It's Crush Season!

Two posts in one day. It's like Christmas, I know...

This is crush season, that is when grapes start coming in off the vines and i start cluttering the kitchen with fermentation vessels, driving my wife nuts. I'm moving onto more advanced techniques now, such as secondary fermentation. I attended a class on winemaking from grapes that was pretty basic, didn't tell me a whole lot more than i already knew, but did glean some useful nuggets. The last one i've started is a cabernet sauv from napa - i transferred it out of it's primary fermenter last night and initiated something callled malo-lactic fermentation - which is a tricky (or can be) secondary bacterial fermentation that turns malic acid (naturally present in grapes) into lactic acid and a whole bunch of flavor compounds. Basically it makes the wine age better, taste better. We'll see how it goes. I've also got a couple cases of white zin in the final stages of aging, and a chateau-nerf de pape blend that's just started aging. Am really looking forward to seeing how that one turns out. The original red zin i did a couple of years ago is really good now. I'm quite happy with it, even though i did a horrible job on the degassing and it's carbonated (i've since bought a couple of vacuum pumps that take care of this).

"Wine is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy"
-Benjamin Franklin