Spring Crush – Malbec at my house mid-May!
This is the time of year where you see people starting to spend more time outside. Kids go outside and play more, adults get out of doors more often, and with late May comes the beginning of barbeque season. At my house, I will be spending the next month planning for spring crush.
Most wine groups have a fall crush. California red wine grapes are usually ready around the end of September beginning of October. If you are on the east coast, crush day can be cold and wet, or warm but you can count on a nice yellowish hue on the leaves, and maybe even a few leaves on the ground.
The reason I am doing a spring crush is that I love Malbec, and the grapes from Chile make great wine. The problem with spring Malbec in larger wine clubs is that they like to plan for one crush a year and “pull out all the stops”. If you are making wine on your own, or with a smaller club a spring crush is ideal. This year I am going to do a 30-gallon barrel of Malbec and I have already ordered the grapes.
Malbec is one of the “Bordeaux varietals”. Malbec is a dark grape with a plum-like flavor, among other characteristics. It is grown in Chile, Argentina, and South France. I did use Malbec from California in my 2018 blend but since I used it in a blend I really can’t comment on flavor. As in everything else in winemaking, there is a lot to read on the internet about Malbec. I did read that South France is not growing as much Malbec as prior years in history.
I have already started lining up friends and family to come help at crush. The tricky part in planning ahead is that you really don’t know exactly when the trucks with your grapes will arrive. I will stay in touch with Gino Pinto’s, and when the grapes come in they will be refrigerated so that I can pick them up on a Saturday for crush on a Sunday.
Crushing 16-lugs of grapes will not take long. Less than 2 hours for sure, not including clean up. A lug is a box of 36-pounds of grapes, usually. This year the lugs of Chilean Malbec are only 18-pounds, so I ordered 36 of them. The conversion for pounds to juice is 3 to 6 pounds of grapes makes about one gallon of juice. That being said, it is good to order a few more lugs so that you have juice left over.
I brought with me some of the pomp and circumstance from the wine group when I did my first crush here at “the MRS” Wine Cellar (my house). So, we started early with a shot of grappa that tastes pretty much like ‘throwing back’ a shot of turpentine. The president of that wine club came for the kickoff to my crush this past fall and ‘blessed the grapes’ for me, which is really just everyone saying ‘God Bless the Grapes’ and then going back to their Bloody Mary’s and breakfast sandwiches. I will most likely always do the shot of grappa to start, and a salute to Greg who taught me almost everything I know. But now, each crush at my house will gain its own traditions. Most definitely we will have food, water, and wine on hand. There are also beer drinkers who make wine … plan on your crowd and begin thinking of your own traditions including a winery name for your winery, and if you build a wine club your will want a club name, too.
I will be walking you through my crush experience right here on Vintners Canvas, step by step, but for now … it’s wine time.
Cheers!
Sharon
