In Preparation for Spring Crush
Only two and a half weeks until Malbec arrives at Gino Pinto’s in New Jersey. I am so excited that I have talked to Mike Pinto twice so far and will probably contact him one more time before I drive down to pick up my grapes.
This is taken from ginopinto.com regarding the Malbec grapes: “For over 15 years Michael Pinto has been sourcing high quality fresh wine grapes from the Curico’ Valley in Chile. The Curico’ Valley is located 120 miles south of Santiago and is the oldest wine region in the country. The valley features a Mediterranean climate combined with alluvial soil with good drainage creating perfect conditions for great red wines. The origin of this wine-producing valley goes back to 1851, when fine varieties of grapes were brought to the valley from France and Germany.”
It has been years since I have made Malbec and I am super excited. I have ordered the items below today so that everything is fresh and ready for crush. If you are crushing with us, you can use this as a shopping list. If you are not crushing, you are more than welcome to be a virtual member of the crush crew. I hope that between my blog and videos, I make you feel at home and part of this fun process.
Wine recipes can be found on many websites. I found two today that I looked at but there still is a lot of reading to understand why you need to use certain additives. The other thing to be mindful of is some sites that have their recipe published also sell the ingredients and sometimes add things to the wine that you really don’t need. I have done the reading and research and here is the recipe I will be using for 2020 Spring Malbec from Chile. I did shop for good prices, most of the ingredients I purchased today were from morewine.com.
Grapes – The day before crush, we will pick up the grapes. I ordered 32 18-pound lugs of Chilean Malbec grapes which should make a little over 32 gallons of juice. Depending on which site you go to for your grapes, some say 100 pounds = 7 gallons, some say 90 pounds = 5 gallons and of course this depends on grape type, how ripe they are, and how hard you press the skins during press. We are filling 1 30-gallon Hungarian oak barrel and maybe a few 1-gallon carboys. Knowing this ahead of time enables you to have the bungs and airlocks ready.
Crush Day (Day 1) - Immediately following crush
Add SO2 (potassium metabisulfite) – 1/4 tsp per 5 gallons of wine. This will suppress the natural yeast allowing us to use a cultured yeast selected specifically for the grapes we are crushing.
Day 2 - AM - Add Pectic Enzymes – 2 tsp for 5 – 6 gallons must. 32 gallons = 12 teaspoons Pectic enzyme. I ordered 3 ounces.
Day 2 – PM - Add additional tannins. I have ordered both Opti Red and FT Rouge, although I have more reading to do to determine if I will use them.
Day 2 – Day 3 Pitch - When the temperature of the must reaches 60 degrees, we will pitch the yeast and yeast nutrients.
D254 yeast - Use at the rate of 1 gram per gallon of red wine. We need to add 32 grams of D254 yeast. I ordered 5 – 8 gram-packages.
40 grams of Go Ferm Protect – this is used to Hydrate the yeast. Use at a rate of 1.25 g Go-Ferm Protect per 1 g of yeast.
Day 4 or Day 5 – When the cap forms, we start punch down. I will be punching down 3 times a day but monitoring the temperature carefully. During fall crush of 2019, one of my wine’s fermentation got ahead of me and the temp went higher than the 85 degrees that you do not want to exceed.
Use after beginning of fermentation:
When the Brix got down to about 19, we will add 32-grams of Fermaid K. The measurement is 1 gram per gallon of must. It was $10 for 100 grams so there will be a wasting of this nutrient as I could only get it in a 100-gram container.
To hydrate the Malolactic Bacteria Culture, use approximately 1 gram per gallon.
*Every day 3 times a day we will document room temperature, must temperature and Brix. We will take the pH daily.
I spent a little over $800 on the grapes and $105 on the yeasts and nutrients for both fermentation and malolactic fermentation for 32 gallons of wine. Total: $905 for about 144 bottles of wine (give or take).
Once you pay for bottles and sulfites to keep the wine healthy you are looking at less than $10 for a bottle of wine. I drink wine everyday, but when I buy wine I don’t buy anything less than $20 a bottle. You can begin to see the savings. Also, people love a gift of a bottle of wine which can save money on gifts. Now, these numbers do not include labor of which there is a lot, but it is a labor of love. There are a few ways to paint this picture. One way is that it is cost effective to make your own wine but another way to look at it is that you get used to drinking really good wine!
