Today I transferred the homemade wine – wine 2020 from the stainless steel container where the must (after alcoholic fermentation) became wine, to the stainless steel storage and sealing container. Two pegs were valuable helpers.
Making homemade wine almost every year.
This year I had a small production of grapes. Most of the grapes had trouble from mildew.
The difference with other years (besides the weather), was that I didn’t use sulfur. I did not sulfurize the vines and grapes regularly.
I wasn’t bored, but I couldn’t stand the sulfur sticking all over me and smelling strongly for days.
So I didn’t sulfurize. I will never make the same mistake again.
The grape production was loosely 1/5th of what it was in other years. The corresponding production of must and therefore wine-wine production.
But something tells me that this year’s wine will be better than any other year!
We had picked the grapes 20 days ago with the help of Tatiana, Nicole and Konstantinos. Bless them!
Now I’m presenting them perfectly… but if you were on one side you could see their faces when they were picking the grapes, removing the many damaged nipples. Ha! Ha!
First time they did it and they thought it would be like the pictures in alphabets and textbooks and Instagram photos and Facebook posts where everything is ideal… Ha! Ha!
Between us? Hopefully they’ll show up next year and not declare that they’ve turned heads since Christmas wine tasting!
When you pick grapes or pick olives to make homemade wine or homemade oil respectively, you have a different respect for the end product. You know firsthand the effort. Every drop counts and is priceless.
After crushing the grapes with a manual crusher, I put them in a container so that the grape stems could release their substances into the must during alcoholic fermentation. Along with the substances, to give their color to the wort and turn it from white to pinkish.
I stirred the mixture regularly as the gases caused the stems to rise up, creating what is known as a“cap“.
15 days later, I put the must and stems in the grape press to get every last drop of juice.
I put the juice in a large stainless steel container to continue the alcoholic fermentation.
5 days later (20 days after harvest), the alcoholic fermentation was complete and it was time to decant and store the wine-wine for aging.
I washed a smaller stainless steel container and then to disinfect it, I burned sulfur in it.
I connected the disinfected stainless steel container to a clear tube. Using the communicating container method, I started the transfusion.
The transfusion took some time because of the small cross-section of the tube, but I knew this beforehand. It was also the opportunity to do some gardening.
The colour of the wine was a deep pinkish colour. A sign that the previous process went very well.
After the decanting was complete, I placed the float and around it I poured as much paraffin oil as needed to keep the wine out of contact with the oxygen in the environment. I placed the cap on and from here on out, all I need to do is wait.
God bless us, may we make homemade wine next year and do even better!
Tags: DIY • GRAPEVINE • GRAPEVINES • HOMEMADE WINE • VINEYARD • WINE
