Nurse the Hate: MW Merlot Project Part 1

 

I believe I am going to be starting up a side blog on my wine writings.  I almost used the word "launching", but using that word in regards to beginning a small blog dedicated to wine seems preposterous.  It's like when I hear friends of mine in small indie bands that "drop" a new song, as if a seismic shift has been made because yet another soon to be ignored .wav file is cluttering up the icloud.  However, I think I can provide some value to fellow Master of Wine students or prospective students that want to hear about the various pitfalls of someone attempting to navigate this minefield.  I am not under the illusion that this potential audience is large, and this comes from a guy that sings in a country punk band that is obsessively gambling on NFL Football.  However, most people that are interested in my rock and roll misfortunes and gambling miscues are probably not concerned about an in depth essay on extended red wine maceration techniques.  For now though, I thought I'd bring you up to speed on my attempt at making a red wine.

I decided to make some Sonoma merlot.  Well, I decided to make red wine really just to have the experience, and I didn’t want to be stuck with five gallons of crappy kit cabernet from God knows where.  Most wine kits from brewery supply shops give you “red” or maybe “cabernet”.  If the grape source isn’t good, then the wine you make will be bottom shelf grocery store shit, and that’s if you do EVERYTHING right.  It’s amazing to me that people go to the trouble of making wine themselves and then cheap out on the grapes.  “Hey, want some shitty Chilean cabernet?  This juice kit is on sale!”   Why make wine you wouldn’t want to drink even if it came out perfectly?  It all goes back to my basic philosophy of not scrimping on shoes, cheese, sound equipment or wine.  The investment will always pay off. 

 

I tend to learn by doing.  “Why!  You’re a visual learner!”  No, it’s really that I learn by making mistakes and then trying to fix them.  I am trying to learn as much about the winemaking process as I can because the people I am in this MW program with make wines that are on every wine store shelf in the country, and I made a glass jug of Semillon once.  I am just going to come out and say it.  I feel I might have a little less working knowledge than someone that made 1 million bottles of William Hill cabernet last year.  I’m now expected to know all sorts of winemaking answers and for the most part I can’t even understand the questions. 

 

The good thing is that if you are making a plastic pail of wine or a steel oil refinery sized tank, the basic process is essentially the same.  Crush the red grapes.  Adjust the “must” (or the crushed grapes/juice/skins) if the acid, sugar or pH is off.  Add some yeast.  Keep everything clean.  Monitor temperatures and push “cap” (the skins which rise to the top when CO2 is given off in the alcohol conversion).  I had decided to source some Sonoma grapes from a vineyard I looked up on a map.  The frozen pail arrived after Xmas, and I tried to time out the thaw to give myself the perfect window to handle the ferment.  Of course, I fucked that up.

 

It worked out that the grapes got to my target temperature of 72 degrees at about 1am after I played a gig at the Beachland.  It seems like the room I have them in will get to 80 degrees shortly, optimal for maxing out my tannins and color from the grapes.  I don't really have a choice.  I need to start now.  So, I’m exhausted, buzzed up on shots of Jager given to me from folks that graciously attended the show, and trying to measure out things like OptiRed (to enhance color during ferment), GoFerm (to provide yeast some nutrients to kickstart fermentation) and the yeast itself.  One of the first big winemaking choices is the yeast.  There are a million options, each which is trumpeted as providing various attributes to your wine.  More aromatics!  Bigger mouthfeel!  More fruit!  Less fruit!  Faster fermentation!  Slower!  Lower pH!  Higher pH!  Of course, with each choice comes downside.  If you decide to use Yeast X, then while you gain some aromatic complexity, you lose acidity and it might taste flabby.  That means you might consider another yeast, which gives you fermentation while holding that acidity, but then again, do you want to deal with possibly a loss of color and flavor?  Everything is a game of jenga.  One choice influences the entire house of cards, and you don’t know you made the wrong choice until it’s too late.

 

I decided to go with UCD-725 Bordeaux Red, which is a yeast that allegedly provides some elements of Bordeaux wines to the resulting merlot.  Merlot makes up the lion’s share of most Bordeaux wines, especially on the Right Bank of the Gironde River in St Emilion, Pomerol, and other nearby communes that make wines I like.  I thought it would be interesting to see if I could add some of the more earthy character of those wines into grapes I full expected to be black fruit dominated.  I am hoping to add some complexity to what I assume is ripe fruit, and then barrel age it in American oak for some kind of Sonoma/Bordeaux/Rioja gumbo of a wine.  If it works, I’ll refer to it as “fusion”.  If it doesn’t, I’ll quietly pass them out to friends that can’t tell the difference between good and bad wine.

 

The downside of starting the fermentation process at 1am was that I had two buckets of grapes, but only one set of tools to mix up the yeast and additives.  Each step required a 15 minute wait until proceeding to the next step.  This resulted in me setting my phone alarm, placing it on my chest, and being awoken every quarter hour by the loud duck quack ringtone I had selected.  At one point I wasn’t positive if I had double yeasted one bucket and not added yeast to the other.  Even now, I’m not sure.  They both are forming a cap, are generating some heat, and appear to be moving the brix meter, so I think I’m OK.  I’m just not positive.  By the time I went to bed at 435am, I didn’t give a fuck.  I just wanted some sleep.