet unpublished,
recipe that calls for commercial packages of strawberries frozen in juice or light syrup -- not fresh
strawberries you freeze or commercial strawberries flash frozen and packaged loose. It uses ample pectic
enzyme. Why is there a difference? Because the commercial strawberries frozen in juice or syrup are
actually the ones picked slightly past the peak of ripeness and have a completely different texture.
The juice from the obviously overripe ones is retained although their soggy pulp is not, and this extra
juice changes the texture of the other berries. When thawed, the wine made from these berries will
contain higher free pectin levels and be difficult to clear, so they require more pectic enzyme.
Third, since one member said the instructions for his pectic enzyme says to only use one teaspoon
per 5-gallon batch, I said that every single recipe I publish uses powdered pectic enzyme. I have stated
this several places on my website, but at over 500 pages it is easy to miss this. Liquid pectic enzyme
(which I use from time to time just to compare the two forms) is far more potent and 1 teaspoon per 5
gallons is about right, but the norm for powdered is 1/2 to 1 teaspoon per gallon. Why do I prefer
powdered? Because it will last 10 years in the refrigerator, while the liquid has a 1- to 2-year
refrigerated shelf life. Why do more and more local homebrew shops carry the liquid only? So they can
sell you a new supply every 2 years instead of waiting 6-8 years for you to use up the powder.
Fourth, since someone said it isn't possible to use too much pectic enzyme, I added that I suppose
it is possible to use too much pectic enzyme, but I can't think of a time I ever have (including the
time I used 7 teaspoons making a gallon of carob wine). It not only attacks cellular structure, as
another member mentioned, but neutralizes free pectins that can cause clarity problems. I will often
add a half-teaspoon to a wine with just a slight smokiness -- not even a haze -- and find it brilliantly
clear 2-4 days later.
Finally, I told him I thought the recipe he had devised was fine. Indeed, I might just steal it.
Turns out it was mine anyway.
Too Much Sorbate
The next thread gets involved because of what happened and how others replied prior to my reading
the thread. Here is the entire post starting the thread:
"I started to bottle my stabilized blueberry wine. I had degassed it thoroughly and added appropriate
sorbate 8 months ago so I felt safe adding some sugar as I bottled it to backsweeten. Before corking the
bottles however, I noticed the sugar I added was causing fine bubbles in the bottles. It looked a lot
like fermentation. I panicked and decided not to cork the bottles in case what I saw was refermentation
starting up. I poured the wine back into the carboy, added more sorbate and replaced the valve.
"To my frustration, no fermentation seems to be taking place now that the wine with the added sugar
is back in the carboy which means:
1) "I probably panicked unnecessarily
2) "I now have twice as much sorbate in my wine as I should (since I have sorbated this wine twice now)
3) "My once-beautiful wine has been exposed to a lot of oxygen which has subtly affected the color and
clarity
"The oxidation is what it is. I can't do anything about that. But what about the extra sorbate? Is
that a problem? Can it impart bad flavors? Can it affect clarity or color? Can sorbate somehow be
extracted? How bad have I messed up here?"
Although several other people had already offered reasonable comments and recommendations, I do take
issue with one and would expand upon another, so I said I would just comment on those two things -- no,
three.
First, I pointed out that I would be more concerned with the potential for early oxidation than too
much sorbate. Potassium sorbate is the potassium salt of sorbic acid, so the active ingredient in the
wine is sorbic acid -- which can be buffered or mellowed by age. But if your blueberry is actually
oxidized, and I'm not convinced it is yet but it is certainly heading in that direction, blending with
another, non-sorbated, wine will only cause the other wine to become prematurely oxidized. If the writer
maintained an aseptic level of sulfites at bottling time, his risk of early oxidation is greatly reduced
and may not even exist.
But, as a principle, one blends to enhance or integrate flavors, add complexity and/or overcome
weaknesses with strengths. You cannot blend away a fault. If you blend a faulted wine with a non-faulted
wine you dilute the fault but it is still there, and it will eventually consume the entire blend if it
truly exists.
Oxidation is a fault. You can attack some of the symptoms of oxidation by fining with PVPP (I covered
this long ago in my July 21, 2003 entry of my WineBlog), but you cannot remove or reverse the
fault if one is there.
Second, I would let taste guide me. Another member suggested conducting a blind taste test with 2-3
other wines to see if the sorbate stands out. I acknowledged he has the right idea, but I would carry
it a step farther and invite 2-3 friends with good palates to taste the wine without telling them what
he did to it. The hard part is getting them to be brutally honest. Friends usually do not like to tell
friends that there is something wrong with their wine, especially if they are hoping to enjoy more of
it later. On the other hand, they might not find anything to criticize, and wouldn't that be a nice
result? Or, they might find something else, something he would have overlooked because he was focusing
on the sorbate.
My third comment concerns a personal peeve - the use of made-up words as if they are real. You
sweeten a wine. You do not backsweeten it. Backsweeten is not a word. Check Webster's
Dictionary or the Oxford English Dictionary. The sooner we all stop using non-words the
sooner we will return English to a language of defined words and ensure real communication.
I think I have posted more insightful comments than these, but these rang a bell with a reader in
Tuscaloosa. If they point out anything, it is that there is more to winemaking than at first meets the
eye. You don't learn it making wines from kits. You don't learn it making wines from recipes. And
you don't learn it by reading a scattering of different advice on forums -- but they all help you learn
if you're willing to think. It isn't rocket science. The Sumerians made wine so I have no doubt
you can too. But we have advanced beyond the wisdom of the ancients, and the more we learn the more we
realize there is more to learn.
- Pet Loss Support Hotline, website for the UC-Davis hotline
- Gateway to Information on Pet Loss, from UC-Davis - contains many resources
- Strawberry Wines, my recipe page
- Frozen Strawberry Wine, my recipe
- Pectic Enzyme, the original thread. first topic
- WineBlog Archives, scroll down to July 21, 2003
- Too Much Sorbate, the original thread, second topoic
- Help Keep the Winemaking Home Page a Free Website, a self-serving plea for support
May 3rd, 2008
I have not answered much email this week because I had no desire to do so. I lost my best friend on
Monday, my loving and always caring English Springer Spaniel, Colitia -- Coli for short. If you are not
a person who has had a loving, bonding relationship with a dog or other non-human companion, just skip
these opening remarks. I won't mind and Coli certainly won't.
I wrote the Epitaph to Coli's web page a few
hours after I buried her. I could have written a volume on what she meant to me and what I think I
meant to her, but the few words I did write are enough. Love, after all, is a personal thing, expressed
imperfectly even when expressed well. If Coli were still here, I wouldn't have to express it at all.
Just touching her would tell her everything. And her love? It was expressed, at the very least, every
time our eyes met. And my eyes are having trouble reading the screen through these raindrops, so I need
to move on to winemaking....
Jelly, Jam and Other Fruit Preserves
Several people write every year asking about making wine from jam, jelly or preserves. I send them a
generic recipe and make a mental note to address this here, but invariably forget. This seems like as
good a time as any to cover the subject, especially since I received another request just a few days
ago. I think it beneficial to first discuss the difference between the three...what, spreads? Yes. And
while at it I will add three additional types of fruit spreads from which wines can be made.
Jelly: Jelly is made from fruit juice, usually highly clarified. Prized jellies are
"sparkling" or "brilliant." Four things are required to make fruit juice turn into jelly: pectin
(gelatin), sugar, acid, and heat.
Jam: Jams are made from crushed fruit. Because they contain fruit pulp and possibly very
small seeds (as in blackberries, figs or strawberries), they are not clear. They also do not hold a cut
edge or their shape (as jelly should) when removed from the jar. Crushed fruit, sugar and heat are all
that are required to make jam.
Preserves: When fruits are combined with 3/4 to an equal amount of sugar (by weight) and
cooked until the syrup is thick and the fruit transparent (or at least translucent) and plump, it is
called preserves.
Fruit Butter: When the fruit pulp has been pressed through a sieve and cooked with sugar and
perhaps spices until it is thick enough to spread, it is called a fruit butter.
Conserves: When several fruits are mixed together and crushed and then sweetened and cooked
like jam, often with raisins and nut meats added, they are properly called conserves.
Marmalades: Fruits or a combination of fruits, often including citrus peels and fruits, are
finely minced or grated and cooked in clear sugared and acidic juice until thick and jelly-like.
Marmalades rely on natural pectin, so gelatin is rarely added but a small amount could be. Those who
have only tried orange marmalade and have never experienced carrot-pineapple or orange-carrot or apricot-
prune or black cherry-orange or orange-peach marmalade, you have my deepest sympathy. It's like not ever
having eaten homemade vanilla ice cream; having never had it, you don't know what you are missing, but
your pleasures probably would be enriched if you had had it at least once.
Making Wine from Jelly
I'll begin with making wine from jelly because it is the most difficult of the spreads to make wine
from, although not really difficult at all. You simply have to make sure you neutralize all the pectin
in the jelly.
- 4 lbs (36 fl oz) any flavor jelly
- 1 lb granulated sugar
- 5 tsp powdered pectic enzyme
- 2-3 tsp citric acid *
- 1/2 tsp powdered grape tannin
- water to one gallon
- 1-1/4 tsp yeast nutrient
- 1 pkt general purpose wine yeast
* This really depends on the jelly. Add 2 teaspoons for high acid fruit, 3 teaspoons for low acid
fruit. Other considerations: add more tannin for tannin-neutral jellies, like peach or apple mint.
You can match the wine yeast to the fruit, just as you would for the fresh fruit itself, or simply use
a general purpose yeast you like.
Bring 3 quarts of water to boil, remove from heat and stir in all the jelly. Cover and set aside
4-5 hours (until room temperature). Transfer to primary, stir in pectic enzyme, cover primary, and set
aside 3 days (72 hours). Transfer back to pot and bring to a boil and hold boil for 5 minutes. Put
sugar, citric acid, powdered tannin, and yeast nutrient in primary. Pour liquid over dry ingredients in
primary and stir until sugar is dissolved. Cover primary and set aside to cool to room temperature. At
the same time, begin a yeast starter. When liquid is cool, check specific gravity and adjust to 1.095.
Transfer to secondary but do not top up. Add activated yeast starter solution and cover with paper towel
held in place with a rubber band. After 3 days seal with airlock. When vigorous fermentation subsides
(5-7 days), top up; this will reduce the alcohol level slightly to a more amenable 11.5-12%. Wait 30
days and rack, sulfite, top up, and reattach airlock. Rack every 30 days (sulfite every other racking)
until no new sediment forms and wine is clear. If wine doesn't fall perfectly clear in 60 days, add
another teaspoon of pectic enzyme and wait 2 weeks. If still not clear, add another teaspoon. [NOTE: Be
sure pectic enzyme has been stored properly. If wine does not clear after adding 7 teaspoons, replace
the pectic enzyme.] Stabilize, sweeten if desired, wait 30 days, and bottle. Might taste after 3 months,
but really should wait 6 or longer. [Author's own recipe]
Wine from Other fruit Spreads
The process is very much the same as for jelly, but less pectic enzyme is usually required. However,
peach, plum, damson, and greengage are high in pectin and might require more enzyme than the recipe
specifies.
- 4 lbs (36 fl oz) any flavor jam, preserves, fruit butter, conserves, or marmalade
- 1 lb granulated sugar
- 3 tsp powdered pectic enzyme
- 2-3 tsp citric acid *
- 1/2 tsp powdered grape tannin
- water to one gallon
- 1-1/4 tsp yeast nutrient
- 1 pkt general purpose wine yeast
* The same considerations apply as to the jelly recipe.
Bring 3 quarts of water to boil, remove from heat and stir in all the fruit spread. Cover and set
aside 4-5 hours (until room temperature). Transfer to primary, stir in pectic enzyme, cover primary,
and set aside 3 days (72 hours). Strain through fine sieve or muslin cloth and transfer liquid back to
pot; bring to a boil and hold boil for 5 minutes. Put sugar, citric acid, powdered tannin, and yeast
nutrient in primary. Pour liquid over dry ingredients in primary and stir until sugar is dissolved.
Cover primary and set aside to cool to room temperature. At the same time, begin a yeast starter. When
liquid is cool, check specific gravity and adjust to 1.095. Transfer to secondary but do not top up.
Add activated yeast starter solution and cover with paper towel held in place with a rubber band.
After 3 days seal with airlock. When vigorous fermentation subsides (5-7 days), top up. Wait 30 days
and rack, sulfite, top up, and reattach airlock. Rack every 30 days (sulfite every other racking) until
no new sediment forms and wine is clear. If wine doesn't fall perfectly clear in 60 days, add another
teaspoon of pectic enzyme and wait 2 weeks. If still not clear, add another teaspoon. Stabilize,
sweeten if desired, wait 30 days, and bottle. Might taste after 3 months, but really should wait 6 or
longer. [Author's own recipe]
April 26th, 2008
Once again I started receiving more email than I can handle. For those of you who have read my warnings
that I might not respond for weeks and have written saying, "I know you might not answer for some time,
but...," I thank you for your understanding. You can skip these opening remarks. For the gentleman who
wrote (and he is not alone) with a problem and said he was sitting at his computer awaiting my answer, my
apologies, but this is not a chat room and I am not sitting at my computer all day awaiting your problems.
I have a day job, a family and some close friends, dependent pets, a property and home, two automobiles, a
few grapevines, and civic and social responsibilities that fully occupy my time. I only look at unsolicited
email an hour at most per day on then only on Mondays through Fridays when I can afford it. I can usually
answer 2-4 inquiries a day -- sometimes as many as 6 -- but I rarely am asked questions that are not already
answered in my WineBlog archives or elsewhere on my website. One only has to surf and read.
I no longer answer student surveys and get rather irate when asked to write a paper for them on any
subject whatsoever. I do, however, still reply to one professor who sends me scanned student papers and
asks if they were plagiarized from my website or if I plagiarized the students' papers. Thank you, Dr. R.,
for your humorous notes, for reminding me that plagiarism is a form of flattery, and for awarding me all of
those A's for the papers submitted.
Here are a couple of subjects asked about in recent emails.
Juice Extractors
I don't know if it is because it is Spring or because so many mail order catalogs have arrived across
America, but several of you are thinking about purchasing juice extractors of one kind or another. I will
discuss three types I was recently asked about.
Juicers:
There are all kinds of juicers out there, both cheap and expensive. I have nothing insightful to say
about them except to relate my experiences. My wife and I have tried several of the electric juicers
spanning a wide range of quality and expense -- from $29.95 cheapies to $400-plus engineering marvels.
Most (but not all) are fine for making juice to drink from most fruit and vegetables. To me there are four
performance-related questions whose answers determine their worth. (1) How well do they juice carrots?
(2) How well do they isolate the residual matter (pulp, seeds, stems) for disposal? (3) Do they grind any
bitter tannins from the seeds of apples, pears, grapes, and other fruit? (4) How easily do they clean up?
There are other questions that matter as well -- how durable and long-lasting are the products and how well
does their manufacturer stand behind them? -- but the performance questions are, to me, crucial.
I am not "carrot juice nut" or even a big carrot juice drinker, but I recognize that carrot juice is a
truly amazing, nutritional drink. If every man, woman and child above age three drank one 8-oz. glass of
carrot juice biweekly, I am convinced the nation's health care costs would drop. I'm not kidding. So, my
first question concerns carrots, not only because they are good for you but because they can be difficult
for some juicers to process well. I have a friend who had a very expensive Tribest juicer and asked me to
bring over my brand new Lequip, which was not a cheapie. When I got there, another person I did not know
was there with an inexpensive juicer picked up at Sam's Club. That person went first and juiced a bunch of
carrots -- just enough to produce 6 ounces of juice. We then took the pulp and ran it through my juicer and
extrected another ounce of juice. The Tribest then extracted anther half-ounce from my residue.
The cheapie was a high RPM (over 3,000) centrifugal juicer, by far the most common type. Mine was a
masticating juicer operating around 100 RPM. My friend's Tribest was a chopping press type also operating
around 100 RPM. The two more expensive ones isolated the residue in a compartment for disposal but the
cheapie didn't. The cheapie, however, was still the easiest to clean. Mine had the best warranty (6 years).
We then ran about a pint of grapes through each machine until no more juice was readily extracted. We
examined the residue from each machine and found that the cheapie took part of the outer surface off the
seeds, my Lequip did not, and the expensive Tribest did not but cracked several. Since all three of us were
winemakers, I at least decided I had the best machine for the job. It cost over $200. The odd thing is, I
almost never used it for juicing fruit for winemaking. You have to decide for yourself if you want to spend
the money for one. If you do, make sure you have another use for it (like making carrot juice).
Citrus Juicers:
Again, there is a wide range here, and it includes both manual and electric. I have little to say about
the manual ones except I use both the press and rotate type and the squeezie type -- for different fruit --
and they both work just fine. There are lever-press types I have never used, but I would think they would
make juicing a bushel of oranges a breeze. Personally, unless I had more than two citrus trees and wanted
to freeze their juice, or I had a handicap or infirmity that prevented using a manual one, or I had a
commercial application requiring it, I could not justify the expense of an electric citrus juicer. But
that's me. I can offer no advice for these. You're on your own.
Steam Extractors
I have to admit I have only tried using one of these three times at one setting. The steamer is used was
a top-of-the-line brand and model and cost the friend who loaned it to me about $150. I will say this -- it
did a superb job at extracting juice from frozen cranberries, fresh mayhaws and frozen grapes. The problem
was that none of the wines made from the juices thus extracted cleared completely, and I treated them with
both pectic and amyl (starch) enzymes and two fining agents. Two other friends and numerous forum members
have reported similar experiences. If you want juice for drinking or for jelly, these are fabulous, and I
mean that. Perhaps the slight disclarity is not universal across all fruit, but it is for the three I
mentioned above using the steam juicer I used. Your mileage may vary.
I do not consider this the bottom line in evaluating these products. It is, however, except for the
electric citrus juicers I haven't tried, the fruits of my experiences.
Mixed Wild Berry Wine
A fellow wrote asking about a wine that could be made with mayhaws, wild strawberries, blackberries,
dewberries, and blueberries, with perhaps a little banana thrown in for body. And, he would prefer it
sweet.
Okay, I realize it is not exactly the same mix of berries as I listed in my mixed berry wine recipe,
but my recipe ought to serve as model of sorts for making such a wine, especially since it won a
first place in a big competition. So if it isn't the same, what do you do? Well, for one thing you can
adapt my recipe to your circumstances. If you go to my page on making wines from wild edible
plants, you'll see a major section on it called "Adapting Recipes." It offers hints on general strategies
to follow, fruit content, sugar content and supplementation, and acidity. But the first thing it does is
tell you to look for a recipe for a fruit as close in taste to the one you are making. I don't care
how you cut it, that should bring you back to my mixed berry wine recipe.
My recipe used 1 quart each of seven different kinds of berries. If you have fewer kinds of berries,
the key is that I used 7 quarts of fruit. So mix the component amounts, but shoot for 7 quarts of
fruit. I have no idea how many wild strawberries and other berries the reader will have, but the two
obvious strategies are to either balance the flavors roughly equally or tilt the mix in favor of the
flavor you want to push forward. I used apple juice in place of water, but you can use white grape
juice, white cranberry juice, orange juice, or some other flavor readily available as a bottled juice or
frozen concentrate in most food markets. However, bananas are best used by boiling them and using the
water they were boiled in, so you cannot do as the writer asked using a fruit juice exclusively. You
have to use some banana water.
Finally, the desire to finish the wine as a sweet wine is not a problem. Simply read any available
instructions for sweetening a finished wine. My own directions are found in many places throughout my
site, but certainly can be found in the last of my "Basic Steps." See the fifth link following this entry.
Okay, so here then is a sample recipe for a mixed wild berry wine using the ingredients the writer
has. This certainly is not the only way to do it, but it shows how one might do it.
Mixed Wild Berry Wine
- 2 qts mayhaws
- 2 qts wild strawberries
- 1 qt wild blackberries
- 1 qt wild dewberries
- 1 qt wild blueberries
- 6 very ripe bananas
- 1 lb. granulated sugar
- 3 pts apple juice
- 1 pt water
- 1 tsp. citric acid
- 1 1/2 tsp pectic enzyme
- 1 tsp yeast nutrient
- 1 pkt general purpose wine yeast
Slice the bananas and place slices in pot with 1 pint water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer
uncovered 30 minutes, adding 1/2 cup water after 15 minutes and again at 30 minutes. Strain off solids
and discard, saving water but spooning off and discarding any scum on the surface. In separate operation,
wash mayhaws and remove any stems. Place in nylon straining bag and mash in your primary with a piece
of hardwood or the flat bottom of a wine bottle. Open bag and add remaining berries. Wearing rubber
gloves, in primary tie bag closed and squeeze bag with hands until berries are well mashed. Leave bag
in primary and add sugar. Pour banana water over sugar and add apple juice and all remaining ingredients
except yeast. Stir until sugar is dissolved. Cover primary and set aside 8-10 hours. Add activated
yeast starter and punch down bag twice a day with gloved hands or wooden spoon. Remove bag after three
days of vigorous fermentation, allowing to drip drain (do not squeeze). Discard berry pulp and transfer
liquid to secondary. Cover with paper towel held by rubber band until vigorous fermentation subsides (3-
5 days). Top up and affix airlock. Ferment to dryness and rack every 30 days until no new sediments
form. Stabilize and sweeten as desired. Wait 30 days and bottle. Taste after 6 months. [Author's
own recipe]
April 21st, 2008
Yes, my last entry (April 18th, 2008) was a long one. It took me over 6 hours to write, and I actually
wrote the portions on tesgüino before I wrote the portion on Bay Leaf Wine. Why? Because I was making the
Bay Leaf Wine while writing the portions on tesgüino.
I knew when I wrote the Bay Leaf portion that I would get email about one aspect of it, and I did. Only
one so far (thank you Jean), but I thought I would address the issue raised before getting any more email.
It is much easier to answer here, once, than to answer several emails individually.
Using an Emetic
In my discussion about devising a Bay Leaf Wine recipe, I mentioned an off taste in the stronger infusions
and discovered it was caused by cineole, an essential oil which has three reported side effects: "...it
relieves gas (flatulence), is emetic (induces vomiting) and is diaphoretic (causes perspiration)." And so
Jean in Montreal asked, "Why would you make a wine using a substance known to induce vomiting and cause
excessive sweat?"
First of all, one needs to understand that a "reported" side effect is not necessarily the same as a
"known" side effect. The innocent have been condemned more than once for guilt by association. A person
might get sick eating something very familiar to their diet but which contains one ingredient they are not
familiar with. It is perfectly understandable that they might blame the unfamiliar ingredient for their
sickness rather than suspect the familiar of being tainted. Words have specified meaning and "reported"
does not mean "known."
Second, some discussions will include every known or reported aspect of a thing. As I have warned in
discussing making wines from plants that appear on various "toxic plant" lists, I have found instances where
plants with leaves toxic to grazing sheep are on a list, while neither the leaves nor the fruit are harmful
to man. If someone's horse fed on leaves of the Laurus nobilis and then threw up, it might get
reported that the leaves were an emetic.
Third, the amount and manner of consumption makes a difference. In my WineBlog entry of April 6th,
2008, I mentioned some research by Dr. David Sinclair in which resveratrol extended life in yeast, a worm
and a fruit fly, but he noted that a human would have to consume 1,000 bottles of wine a day to realize
similar benefits. Similarly, if one searches for plants with emetic effects (see link following this entry),
one will find wild ginger, papaw, most mustards, coreopsis, melons, broom, honeysuckle, alfalfa, bayberry,
ginseng, apricot, elderberry, poke, cranberry and many other familiar, edible plants listed, but all need
to be consumed in abnormal quantities to induce vomiting. And remember, if you need to induce
vomiting you need only drink a glass of warm but very salty water, yet salt is also essential for human
life. And, lest we forget, I am sure everyone reading this WineBlog has eaten many a stew or soup
or gumbo or other dish that used bay leaves for flavoring. This ingredient is not an unknown. The point
is that simply because something is identified as emetic doesn't mean it will necessarily make you vomit.
Fourth, the claim that it is diaphoretic (causes perspiration) does not concern me at all. I love hot
chiles (jalapeños, habaneros, etc.) in many dishes, and all but the sweet ones (bell peppers, sweet banana
peppers, etc.) are diaphoretic. Big deal.
My quandary in devising the recipe was in the amount of bay leaf to use, not the ingredient itself. My
wine is now in secondary and the airlock is chugging away. In a few weeks I will taste it and determine if
the aftertaste is acceptable -- if the flavor of the wine itself is not, I will give age a chance to work
its miracle, as it does on so many wines that are undrinkable when new. But, if the aftertaste is
unacceptable when young, I doubt it will improve with aging; in that case I will dilute the wine with
Niagara grape wine.
If you are interested in making this wine, you may wish to wait until I next report on it to be assured
the original recipe is sound. And yes, if the finished wine makes me throw up I will report this too.
Pecan Leaves
The other email I received regarding my last WineBlog entry said, "I'll pass on bay leaf wine,
but have a number of pecan trees still too young to produce nuts. Can I make wine from pecan leaves?" In a
word, "Yes."
I am quite sure the American pecan (Carya illinoinensis) has been an important food source since
man first stumbled upon it. I don't know how long it has been made into wine. The nuts themselves have
defied every attempt I have made to make them into wine -- they simply go rancid and spoil the must. I have
tried four times. But the leaves are another matter. Not unlike walnut leaves, they add an unusual but
agreeable flavor to an otherwise neutral wine -- better than oak leaves.
I have seen two other recipes for pecan leaf wine, so the concept does not originate with me. This is,
however, my own recipe, I made this wine before discovering the other two recipes.
Pecan Leaf Wine
- 3 cups pecan leaves, moderately packed
- 1-1/2 pounds demerara sugar
- 1 lb honey
- 11.5-oz. can Welch's 100% White Grape Juice frozen concentrate
- 2 oranges (juice and zest)
- 1 tsp yeast nutrient
- 6 pts water
- Montrachet wine yeast
Put the water on to boil. Meanwhile, collect the zest from the oranges and juice them. Put the zest in
a primary with the washed pecan leaves and set aside the juice. When water boils, stir the sugar and honey
into it until dissolved, then continue boiling 20 minutes. While boiling, skim scum from honey off surface.
Remove from heat and pour water over leaves. Cover primary and set aside 24 hours. Strain leaves from water
and stir in orange juice, white grape juice concentrate and yeast nutrient until dissolved. Add activated
yeast starter and cover the primary. When vigorous fermentation subsides (5-7 days), transfer to secondary
through strainer to catch zest and fit airlock. Put in warm place until fermentation completely stops. Rack
into santitized secondary, add a finely crushed and dissolved Campden tablet, top up and refit airlock. Move
to a cool place for six months, racking every 2 months and checking airlock occasionally. Stabilize and
sweeten to taste if desired, bottle and age an additional six months. [Author's own recipe]
April 18th, 2008
I've spent the past two evenings racking wines and cleaning up afterwards. I didn't realize how many
wines I have in-progress. I have one batch in primary and 39 batches under airlocks. I really should count
cases of empty bottles just to see where I am. And I'm down to around 80 corks....
The sad thing is that I really don't have anywhere to store newly bottled wine. My racks are full and
I've run out of hidden places to stack cases. I guess I need to have a tasting party.
And there are still so many wines I want to make. A viewer wrote me recently asking for a recipe for bay
leaf wine. I could not find a recipe, so I tried my hand at developing one. A fellow Texan wrote and asked
what I know about Tesguino. I know a lot, actually, but have never made it. I'd like to. A lady in
Colorado wonders if one could make blue spruce wine. I asked her to send me a pound and a half of new growth
Colorado blue spruce bough tips and I would attempt to develop a recipe. She wrote back -- the boughs are
on the way. And I have always wanted to try making a licorice wine.
I thought it would be a good idea to talk about how I go about developing recipes. I'll use the first
two examples just mentioned to illustrate the way I go about doing this.
Bay Leaf Wine
The woman who suggested this said, "I would love to have a go at this as I think it would taste like the
Greek retsina." I'm wasn't so sure about the comparison, but thought it worth a try. If anyone out there
has a proven recipe for this wine, please send it to me. I would like to compare it with what I did.
To begin with, I have no idea how many bay leaves would be required to make this wine. It so happens that
I have a great quantity on hand, thanks to a dear friend who lives in the Sierra Nevadas of California and
has a bay laurel (Laurus nobilis) growing on his property. Every few years I receive a box from him
filled with prunings of new growth with young but hardened leaves. After I strip the leaves from the
branches, I dry half in the sun, oven or dehydrator, depending on the circumstances at the time, and freeze
the other half. Several hours ago I broke up 24 dried leaves and poured one pint of boiling water over them.
Every half-hour for three hours I placed the pint in the microwave and brought it back to a boil (2 minutes
on high). I can't tell you how wonderful the kitchen smelled -- and I do understand why the woman thought
it might taste like retsina.
About an hour ago I began experimenting with my infusion of bay leaf. Into one wine glass I poured 20
mL of the infusion. Into a second I poured 20 mL of infusion and 20 mL of water. Into a third I poured 20
mL of infusion and 40 mL of water. Finally, into a fourth I poured 20 mL of infusion and 60 mL of water. I
felt confident that one of these strengths would be adequate, or at least two of them would define a bracket
with which to make further dilutions. I recognize the fault in this method -- that I am not working with a
fermented base and therefore the flavor will not be true -- but my purpose was to gain some appreciation of
the amount of leaves I will need for one gallon of wine. I can adjust the flavor of the final product
through blending with Niagara or some other white wine.
And so I tasted each sample, beginning with the most diluted (3:1 water to infusion). I found it mildly
bitter and tried to imagine it fermented with perhaps a can of Niagara frozen concentrate per gallon. After
a few minutes, I tasted the 2:1 dilution. The bitterness was now pronounced and I knew I would not taste the
remaining two samples (1:1 dilution and pure infusion). So I dumped those two samples and took down a fifth
wine glass. I had the two samples with 40 mL of water and 60 mL of water, so I poured 20 mL of infusion to
each of the three empty glasses and to one added 45 mL of water, to the next added 50 mL of water, and to the
third added 55 mL of water. I arranged the samples from most diluted to least and again began tasting. I
soon decided that the middle ground -- 50 mL of water to 20 mL of infusion -- best suited my taste. But,
while washing and drying the wine glasses, the very distinct aftertaste lingered on. I decided I would not
drink any water or other beverage because I wanted to see how long this would persist. The aftertaste was
not initially disagreeable, but after 15 minutes it was as strong as ever and by then was quite disagreeable.
This sent me to the computer.
The bitterness is caused by the essential oil of the leaf, the principal component of which is cineole,
also known as wormseed oil or eucalyptol (C10H18
O), which exhibits an odor of camphor. Medicinally, it possesses three known (or at least
reported) traits; it relieves gas (flatulence), is emetic (induces vomiting) and is diaphoretic (causes
perspiration). After reading that, I drank an 8-oz. glass of Welch's Concord grape juice, which at least
washed away the aftertaste from the bay leaf infusion.
Because I do not wish to introduce too much of anything that might induce vomiting and because the
dilution I had selected left such a strong and disagreeable aftertaste, I decided to go back to the 3:1
ratio (60 mL of water to 20 mL of infusion). I remixed a sample at that strength and tasted it. A slight
aftertaste was noted in the finish but did not persist beyond a minute. And with that observation I started
a wine with the following recipe.
- 48 bay leaves *
- 1 lb. 12 oz. dark brown sugar
- water to one gallon
- 2 bitter oranges or clementines
- 1 11.5-oz. can of Welch's 100% White Grape Juice frozen concentrate
- 1 tsp yeast nutrient
- Wine yeast
* I can only attest to the bay leaves I have. Other bay leaves may be more or less potent in flavor
and essential oil. Other thoughts: White granulated cane sugar can be used instead of brown sugar. You
can also use 2 teaspoons of acid blend instead of the oranges, but I though the orange flavor, like the
molasses in the brown sugar, might create a complexity otherwise lacking. Finally, I'm sure the wine will
be too thin without the white grape concentrate.
Place the leaves in a 1-quart pot with 2 cups of water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer under
a lid for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, use a grater to remove the zest of the oranges and then juice them. Add
the juice to a primary and the zest to the simmering bay leaves. Add the brown sugar, grape concentrate,
5 pints of cold water, and yeast nutrient to the primary. Stir until the sugar is dissolved. When time,
strain off the bay leaves and orange zest and add only the infused water to the primary. Stir and allow to
cool until under 90 degrees F. Add activated yeast and cover primary. After 3 days, transfer to secondary,
top up and attach airlock. After 30 days, rack, stir in one finely crushed and dissolved Campden tablet,
top up and reattach airlock. Repeat every 30 days (only add Campden tablet every other racking) until clear
and no new sediments form. If you want to sweeten, stabilize, sweeten to taste with simple syrup, reattach
airlock, and set aside 30 days. Bottle and allow at least 3 months before tasting. Will probably improve
with additional aging. [Author's own recipe]
Tesgüino
[Note: If your browser does not display the word Tesgüino correctly, you may wish to obtain an
updated version, try another browser, or simply continue using the one you have knowing it does not display
content fully and as intended; the word "tesguino" has two dots above the "u" to aid in pronunciation -- it
is pronounced tez.gwee.noh, but the second syllable is sounded with the lips rounded into an O.]
Tesgüino is a mild alcoholic drink -- more of a beer than a wine -- made in every country where corn is
an important crop. It is most identified with the Tarahumara Indians of Chihuahua, Mexico, but also with the
Native Americans of the American Southwest -- the Apache, Navajo, Hopi, Yaqui, and Pima peoples. It varies
in strength from 3 to 12% alcohol, with the average being around 4-5%. When made at the low end of the
alcohol scale, it needs to be consumed within a few days or refrigerated, as it will certainly spoil if
stored a week at room temperature.
Tesgüino is a slurry-like, non-clarified alcoholic beverage prepared by fermentation of germinated corn
(maize) or maize stalk juice. The term tesgüino comes from the Aztec tecuin, meaning heartbeat, and
refers to the importance of the drink to life. The Tarahumaras, who consume tesgüino at any excuse,
differentiate among various types of tesgüino -- that prepared from maize stalk juice is paciki, that
which incorporates the bark of certain species of Rubiaceae, as batari. The beverage is also referred
to as sugiki. The Tepehuano Indians in Mexico refer to tesgüino made from germinated maize as
navaitai and that made from the juice of maize stalks as vougadi navaitai.
I have a recipe passed down by the late Dorothy Alatorre (in her "Home Wines of North America"), but
after researching the beverage and discussing this drink with a couple from Chihuahua I have decided that
Dorothy's recipe is more closely that for traditional Tepache, another alcoholic beverage from
Mexico (I am aware that it is popular today to make Tepache from pineapple skins and not corn, but
the traditional drink was made from corn). But, with all due respect to the late mentor, I will
first give her recipe and then a more traditional recipe as I have come to understand it.
Dorothy Alatorre's Tesgüino Recipe
- 2 lbs dried corn
- water to one gallon
- 1 orange
- 2 piloncillos *
- 3" cinnamon stick
- Wine yeast starter for one gallon of wine
* Piloncillos are cones made from the raw sugar crust remaining in the boiler in the processing of sugar;
if not available in your area, substitute one cup of finely packed brown sugar for each piloncillo cone.
Shuck the corn from the ear and roast it in a shallow pan until it is pale brown. Then grind it and put
it in the primary fermentor. Add the water, the juice and zest of the orange, the cinnamon stick, and the
piloncillos, broken into small pieces. When the piloncillos have been stirred enough to dissolve them, add
the yeast starter, cover the primary, and leave to ferment three to five days, stirring daily. Then strain,
cool and enjoy. This beverage will finish between 5.5 and 6.5% alcohol. [Recipe from Dorothy Alatorre's
Home Wines of North America]
Jack Keller's Traditional Tesgüino Recipe
Let me be clear about one thing. This recipe makes a beverage that fits the alcohol level indicative of
wine. For that reason, some people south of the U.S.-Mexican border may not consider it to be tesgüino. So
be it. I just hope they appreciate the method used in this recipe, as it is far truer to traditional
methods than is Dorothy's.
- 3 lbs dried corn
- water to one gallon
- 1 orange *
- 4 piloncillos
- "catalyst" **
- Wine yeast starter for one gallon of wine
* Traditional tesgüino does not use an acid source, but I will follow Dorothy here and include the orange
to make it more of a wine than a beer.
** In this context, "catalyst" does not mean what it means in chemistry, but rather is an additive that
changes the flavor character of the drink. For example, in the first linked reference below, the authors
go into great detail about catalysts: "The most common catalysts in the vicinity of Cannon Urique in
Chihuahua are bark (batari) or kakwara (Randia echinocarpa, R. watsoni, and
R. laevigata) and kaya (Coutarea pterosperma), which are chopped, ground, and boiled for
many hours prior to being added to the tesgüino....At higher altitudes where pine trees grow, the catalysts
used are leaves of roninowa (Stevia serrata), rojisuwi (Chimaphila maculata),
and ubitakuwari (Datura meteloides); stems of basiawi (Bromus arizonicus),
roots of gotoko, otoko, or goto (Phaseolus metcalfei and Plumbago scandens
); rawici kitakame or "mouse´s ear" (Hieracium fendleri); and two unidentified plants, one of
the Graminea species, and the other a legume, gotoborisi." For the purpose of this recipe
(and for those who are not botanists), the catalyst can be anything that adds flavor to the beverage --
anise seed, fennel seed, cinnamon bark, a few cloves, vanilla bean, some elderberry juice, backberry juice,
blueberry juice, sassafras root bark etc. When adding juice, it must be factored into the total liquid
quantity for the amount of tesgüino being produced.
When I say "dried corn," I mean corn on the cob from the past season that has been dried into seed
corn. I do not mean dried cracked corn or deer corn. Shuck the corn from the cob and soak it in
water for two days, adding water as needed to keep the kernels covered. Drain the kernels in a colander
and place the colander on a cake pan or other device to catch drippings and place them in a dark place.
Moisten and toss the kernels to turn them twice daily until they start to germinate. It is important they
be kept in the dark lest the sprouts turn green and bitter. When the sprouts are at least 1 but not more
than 2 inches long, remove them and grind them with a manual stone mill or powered metal mill, then boiled
in water until the mixture turns yellow. This can take up to 8 hours to accomplish. The solids are
strained from the liquid and the latter is mixed with the "catalyst" and poured into a primary where the
piloncillos have been broken and the juice of the orange added. Stir until the sugar is completely
dissolved. Cover until the liquid cools to room temperature, then add activated yeast starter. After two
days, transfer to a secondary and attach airlock. Ferment to dryness. It is now tesgüino and can be
consumed in its cloudy state or allowed to clear. Alcohol will be between 10 and 13%, so the tesgüino can
be bottled and allowed to age, but don't overdo it. [Author's recipe]
April 12th, 2008
I hate income taxes. It's bad enough you have to pay them, but to have to wade through the virtual
mountain of forms, schedules, work sheets, instructions, tables, publications, etc. required to figure and
file a return is just torture. So, for some 18-20 years I have been using software to assist me. About
every three years or so it seems something changes in our situation to really complicate the return. It
isn't like the changes in my life are so unusual or convoluted in the human experience that the software
maker wouldn't think of including them as possibilities, but rather that they all use this "interview"
format and you have no idea as you go through it when, where or whether they will ever ask you the question
that will break you out of the mainstream return and handle your situation.
The Help files with these programs used to be helpful. Now, at least with the one I've used for the past
5-6 years, you press Help and get a screen saying there are 29 or so ways you can get help -- just go to Help
Central and do this and that. It really would be helpful if just one screen accessible through
the Help menu had the words "Help Central" at the top so you would know you are in the right place. And
remember when Help menus had a feature called an "index," or perhaps a "search engine" that actually searched
the "help" references to find an instruction about the word or phrase you were searching? It's like they
hire a new software design team every 2-3 years that starts over rather than building on the proven features
of the existing program.
The good news is that I finally finished after two agonizing weeks, two phone calls to the company and
hours of being on hold (the company representatives were NOT able to answer my questions). I then took the
printed and signed returns to the post office at 10:00 a.m. Thursday and paid a small fortune to send them
by overnight express mail to my wife to sign (she is in California, creating a couple of those complicating
circumstances the tax preparation program was ill-designed to deal with easily). And, well, Murphy's law
asserted itself -- it was NOT delivered the next day as promised and paid for, the tracking program the
U.S. Postal Service uses is only updated every evening so I had to wait until after midnight on the 11th
to learn it never even left San Antonio on Thursday and didn't arrive at San Bernardino until Friday evening.
That's it. No further information. Thank you very much from the U.S. government and please stand by for
another postal rate increase next month. And people wonder why I've had two heart attacks....
So here's a bit of friendly advice from someone who has had it with governmental inefficiency (oh, and
you want to trust your health care to these people?): if it absolutely has to be there the next day,
there are private companies that will deliver as promised and for less money, too. Also, if what has
to be there tomorrow happens to be wine, remember that it is illegal to ship wine through the U.S. Postal
Service, so by law you will have to chose a more efficient service provider. Good luck with that.
Scratch vs. Kit Wines in Competitions
A reader wrote, "Is it fair to enter wine made from kits versus wine made from grapes or juice in
amateur winemaking competitions?
"Let's see: with wine kits, a company sources good juice from around the world, the company gives you
packets of yeast, Bentonite, Meta[bisulfite], and everything you need, and complete directions as to timing
and when one should add each packet.
"Let's contrast that with wine made from Juice or Grapes. Now one has to choose the yeast, choose the
fining agent(s), determine when to rack, how to cold-stabilize, as well as a multitude of other decision
points.
"Now why should both of these types of wine (kit vs. juice/grapes) be judged against each other in
competitions such as the WineMaker competition??
"I make both wine from juice/grapes, and wine from kits when I really like that wine. I would never
enter a wine made from a kit into a contest because it would feel like entering a cake made from a Betty
Crocker package into a home-made cake contest."
You have no idea how this question has perplexed competition organizers over the past few years --
especially since the kit manufacturers got their act together and started producing very high quality kits.
The San Antonio Regional Wine Guild has struggled with this same question. I was on the committee that
had to resolve the issue. Our concerns went beyond those of the writer above because we have many members
who grow their own grapes and can easily spend hundreds of hours and hundreds of dollars a year producing
a crop and protecting it from the birds, the grape berry moth, leaf rollers, and a dozen diseases. They too
do not think it fair that their lovingly-made wines have to compete with those of the person who spends
$79 on a manufactured kit with exacting instructions.
But the person who lives in an apartment or confined tract home has as much right to compete as the
person who lives on the country homestead. There has to be an accommodation for each. Our concern in the
Wine Guild was with increasing the number of categories. We already have 18, and if we added a category
for kit wines in each grape category except native grape dry and native grape sweet, we would add seven
categories -- red dry, red sweet, white dry, white sweet, rosé dry, rosé sweet, and fortified. There are
good reasons for not wanting to do this, so we reached a compromise. As with most compromises, not everyone
is happy. We will reevaluate this annually. We may just have to suck it up and create the new categories.
Our compromise? We require that for grape wines you indicate at registration whether the wine is from
a kit or estate-grown grapes -- we rarely have members making wine from purchased juice. Wines made from
purchased grapes are not indicated, as our concern was that estate wines not be judged with kit wines. If
we have five wines in any category that are either estate wines or kit wines, they are broken out into and
judged as a separate category. Otherwise, they are judged together.
This is not a perfect system, but so far it has worked reasonably well.
White Cranberry
A reader from Eugene, Oregon asked me some questions about cranberry wine. In the course of answering
him, I mentioned that cranberry is one of my favorite non-grape wines and tastes a lot like white Zinfandel.
This comment resulted in the misunderstanding that I produced a white cranberry wine; I received the
followed-up question, "How do you get white wine from cranberries?"
I replied that I do not. I get a blush, sometimes more red than blush, but never a deep red wine and
certainly never a white wine. I said it compares in taste to a White Zinfandel (which is a blush,
not a true white wine).
I'm sure you have seen white cranberry juice in the supermarket, sold in 64 ounce jugs. This is a blend
of white grape and cranberry juice. I assume they crush the berries and draw the juice immediately away
from the red skins to avoid any color. It does not taste like cranberry juice to me. I've made wine with
it and it was very nondescript -- flavorless, actually. It would be a good white to blend with a white
wine to dilute an overpowering flavor -- like a lilac or elderflower wine made with way too many flowers.
Habanero Wine
I received a deeply appreciated email of thanks that included the following: "My friends and I love the
hot stuff. We're always putting habanero peppers in salsa, sausages, ice cream, etc. We thought, 'Why not
wine?' It seems you've had some real success thus far with jalapeños, and I was wondering if you'd any
ideas on making a wine with a little bigger kick to it."
Okay, I have six Habanero Wine recipes. With minor variation, they are essentially the same except for
the amount of habanero chiles to use (they are chiles, not peppers). Personally, I like the
taste of baked habaneros, but that taste is lost in the wine due to the heat and the fact that the taste
comes from the baked chiles, not the fresh ones. So, for my wine, I have settled on 2 chiles per gallon
but know someone who uses 15-18. To each his own. I use it only for marinading meats. For drinking, I fall
back on jalapeño, New Mexican Hatch or pasillas. Chipotles (smoked jalapeños) also make a good tasting
wine. So, in my mind it boils down to taste. The habanero wines really lack the taste of habaneros but
not the heat, but if heat is what you want, then go for it. The recipe below will have better mouthfeel
because it is essentially a Niagara grape wine spiced with habaneros.
- n habaneros *
- 1/2 cup malt extract (optional)
- 6 oz granulated sugar
- 3 11.5-oz. cans Welch's 100% White Grape Juice frozen concentrate
- 1/2 tsp pectic enzyme
- 1 finely crushed and dissolved Campden tablet
- water to one gallon
- 1 1/2 tsp yeast nutrient
- 1 sachet any white wine yeast
* n represents any number you care to use
Wear rubber or latex gloves when handling the habaneros, the must once the habaneros have been added,
and the finished wine (when racking or bottling or checking specific gravity). If you are "Machoman" or
just marginally intelligent, then don't wear them. Chop the chiles. Feel the texture. Great, huh? Now
go use the restroom, touching only what you need to touch to do the deed. Feels good, doesn't it? Wear
the gloves.
Chop the chiles roughly, finely, it makes no difference. Remove the seeds or leave them in; that too
makes no difference, as we are waaay beyond subtleties with this chile. If you have an old jelly bag you
can sacrifice or perhaps the foot of an old (but sanitized) pair of pantyhose, tie the chopped chiles in
the bag (or foot) and toss into a glass or glazed earthenware primary (like the insert for a two-gallon
crock-pot). If you have to use a plastic primary, I'd select one you never intend to use for wine again.
Put everything except the Campden tablet and yeast in the primary, stir well until sugar and malt are
dissolved, and cover with a sanitized cover. Wait 10-12 hours and add the finely crushed and dissolved
Campden tablet. Wait another 8-10 hours and add the activated wine yeast in a starter solution. Ferment
about 5 days, remove the bag of chopped chiles and toss into the trash (or save and use for a second wine),
and transfer the wine into a secondary. Attach an airlock and forget it for a month. Rack, reattach
airlock and wait another month. Do this until one day, after waiting the obligatory month, you notice
there are no sediments to rack from. If the wine is clear, bottle it. If not, wait it out or use your
favorite fining agent. I cannot offer suggestions here because mine has always cleared; I have no idea why
yours might not. Bottle when clear. If to be used only as a marinade, you can also blend with garlic wine
and/or onion wine and then bottle it. [Author's own recipe]
April 6th, 2008
It is easy to get caught up in the hype about resveratrol, which I wrote about in my last WineBlog
entry. None of us who enjoy a positive quality of life really wants to give it up to cancer, heart
disease, stroke, or other life altering or life threatening conditions. The allure of a simple pill, or
drink, as insurance against such outcomes is seductive.
I would like to have a nickel back for every dollar I have spent over my lifetime on specific vitamins
or "supplements" that lacked USDA or FDA backing for delivering the benefit for which I was taking them.
At one time I was taking things for reasons I had forgotten. I need to stay away from homeopathic,
naturopathic and herbal-medicinal literature.
I have never bought into the healing power of crystals , magnets, pyramids or that sort of thing, but
I'll admit to haven taken at one time or another alfalfa, aloe, beta-carotene, bilberry, coenzyme Q10,
DHEA, evening primrose oil, flaxseed oil, folic acid, garlic, ginkgo, glucosamine....I'll just stop here
before I embarrass myself. But for whatever reason I took these things, for the most part they were not
constituents of my normal diet. I had to go out of my way to obtain them and they were ingested as pills,
tablets capsules, or caplets. Red wine is quite different. I make it continuously and drink it most days.
I do this because I like it. It would be nice if there were a health benefit thrown in for good measure.
Live to be 150?
Several nights ago on ABC television Barbara Walters presented a special called, "Live to Be 150... Can
You Do It?" It covered a number of strategies for prolonging life, and one of them was resveratrol. Dr.
David Sinclair, a founder of Sirtris Pharmaceuticals and a professor at Harvard Medical School, was
featured in this segment. Dr. Sinclair is no stranger to resveratrol, having published findings of its
role in extending life in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae (Nature, Sep 11, 2003), the
worm Caenorhabditis elegans and the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster (Nature, Aug 5,
2004). However, he says a human would have to consume 1000 bottles of wine a day to realize similar
benefits. Dr. Sinclair told Walters he has created a "miracle" pill containing resveratrol that will have
the same effect of 1000 bottles of red wine daily.
I can't blame Dr. Sinclair for trying to cash in on resveratrol. I would too if I had the wherewithal.
I long ago realized that if you want to make a lot of money, introduce yet another product that claims
you'll look younger or lose weight. But for Dr. Sinclair to say he has created a "miracle" pill containing
resveratrol which, by the way, he said isn't on the market yet, seems a bit over-reaching to me. Almost
six months ago (just before Thanksgiving) I was scanning the vitamins and supplements section of my
supermarket pharmacy and saw a rather large, gray plastic bottle labeled "Resveratrol." I didn't look
twice because I was in a hurry. I haven't seen it since but really haven't looked. But unless that
was Dr. Sinclair's product and it is on the market now, he has simply created another
pill containing resveratrol.
The truth is that none of the claims made for resveratrol have been proven in adequately scaled human
trials. That doesn't mean they won't eventually be proven, but there are mixed results in the
literature that receive few headlines and no air time on ABC.
Only two months ago, researchers at the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre of the Toronto General Hospital
reported a study on thirteen human volunteers to test whether red wine differed from other alcoholic
drinks in affecting heart health. What they found and published in the February edition of the American
Journal of Physiology, Heart and Circulatory Physiology is that red wine and alcohol consumption were
found to have virtually identical impact on health. Indeed, one drink of either substance helped to reduce
the work rate of the heart but after a second drink of either the heart rate and sympathetic nervous system
activity all increased.
Admittedly, the small population in the study is troublesome, but the results are equally troubling.
This study does not address resveratrol per se, but drinking a lot of red wine daily clearly
is not good for your heart. A dear friend recently told me his doctor, who may well have read this study,
advised him to limit his wine consumption to one glass daily.
Other Compounds?
Red grapes are but one of the foci in a flood of studies. Blueberries, strawberries, bilberries,
pomegranates, mangosteen, acai, raspberries, noni, and many other fruit are being studied as rich sources
of polyphenols. We know these compounds as potent antioxidants -- phenolic acids, tannins, flavonols and
anthrocyanins. A compound found in blueberries - pterostilbene - is similar to resveratrol and could be
as effective as a widely used synthetic drug in reducing cholesterol. But the truth is that a cocktail of
these compounds, not just one in isolation, may hold the ticket to better results.
In results presented at the Society for Integrative Oncology's Fourth International Conference last
November, researchers at the University of California, Irvine reported positive synergistic effects between
many grape compounds, not just resveratrol alone. The effects were observed in blocking a cellular
signalling pathway (the Wnt pathway) linked to more than 85% of colon cancers.
Dr. Randall Holcombe, lead researcher on the study, said this "...suggests that substances in grapes can
block a key intercellular signaling pathway involved in the development of colon cancer before a tumor
develops."
Holcombe's group recruited colon cancer patients and randomly assigned them to receive a resveratrol
pill (20 milligrams per day, which may be too low) or a beverage of grape powder in water in either 80- or
120-gram strength per day. Patients receiving just the resveratrol supplements demonstrated no effect on
colon tumors, but patients receiving the low dose grape powder drink showed significant reductions in Wnt
signalling. Curiously, no effects were observed among those receiving the higher dose beverage.
The point is that we truly do not know all the answers. Until we do, let's not go overboard. Enjoy a
glass of berry juice in the morning, a glass or two of red wine in the evening, continue reading the
literature, and...could someone send me some of that red grape powder?
Back to Winemaking
In a forum thread, a member asked if high specific gravity (1.150!) could contribute to his must not
fermenting. After several exchanges, he asked, "Should I assume that the max alcohol rating of the yeast
that I choose translates into the max sugar content of the must...?"
I replied that you should. Many, many yeasts will start in musts far sweeter than their ability to
ferment to dryness. A few will not. It really comes down to the individual yeast strains. I have no chart
or look-up table to guild you, but the alcohol limits mentioned on my site should constitute the limits of
the initial potential alcohol (PA) of the must. If you want to add additional sugar later to sweeten the
wine, just remember that some yeasts will continue making more alcohol than is normal for the strain. It is
best to stabilize the wine first to prevent this.
Why too much sugar makes a difference has nothing to do with the PA of the yeast, but rather osmotic
pressure. If the must in which the yeast live is too dense, the yeast can take in water and nutrients and
sugar and convert them into energy for themselves and alcohol and CO2 as waste products, but they cannot
expel the waste because the pressure outside is too great for them to overcome. They die of a sort of
constipation.
And on that happy note I'll close for today.
March 29th, 2008
Not too long ago I was asked if there was any new research on the health effects of red wine. Well, with as many health and wellness publications, web sites and blogs as there are, there is always something new out there, but whether the substance is new is another matter. Another blog entry on the French paradox would not be worth my time. But in truth there have been a number of new developments. I just haven't gotten around to writing about them.
My phone rang two nights ago and an acquaintance pointed me to a web page just hours old that reviewed a study published in the latest edition of Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology in which our old friend, the antioxidant resveratrol, was found to have specific benefits in fighting pancreatic cancer. It was not until yesterday, however, that I was able to dig out more details. I'm glad I waited, as more details poured in all day as I received 7 more reviews and web references to this study.
Resveratrol
Resveratrol (3,5,4'-trihydroxystilbene) is a polyphenolic phytoalexin. It is a stilbenoid, a derivate of stilbene, and is produced in plants with the help of the enzyme stilbene synthase, or stilbenase. It's function in plants appears to be as an antitbacterial and anti-fungal protective. It is an antioxidant, but probably not an important one. In vitro, resveratrol effectively scavenges free radicals and other oxidants, which is what antioxidants do, and inhibits low density lipoproteins (LDL) oxidation, but other antioxodants do these jobs much more efficiently - vitamins C and E, flavonoids, glutathione, melatonin, and caffeine.
Resveratrol is found most abundantly in the roots of the Japanese knotweed but also in peanuts and in the skins and seeds of muscadine grapes but also in the skins of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Zinfandel, Shiraz and Pinot Noir. It is also found in blueberries, bilberries and cranberries the natural juices and wines of these berries and grapes, but its amount varies according to the cultivar, its geographic origin, its growing conditions, and exposure to fungal infections that trigger its production. The amount of time a wine spends in contact with skins and pulp during fermentation is an important determinant of its resveratrol content. Some white grapes also produce resveratrol, but because they are not fermented on their skins very little of it finds its way into their wines.
Although resveratrol's presence in red wine has stimulated much interest in the area of cardiovascular disease prevention as an explanation for the French paradox -- that the incidence of coronary heart disease is relatively low in southern France despite high dietary intake of saturated fats -- currently there is no convincing evidence that resveratrol has cardioprotective effects in humans, especially from the amounts present in 1-2 glasses of red wine. This does not mean there is any scarcity of research being conducted and reported, of which the Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology article on research conducted by Dr. Paul Okunieff et al. is but the latest.
Resveratrol and the War Against Cancer
The Okunieff study is simply the latest of many investigating the inhibitive effects of resveratrol on a variety of human cancers, including breast, prostate, stomach, colon, pancreatic, and thyroid. These many studies have found that resveratrol does indeed inhibit the proliferation of cancer cells when added to cells cultured in vitro --outside the body - but there is very little work done in vivo -- inside the body.
To say it is "simply the latest of many" is not to denigrate the study at all. It makes a major contribution in identifying a new effect and explaining the mechanism for the effect observed. This is not always achieved. In this case, the bottom line is that Dr. Okunieff and his group from the James P. Wilmot Cancer Center at the University of Rochester Medical Center showed, for the first time, resveratrol helped destroy pancreatic cancer cells by reaching to the cell's core energy source, or mitochondria, and crippling its function. They showed that when the pancreatic cancer cells were pre-treated with resveratrol and then irradiated, the combination induced a type of cell death called apoptosis, a critically important goal of cancer therapy. The cancerous cells became more sensitive to radiation and normal tissue became less sensitive. The result is that radiation therapy zaps the cancerous cells but not the healthy cells surrounding them.
These findings are critical because the mitochondria, like the cell nucleus, contains its own DNA. Like the fuel pump in an automobile, it has the ability to continuously supply the cancerous cell with energy when it is functioning properly. Stopping the flow of energy (apoptosis) theoretically kills the cancerous cells.
In the study, cells either were or were not treated with resveratrol. Those treated received a high dose of resveratrol -- 50 mg/mL. The study claims that red wine can contain concentrations as high as 30 mg/mL. I have not found these concentrations reported anywhere. Indeed, the highest concentration of resveratrol I have seen reported in wines is in muscadine wine - 14 to 40 mg/L (approximately 2 to 6 mg per 5-ounce glass of wine) - as opposed to very low concentrations in Pinot Noir (0.40 to 2.0 mg/L).
There is more to the study, of course, and I invite you to read some of the reviews, if not the study itself. The latter is in the latest edition of Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology (cite 2008;614:179-86, "Anti-cancer effect of resveratrol is associated with induction of apoptosis via a mitochondrial pathway alignment", Paul Okunieff, et al.). A couple of reviews are referenced below.
Maximizing Resveratrol in Winemaking
So, you've read all of this and more and have decided you want to make some red wine and maximize the amount of resveratrol in it. What to do?
First of all, get to know and love the lowly muscadine grape (Vitis rotundifolia). Its wine contains 7 to 20 times as much resveratrol as Pinot Noir wine (14 - 40 mg/mL vs. 0.40 - 2 mg/mL). Secondly, do not introduce heat to the grapes or must, as heat greatly reduces its concentration. Thirdly, whether the muscadines are red or white, ferment on the skins until the cap sinks. Both tannins and resveratrol will steep from the skins and seeds
Since resveratrol is now available as a "nutritional supplement" (buzz phrase meaning it is not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for any purpose), should you "supplement" your wine with it? I can only say, it's your body. You decide.
Reports suggest that some aspect of the wine making process converts piceid -- a stilbenoid glucoside -- to resveratrol in wine, as wine seems to have twice as much average resveratrol concentration as do the equivalent commercial juices. And that heads off the otherwise ridiculous question of whether it is better to drink the raw grape juice or ferment it into wine. And with that morbid thought fresh in my brain, I'll close....
March 13th, 2008
I'm bad when it comes to email. I have some 80 or so emails -- some 9 months old -- I have never answered.
Of course, they arrived while I was hospitalized or convalescing from a heart attack, but still, I should
have sent these people some sort of explanation when I was able. But I didn't.
On the other hand, I have tried (and failed) to answer all I have received since my recovery. I
discovered over two dozen still awaiting my acknowledgement. One of these arrived while I was on my
Christmas-New Year vacation in California and I simply overlooked it upon returning. I will here and now
address the two recipes requested in that email, with sincerest apologies to the woman who requested them.
A Request
"Like my father, I have made a certain type of wine for years. It was the only kind he made (every
year) and it is delicious. I have made it myself and after moving numerous times I can not find it. It is
an extremely simple recipe with only 4 ingredients which are as follows:
- Indian Head corn meal
- Sugar
- Fleishman's Dry Yeast
- Water
"My problem is that although I can never forget the ingredients, I do not recall the quantities of
each. I do know that after putting everything into a large blue and white speckled pot I would fill it up
with water and allow it to ferment for no less than 7 days. At the end of the fermenting period we would
dip it out by the cupfuls and place into bottles and tightly cap it. If I can get a recipe for the 'corn
meal wine' which is delicious I would greatly appreciate it."
Corn Meal Wine
The Indian Head corn meal recipe is indeed simple -- much more so than the corn meal wine recipe I
have. Since hers lacks so many ingredients mine includes, they will not look anything at all similar.
I will leave it up to her to leave out things. I simply cannot in good conscience omit them as they are
all there for a reason. The grape concentrate, for example, adds body, sugar, nutrients, acid, etc. My
recipe makes 3 gallons of wine.
- 3-3/4 lbs corn meal
- 4 lbs 10 oz granulated sugar
- 3 medium lemons (juice only)
- 4 Valencia oranges (juice only)
- 1 tablespoon acid blend
- 1/4 to 3/8 teaspoon powdered grape tannin
- 4 11-oz cans 100% white grape juice frozen concentrate
- 1-1/2 teaspoons yeast nutrient
- Water to 3 gallons
- Wine yeast [I used SB5 Hock)]
Dissolve the sugar in 3 pints of boiling water and stir until the sugar is completely dissolved. Allow
to cool and combine all ingredients except the yeast in the primary. If you are adding "water to 3
gallons," the volume should be exactly 3 gallons. Add one additional quart of water, stir, and add yeast
in a starter solution. Cover and set aside, stirring daily. When vigorous fermentation subsides (2-3
weeks), rack into a 3-gallon carboy and attach an airlock. After 30 days, rack again. If not clear, add
1-1/2 teaspoons amylase (a starch enzyme) and 5 days later add an equal amount of pectic enzyme, stirring
well each time. Wine should be clear in additional 30 days. Either rack into a clean carboy and bottle
it a week later or very carefully rack into bottles at this point and wait 2 months to sample. [Author's
own recipe]
Yes, I know this is very different than what the writer and her father did. One may modify my recipe
as one will, but I can only guarantee that this one works.
Honeydew Melon Wine
The same woman asked if I have a recipe for honeydew melon wine. I have a generic "Melon Wine" recipe
posted in my Requested Recipes section, but I have tweaked it several times for honeydew and I like the
following iteration best. I have also posted it in my Requested Recipes section because it is quite
different from the generic one.
- 4 lbs very ripe and sweet melon flesh
- 1-1/4 lb granulated sugar
- 11 oz can 100% white grape juice frozen concentrate
- 6-1/2 pints water
- 2 tsp acid blend
- 1/8 tsp grape tannin
- 1 crushed Campden tablet
- 1 tsp yeast nutrient
- Champagne wine yeast
Put the water on to boil. Meanwhile, cut the melons into wedges, discarding seeds and peelings, and cut
wedges into thin slices. (If weighing the sliced flesh to get 4 pounds is too much of a pain, weigh the
melons when you buy them and their total weight should be 5-1/2 to 6 pounds to get the correct amount of
flesh.) Put the slices into a fine-meshed, nylon straining bag, tie the bag closed, and put it on the
bottom of a primary. Crush the melon with your hands. When the water boils, stir sugar into it and continue
stirring until it is completely dissolved (water will be perfectly clear). Pour this syrup over the bag of
melon, cover the primary with plastic wrap, and wait several hours for the must to cool to room temperature.
Add all ingredients except yeast. Check the specific gravity and add sugar if required to reach an S.G.
between 1.085 and 1.095. Recover primary (a sanitized piece of muslin will do) and set it aside 10-12
hours. Add the activated yeast starter and recover the primary. Squeeze the bag gently each day to aid in
juice extraction. When specific gravity reaches 1.020, remove bag and allow it to drip drain without
squeezing, returning all drained juice to the primary. Allow to any solids to settle overnight and then
rack into a secondary, attach an airlock, and set aside. After two weeks, rack again, top up and refit
airlock. When wine clears, stabilize with 1/2 teaspoon dissolved potassium sorbate and one finely crushed
and dissolved Campden tablet, sweeten to taste (probably between 1.004 and 1.012 will suit most people)
with a Grade A (Fancy) honey, wait 30 days (to be sure fermentation does not restart), and rack into
bottles. Age 6-12 months and serve chilled. [Author;s own recipe]
The Art of Making Wine
Elsewhere on my website, I long ago wrote, "If there is an art to winemaking, and there certainly is,
Then it is the art of controlling yeast. It is the art of selecting the appropriate yeast, introducing it
at the correct moment, feeding and nurturing it so as to coax it into living, reproducing and dying in a
prescribed manner, and then cleaning up after it so as to preserve the fruit of its labor. It is the art of
controlling its temperature, the amount and kind of air it is allowed to breathe, and feeding it the sugar
and other nutrients it needs to serve man. For it is not in the nature of yeast to serve man, but rather
yeast exist to serve yeast. Controlling yeast is the real art of making wine."
The quote above was in an essay on yeast, so I was completely focused at the time on their contribution
to the whole process of winemaking and on how so much of what we do is really done to influence what we
want them to do for us. There is, of course, more to the art of winemaking, but I think 75% of it is
captured by the paragraph above that I wrote years ago. (I may on another day assign a different weight
to it, but today I think 75% is about right.) I should, however, modify it to begin, "If there is an art
to winemaking, and there certainly is, then it is largely the art of controlling yeast."
To the above, I would add that the next most important contributor to the art of winemaking is the
quality of the ingredients. When I write, "4 lbs ripe blackberries," I assume you will seek out the very
best quality berries available to you. When I go out and pick 8 pounds of wild berries, I do so hoping
I'll be able to make two gallons of wine, but when I get them home and wash them, I cull out any that are
under-ripe. I do this by looking at the color and the feel of the berries. If they are not deep black, I
taste a few and decide if they are ripe enough for my wine. If they are very hard, I know they are
probably not ripe enough and so I taste a few of those too. Those that are not ripe enough for my wines
will be characterized by too much malic acid, but those same berries will almost always be ripe enough for
a cobbler or a jam as these are sweetened more than enough to mask the offending acid.
The final facet in the art of making good wine is achieving balance, and I usually think of that in
association with the quantity, if not quality, of ingredients. I will leave you to reflect on that
thought, for it is pregnant with meaning. We can compare reflections on another day.
March 9th, 2008
Back on December 14th, 2007 I mentioned I had started a persimmon wine. I just racked it for the second
time and was not satisfied with the clearing rate and so I mixed up a Bentonite slurry yesterday and added
the correct dosage today.
However, I recently joined in a WinePress.us discussion on dandelion wine and mentioned the dandelion
and persimmon wine I made. What makes it such an unusual wine is that the two major ingredients are
harvested six months apart. You either have to freeze dandelion petals for six months or freeze persimmon
pulp. Trust me on this one. Freeze the persimmons.
A Dandelion and Persimmon Wine
- 5 pints of loosely packed petals
- 3 persimmons (frozen from previous winter)
- 1/2 gallon Sam's Club white grape juice
- 2 Valencia oranges (juice & zest)
- 1 small lemon (juice only)
- 1 pound sugar
- 1-1/4 teaspoons yeast nutrient
- 1/4 teaspoon yeast energizer
- 1/2 teaspoon pectic enzyme
- 1/8 teaspoon grape tannin
- 3 pints water
- Hock yeast
I boiled the water, dissolved the sugar in it and poured this over dandelion petals in a large bowl. I
then covered this with plastic wrap for two days, then poured it into nylon straining bag (to collect the petals) and added the persimmon pulp to the bag. Then I put everything in a primary and fermented it 7 days, squeezed the bag, poured everything into a 4-liter secondary and attached an airlock. Three weeks later I racked into a gallon jug, stabilized with potassium sorbate and potassium metabisulfite, and allowed it to age in the secondary for 4 months, racking two more times and adding additional potassium metabisulfite the second time. I bottled it and am aging it. [My own recipe]
I started this in May of 2007 and won't open this until Christmas 2008, but I expect it to be fantastic.
A New Meaning for Ice Wine
Julian Schultz, writing for The Oxford Wine Room,describes how, 18 years ago, he happened to
freeze 16 ounces of a just-opened bottle of a stupendous Geyser Peak Cabernet Sauvignon while he trotted
off to Switzerland. Upon returning, he defrosted it and found that the water and solids had separated, so
he then shook it up to reconstitute it. Julian reports, "Although the wine's color showed somewhat dull,
its flavor was superb! Better even than when the wine was first tasted."
When I first read this, I thought of aging wine with magnets, or in a pyramid, or any number of crazy
things I've read over the years. But this is Julian Schultz making this claim. I can't ignore it. So, I
froze a half bottle of my own very respectable 2005 Cranberry. I had one bottle remaining, and although I
intended to enter it in competition, I would forego that to have a control wine to compare the frozen one
against.
Julian's Cabernet Sauvignon was frozen a month. Mine was only frozen two weeks. I meant to do the full
month, but changes in my schedule meant it would be either shorter or much longer. Besides, I had house
guests and thought I could use two other sets of opinion.
Folks, I have to attest that this experiment worked. All three of us thought the thawed and
reconstituted wine was better than the unfrozen one. But it wasn't a blind testing. I had planned to do
one by having a different person serve each of us one at a time, pouring in one room and serving in another,
but as Julian noted there was a discernable color change that would have made the attempt at blind
presentations ludicrous. I'll have to repeat this sometime with a white....
So, while I cannot explain it, I can confirm it. Freezing leftover wine not only preserves it, but also
improves it. For all you pre- or post-doctorates out there at UC-Davis, there should be a research grant
in there for figuring out why.
Time
I don't know whether we went on or off Daylight Savings Time at midnight, but I resent having to change
all my clocks (and watches) twice a year. I used to know why we do this, but I simply have forgotten. It
happens. If you resent something lone enough the only thing that you remember about it is the resentment.
And yes, I know I could Google it but I'm not really that interested.
But perhaps this will allow me to continue watching the race of Venus and Jupiter. Back in January on
the way to work each morning, in winter darkness, I noticed two lights rising in the East by South-East.
One was undoubtedly Venus, bright and steady. The other, closer to the horizon and perhaps one-third to
one-quarter as bright, was steady too. Since I have gazed upon Venus many times without the other being
there, I figured it too was a planet. A quick check through Google one day confirmed it was Jupiter, the
gas giant.
After perhaps a week of observing it growing closer and closer to Venus, I noticed it had pulled even on
the south side. The next morning it was slightly ahead. By now it has pulled well away and really isn't
associated by proximity with Venus, but last week the sky was getting too bright during my commute to
notice Jupiter. Tomorrow I will be going to work an hour earlier relative to last week, so Jupiter ought
to once again be easily identifiable during my commute. It should really be quite high in the sky by now.
Connection to winemaking? Absolutely none I can think of, but it was on my mind.
March 5th, 2008
Age matters. This statement stretches across the boundaries of almost any subject you'd care to discuss
-- sexual performance, ecological balance, political viewpoints, movie classics, wine maturity.
For wine maturity, there is an indefinable period when the wine is "green" or "too young" or "newborn"
and may or may not offer any hints as to its potential. This is followed by a period of successive
chemical evolutions, when the wine is definitely moving down the road to maturation, revealing hidden
potentials and evolving in complexity and smoothness. It arrives at maturity on no particular date,
following no predictive period of cellaring, at no specific age. It arrives "at its time," and may reside
in this state of maturation for only a short while or for several years. There are too many variables to
attempt a list of rules that may or may not govern or even describe this crowned plateau. What we can say
with certainty that wines improve to a point and then decline. The depth and breadth of that plateau of
maturity undoubtedly varies from wine to wine, but theoretically there should be a "period of maturity"
lasting many days to many months to many years, depending on the type of wine, its very style, its balance,
and its cellaring conditions. During this period, the wine comes so close to its optimum that we announce
it is "there." On some day, some hour, some minute, it becomes as good as it will ever be, and from that
moment on it begins a slow but unavoidable decline. This decline may be so gradual that we do not even
notice it and think of the wine as still being at its optimum for a considerable period beyond the apex.
But as the apex recedes into the past the edge of the plateau is crossed and we note, with sadness, that
the wine "is going." How fast it declines from this point on and where it may actually go varies immensely.
Today's WineBlog entry explores a few specifics.
A Tale of Three Wines
One: I recently (my WineBlog entry of February 5th, 2008) told the story of tasting a 30-year old
Chateau Montelena Cabernet Sauvignon that, despite still being "too young", was nonetheless the best
Cabernet Sauvignon I have ever tasted. All my experience tells me that when this wine fully matures it
will reach a plateau that will last many years, and I trust Jim and Bo Barrett will discover and enjoy a
potential raised beyond my ability to comprehend.
Two: The first time I made beetroot wine I was horrified by the taste after several months of bulk aging.
But the late C. J. J. Berry, in his First Steps in Winemaking, promised that this wine was delightful
when "ready," so I went ahead and bottled it. I don't know when it was that I tasted it again, but it had
been in the bottle for more that a year. I carefully uncorked it, poured myself a small sample, tasted it,
topped off the bottle with plain old tap water, and recorked it. I then put it to rest on the upper shelf
in a closet and forgot about it. In time the reclining bottles were covered with hats and other things and
slipped from my memory. Some years later I desperately needed three bottles to finish bottling a 5-gallon
batch of something. I remembered the beetroot wine and fetched it. I pulled the cork on one and was just
ready to tip the mouth toward the sink's drain when a little internal voice said, "taste it first."
Expecting the worst, I took a sip right out of the bottle but held a glass of water in the other hand.
Wow...! What a difference four years had made. This wine was so good that I racked the remaining wine
from the 5-gallon batch into a gallon container and topped it up with two bottles of the same wine I had
just bottled. I shared the beetroot wine with dear friends Luke and Lynette Clark, who pronounced it the
best homemade wine they had ever tasted. They may have been exaggerating, but it was an exceptional wine.
Three: I wanted to see how long a well-made dandelion wine could be kept before decline claimed it. I
bottled a gallon of 1998 dandelion in 10 half-bottles. I opened the first at 12 months and another every
six months. This wine peaked at 24 and 30 months and thereafter showed a gradual decline until I opened
the 7th bottle at 48 months and found it tasteless. To be certain, I opened a second bottle and experienced
a similarity. I poured out the remaining two bottles, but was I too hasty? The story below might answer
this question.
A Tale of Two Wines
The following story was sent to me by a friend and was posted on WinePress.com. As you read it,
please remember that the "I" in the story is not me.
"There is one lady who I know who is a wine freak to begin with...last year she gave me like 5 cases of
empties, cleaned and labels peeled....
"She bought an old farm-house and after living there for several years, last month she found two full 5
gallon carboys topped right up and sealed w/ a solid cork bung, that were very well hidden actually half
buried, in the hand dug, dirt floor, basement. She asked me to come over and "check it out" for her. The
carboys were very dirty and had years of dust on them but the cork was still intact.
"It was a bit oxidized and tasted very much like a sherry, and I didn't get sick from drinking it. Two
weeks later, I brought over a few cases of sanitized empties a bunch of Campden, and a racking can and
corker and bottled it all up for her. She gave me both of the now empty carboys as well as 12 full bottles.
"When I was cleaning up the carboys, I found written on the them in grease pencil "Muscadine - 1938" and
"Muscadine and Fig 1941" Which made sense since they have a trellis in the back yard with badly overgrown
muscadines and 12 fig trees in the side yard.
"Her husband has since returned 12 bottles to the original location they found the carboys in, with a
letter (heat laminated) outlining our discovery, for the next owners of the house, whoever they may be.
"This summer we hope to harvest enough grapes to get them started making their own wine."
Is that a great story or what? And it raises the point that even declined wines might evolve to claim a
second life as a sherry.
A Tale of Lost Wines
When I lived in San Francisco I stored my wines in an odd-shaped closet under a stairs. At 5:04 p.m. on
October 17th, 1989 the Bay Area was rocked by a magnitude 7.1 earthquake centered on the San Andreas Fault
northeast of Santa Cruz near Loma Prieta Peak. Every single bottle of wine was tossed from their racks and
all but two broke.
Fortunately for me, I had an exact inventory of all my wines taped to the inside of the closet door and
I had a renter's policy issued by what many consider to be the best insurance company in the world, USAA.
I filed a claim for many damaged or destroyed items, including 107 bottles of commercial wines from the
Alexander, Napa, Sonoma, and lesser valleys. I will make a long story short. After receiving my forms, I
was called by a claims adjuster who just happened to know wine. He told me I had a choice to make - to ask
for actual cost, market value or replacement value of the items destroyed. He also explained that for the
porcelain, ceramic and terracotta items from the Ming Dynasty that I lost, I had not insured them as
antiquities and would be limited to actual cost (if I could prove it) or replacement value of the type
items destroyed (example: a small, 5.25-inch bowl I had paid $139 for could be replaced by bowls costing
anywhere between $0.79 and $19.95) so I would experience a loss if I asked for replacement value. But it
was the wines where he had real knowledge and solid suggestions.
He was not familiar with all the wines I had lost, but I had provided my inventory which included the
price I paid for each wine. He noted that some were exceptional vintages from very famous wineries and
replacement values far exceeded what I paid for them. Indeed, replacing 8 specific wines would exceed the
cost I paid for all 107 wines. He also noted that 4 of the wines, all whites, had no replacement value at
all as the wines had declined into valuelessness, but he would allow replacement by a current vintage from
the same wineries. He also was willing to "work with me" on the values of the lost antiquities. He made
the decision simple and turned my 23-year association with USAA into a 42-year association.
March 1st, 2008
Email has been around much longer than has the internet. In the early days of email, few people owned
personal (home) computers, and those who did didn't always own an email program or even possess the ability
"to connect." If you had a modem and could "connect," you usually dialed into a "provider" that owned a
network of bulletin boards and an email server. I used CompuServe back then, and there were only a handful
of people I knew who had home computers, subscribed to CompuServe, and used their email. There were a few
others I could communicate with through a couple of university servers. But by and large, email was a rare
thing. When it was used at all, you knew who you were communicating with and usually cared enough about
what they thought of you to check the accuracy of what you were claiming in your communications.
With the public's ability to access the internet arriving in 1992, things began to change drastically
and quickly. Two things that exploded were public web sites and email. I warmly embraced both. Today,
there is so much trash on websites and spam, malicious content and flat untruths sent through the emails
that I sometimes wonder if we were better off before we had these wonderful resources. I don't believe we
were, but I still am troubled deeply by what has happened to email. Aside from the obvious abuses from spam,
phishing, pharming, and viruses (including Trojan horses, worms, etc.), there is the issue of trusting what
you read.
It is one thing to repeat something you were told, but quite another to receive something from someone
you may not even know and send it out to others without even attempting to verify its accuracy. If it
isn't a "personal" story, you should always check out the veracity of unusual claims at one of the sites
that collect and catalog hoaxes before sending out falsities to family and friends. You are judged by the
accuracy of your communications. And even if it was something you were told, internet search engines make
it fairly easy to check facts. So, you might ask, what brought this on? An email, of course....
Two-Buck Chuck
A few weeks ago I received an email from a wine enthusiast from the mid-west who had recently returned
home from a trip to California. While in the Golden State, he made it a point to visit a Trader Joe's
so he could buy a case of Charles Shaw Cabernet Sauvignon - known practically everywhere as "Two-Buck
Chuck." He said he was "sharing" with me the following story on the off-chance I hadn't heard it.
"I asked a young stockboy at Trader Joes's how they could sell a Napa wine so cheaply. He told
me Charles Shaw and his wife went through a nasty divorce in which she was awarded half the profits of the
winery for 10 years. Not wanting his wife to get a nickel, Charles Shaw signed an exclusive marketing
agreement with Trader Joes's and started selling his wine at a huge loss."
Oh boy! Now I think I've heard it all.
First of all, if I wanted to know why a particular wine was priced as it is, the last person I would
expect to know the facts with any degree of certainty is a lowly stockboy at a chain store, and I say "lowly
stockboy" with no disrespect for the position or the work. Rather, I say it entirely with regard to the
distance the position is from economic decisions of large corporations. Bronco Wine Company, the owner of
the Charles Shaw label, is the eighth largest wine producer in California and Charles Shaw is one of the
top 20 brands in the United States, so I think it qualifies as being a "large corporation." Why expect a
chain store stockboy to know why a product of such a company is priced as it is?
I guess we can't know the answer to that one, but let's look at the claim itself. A winery's owner
decided to sell his wine at a "huge loss" just to keep his ex-wife from realizing any profit from it? That
makes no sense. If he were a businessman at all and wanted to keep his wife from sharing any profits, he
would sell it at cost to (a) generate no profit while (b) marginalizing any economic harm to himself. But
even that sounds unrealistic. However, if there were any truth in it at all one would expect it to quickly
surface through a simple Google search. And there is where the utility of the internet outweighs the trashy
nature of some of its content.
It turns out that Charles Shaw and his wife did get a divorce - in 1991 - and this did impact the winery
-- they sold it to Fred Franzia's Bronco Wine Company. Franzia is famous (or infamous) for several things,
not least of which was his $3,000,000 fine for fraudulently selling one grape variety as another. He has
also bought several Napa labels (such as Charles Shaw) and used their facilities to produce and bottle wines
from non-Napa grapes. The location of the winery legally allows the name "Napa" to appear on the label as
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