October-November 2008 Fermentations ...

Well, here's some pictures of the fermentations that I got started..... Some of the Italian wines...

And my St Croix/Marquette from my vineyard .......

And continuing in carboys ....

Malolactic Fermentation coming up next...... Plan to keep them inside a couple of electric blankets to keep the temps hot and constant.

Moved Fermentation Room....

Well, with a rampted up production (all in the Fall versus kits spread out all throughout the year), I had to move my fermentation room.


I had the gas company install a thermostatically controlled heater in our garage. Now, I can keep the temps nice and warm for yeast fermentation and malolactic fermentations. Then lower the temps for the rest of the winter to 55 degrees or so. Come summer, I'll need to move the carboys to my wine cellar to maintain the cooler temps.


Here's some pictures....

October 2008 - Getting Italian FRESH Juice again...

I wanted to "kill two birds with one stone". My wife and I wanted to visit our son who lives on the East Coast and I wanted to get some Italian FRESH juice that is not available to us in the Midwest.


So.. in spite of the high cost of fuel we travelled 3,000 miles (round trip). We had a nice visit with our son ... and helped him bottle some beer (That's me capping on his Ferrari Italian corker/capper).



























And, I got to buy my Italian FRESH juice from a winery run by a very nice Italian family. This was the same great juice I bought two years ago that turned out so great.

I got 18 gallons of Amarone (my favorite!), 12 gallons of Meritage (a Bordeaux type blend), and 12 gallons of Vino de Casa (a house wine blend). I'm also making 18 gallons of red Old Vine Zinfandel (California) and my meager few gallons of St Croix and Marquette field blend mentioned in a previous post.

Newly constructed Press......

After reading an article in WineMaker magazine about building a grape press (by John Zamarra), I decided to "improve" my set up and build a stronger frame similar to the one in the magazine. I now have a 6 Ton bottle jack to exert pressure. Now I should be ready for next year's harvest.

Here's a picture...I took the picture with the "small" 50 lb capacity basket (and the 8 inch spacer). I will replace it with a bigger (4-5 gallon?) basket before next year's harvest.

Fall 2008 - Helping out at a local winery

Recognizing that the best way to learn is by actually doing it, I decided to volunteer at a local vineyard/winery. I had helped pick grapes at other vineyards before but never stuck around for the processing.

So... I not only helped pick Edelweiss and Briana grapes but I also stuck around to help crush/destem and press and transfer to the tanks. It was a very looooong day but very interesting and educational and I had a great time.

I did not purchase any of these grapes as I was preparing to go to the East Coast to get grapes/juice and would not have time to process these local grapes adequately before departing.

Here's some pictures....

Summer/Fall 2008 - First wine grape crop

This Summer/Fall has been a real challenge. Aurora was hit by a tornado and we lost many big trees and the vines got battered really bad (our house, unlike many neighbors, came out undamaged). Lost quite a few clusters but vines held up okay. Then, later, we got hit by a golf-ball size hail storm that "totalled" our house roof along with our out buildings. The vines again got batterred and now most clusters were knocked off. The vines continued to hold up fairly well.

As a result, the grape crop was quite limited. So... I did a field blend with St Croix and Marquette grapes and was still able to make a few gallons of my very own red hybrid wine for the first time. More details on that later.

Here's some pictures of Marquette vines and clusters BEFORE the hail damage.

Early 2008 - Propagating Marquette Vines

This was my first attemp at propagating vines. Marquette vines were still hard to find at this time due to being new and resulting sold-out conditions. I wanted to try propogating vines myself so I gave it a try (and yes, I will send the U of MN a royalty check once I'm done and I determine how many survived).

I got mixed results... some cuttings worked great and others just died (rotted). I will try this again next winter/spring 2009. I'd also like to try to propagate some Edelweiss.

Here's some pictures of the "plants" and the beginning of my southern vineyard.