Create Your Own Wine Recipe

Just a little article I found.


Making your own wine making recipe can be a matter of establishing and combining a lot of your personal tastes into one concise segment of ingredients and seeing if they work with a wine. Many people fall under the stigma of creating a wine recipe that ends up taking the art of wine making recipe creation too seriously. Do not be afraid to experiment with what you have at your disposal and create your own wine recipe from scratch, using some of the ideologies of other wine corporations and meshing them with your own sentiments.

Part of making your own wine is making something your own. Nothing symbolizes that independent construction like doing something your own way and shunning all critical acclaim, so do not shy away from adding some other ingredients to wine that belie a certain traditional outlook and turn the industry on its side. You want to maintain a focus with your wine, but you should never let the outcome dictate the process as sometimes they are two different things in the end and can wash over the whole process with a gloss of doubt and fear.

Try Things Out

Do not be afraid, as mentioned, to produce some of your own sensibilities and place them in your wine making recipe. You are to take ownership of the process as that is why you are considering it in the first place. Do not shy away from including some unorthodox mentalities in your wine making process and in the recipe itself, as these sentiments may be what separate your wine from other wines on the market. You never know what you could end up with as you experiment with wine and discover tastes and aromas out of items you never thought would function well together.

So with your wine making recipe, you should be integrating a whole series of items that could flow with the grape base. Try chocolate hints and other flavour hints to focus on delivering a dessert wine. Try adding certain herbs to make your wine making recipe completely functional with certain foods. You can be as narrow or as diverse with your wine process as you want as it is your process in the end and you are the one unleashing your wild notions of wine to the world. You take responsibility for all of the insanity that could result of your wine making recipe.

Goji Berry Mead - Now for something completely different

OK, so I think I may now have officially lost it. Well at least I'm not making wine out of onions or something crazy like that.

Goji berries, also known as wolf berries have quite the long history and as with just about anything medicinal from the orient there are claims it will make your penis bigger (Maybe not quite but something to do with sperm production). Hey Boner wine, why not :P

I started out with about 4 or 500 grams of dried berries. I added just enough water to re-hydrate them then I crushed them up in the blender. The result was about 2 litres of juice, pulp and seeds. (I think I'm going to save the seeds to see if I can grow the fruit here.

I added 1 litre of blackberry juice, 2 litres of honey and 3 1/2 litres of water. The end result was a specific gravity of 1.130. Pretty bloody high as the Goji berries are naturally full of sugar. unless you want fire water or deathly sweet Mead, you may want to try a little less honey.

As if using Goji berries to make Mead wasn't strange enough, I decided to try something different as far as yeast went. You see, I saved up some active yeast from the bottom of one of my blackberry batches and kept it in the fridge. Ya nuts I know.




So here is the recipe


Start time: 4:30 PM November 14th 2007
Specific Gravity: 1.130

2 - litres honey
2 - litres re-constituted Goji berry pulp (AKA Wolf berries)
1 - litre steamed blackberry juice (Unsweetened)
3 1/2 - litres spring water
3/4 - cup Recycled yeast pulp




POST PRODUCTION NOTE:

Although this mead has a very interesting taste, both my wife and I found it to be far to strong. To remedy this situation, I started out another batch with similar juice and water proportions but with quite abit less honey and a lower potential alcohol level. Here is the link GOJI BERRY MEAD #2

Cranberry Mead... well sort of

OK, so I picked up just over 11 pounds of fresh "organic" cranberries. According to the Polish farm guy some old guy in the area "with nothing better to do" grows a small crop of them organically.... Personally I think it was just a sales pitch but who am I to argue.

So I got home and dumped them into my handy steam juice extractor and began the process of pulling out the juice. I guess it shouldn't really be that much of a surprise, but that 11 some odd pounds of Cranberries resulted in only about 2 litres of juice (Including pulp). Typically the steam juicer is great at leaving the pulp behind, but after about 2 hours of waiting for only a small amount of juice I got impatient and started to crush the berries. Must be the results driven Kraut in me.

You might be wondering why the long background story, well that is to explain why this is sort of a cranberry Mead. You see, with only 2 litres of juice and 2 litres of honey already in the pot I needed to make up the space with something other than 4 litres of water.... Ah blackberry juice. So here is the recipe



2 Litres Honey
2 Litres Cranberry juice & pulp
1/2 Litre Apple Juice (Pure reconstituted no sugar added stuff)
1 Litre steam extracted Blackberry juice
2 1/4 Litres Spring Water
1 Cup Mushed up cranberries
2 Packs of 1118 Yeast
2 Teaspoons Nutrient

Measurements:
Specific Gravity: 1.112
Pot Alcohol : 15% Approx
Innoculated at 8PM on November 5th @ 80 F


This should be interesting as the juice is nice and sweet with a bit more tart than the Blackberry on its own.

As a side note, although the 11 lbs of Cranberries only yeilded about 2 litres of juice and pulp all was not a waste. I divided up the remaining pulp and berries and froze them for future cranberry chutney. At some point I need to get the recipe from my brother and post it on here.

A beginner's guide to making your own wine

Just another perspective from http://www.mercurynews.com



By Kristen Munson
Special to the Los Gatos Weekender
Article Launched: 10/12/2007 12:09:14 AM PDT

Any vintner will tell you great grapes make great wine, but you don't have to own a vineyard to make high-end varietals. You don't even need fresh grapes, just some basic equipment, a little yeast and some space in your garage.
"Making wine is something anyone can do," says Rick Golobic, a home winemaker and owner of Fermentation Solutions in Campbell. "We have people who make wine from just about anything. If it has sugar in it, it can be fermented."

From tomatoes and watermelon to prickly pear cactus and strawberries, Golobic has seen it all. And he's noticed that more and more people are getting into the practice.

Many of the European families who settled in the area passed on their winemaking skills to their descendants. But in recent years, as Silicon Valley has developed, tech-savvy wine enthusiasts are joining the ranks of home winemakers.

Golobic encourages beginners to use an at-home wine kit to help them understand the process. A basic wine kit is available at Fermentation Solutions for $115 and includes all the necessary equipment, minus the grapes. However, one can purchase juice concentrates or choose from a list of growers who will sell grapes to the home winemaker.

Individuals can legally make up to 100 gallons a year; a household, 200 gallons. In other words, a lot of wine.

Golobic, a former engineer, has made wine for the past 30 years in the Santa Cruz Mountains where he lives. Over the years he has witnessed an upswing in home winemakers in the area, with more and more people planting vineyards for landscaping purposes and using the fruit for wine.
"We're also seeing lots of younger people who are getting into wine," Golobic says, adding that many form co-ops with friends to share the cost and experience. "It tends to be a family endeavor in many cases."

Contrary to the politics of the tech world, there are no trade secrets in winemaking and conversation is more than welcome.

"There's a tremendous sense of community," Golobic says. "You can go to the most exclusive winery and talk to the winemaker, and they will talk wine with you. This is something that brings people together."

But home winemaking is also a challenging and economical way to produce fine wine.

"It's something you can continually improve. It's creative," Golobic says. "Winemaking is about choices."

With myriad decisions, including the type of yeast, barrel and length of fermentation, winemakers can easily tailor a wine to suit their personal tastes.

"By having control of the process, you get exactly what you like," Golobic says.

And quality isn't sacrificed just because you're making it at home. Everything available to the commercial vintner is available to the home winemaker.

"You just do it on a different scale," Golobic says. "You're not worried about margins. You can make a boutique, handcrafted product."


STEPS TO MAKING WINE AT HOME

• Pick up your grapes from your selected grower.

• Put them through a crusher, where the stems will be separated and skins broken.

• Pour 1 gram of yeast per gallon into the "must," a term used to describe the crushed grapes.

• Let the mixture ferment for about seven to 10 days. During the fermentation process, carbon dioxide is formed and pushes the skins to the top, creating a hard cap that must be punched down twice a day.

• Press the remaining juice out of the skins and separate the clear liquid from the sediment on the bottom of the container, a process known as racking. At that point you have the beginning of wine.

• Pour the wine into barrels to age. You can use either oak or stainless steel or glass, depending on your preference and budget. Add oak chips if you do not choose wooden barrels.

• Let red wine age for one to two years. During this stage you must top off barrels, as wine does evaporate through the wood. Topping off is not necessary with glass and stainless steel barrels.

• Bottle your wine and either let it age even more, or open and enjoy.

The Red Wine Headache

It says from around the world, so here is something I found in the Jakarta Post www.jakartapost.com


For some poor souls, a glass of red wine in front of them is the equivalent of misery where even the smallest consumption can bring on a pounding skull. This condition, referred to as "Red Wine Heachache" (RWH) is a well-documented phenomenon but widely misunderstood by millions of sufferers.

Most attribute RWH to one of three causes, either an allergy to sulfites, a reaction to histamines or a problem with tannin. Due to a lack of funding, research has been somewhat limited. However, over the past 30 years, there has been sufficient evidence to show that neither of these can be blamed for the dreaded RWH.

The Sulfite Saga

For decades it was believed that the sulfites in red wine were the cause of so much discomfort for drinkers. Sulfites contain antioxidant and anti-microbial properties preventing the propagation of bacteria and spoilage (browning) during the fermentation process. Effectively, sulfites act as a preservative and can be found in a range of foods, such as dried fruits and cheeses.

In the 1980s, The Food and Drug Administration established that approximately 1 percent of the population is allergic to sulfites therefore requiring wine labels to state, "contains sulfites". Many consumers misinterpret this to mean that the sulfite allergies cause the headaches.

This couldn't be further from the truth. Sulfite sufferers (1 in 100,000 people) will go into anaphylactic shock within moments of exposure, choking to death. This is not to say that red wine containing sulfites does not give rise to problems such as asthma attacks, it is merely suggesting that it is not the sulfites, which cause the headache.

Furthermore, it is incorrectly assumed that red wines contain more sulfites than white wines when the reverse is actually true. Sweet white wine in particular, is loaded with sulfites due to its higher sugar content.

Histamine Hysteria

The Histamine debate is even trickier as there is great lack of evidence to prove that histamines found in red wines are the culprits. White wine is made using only the grape's juice or must, while red wine making involves the entire crushed fruit including the skins, which contain the biologically active compound histamine.

As a result, red wine contains 20-200 times more histamine than white wine. Some people are sensitive to histamines because they are deficient in diamine oxidase, an enzyme that breaks town histamine in the small intestine. As alcohol also slows down this enzyme, experts believe that the source of the RWH is a combination of the alcohol content in wine as well as a person's enzyme deficiency.

A study conducted on people with intolerance to wine, reported in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (Feb 2001) found no difference in reactions to low and high histamine wines. While histamines are found in grape skins, researchers believe that they are not found in high enough volumes to be considered problematic.

Tannin Trauma

Tannins are found around the seeds and under the skin of the grape and are therefore present in red wine and to a much smaller extent, white wine, although virtually imperceptible. A lot of research has been conducted on tannin revealing that tannins cause the release of serotonin, which is a neurotransmitter.

High levels of serotonin can cause headaches, which are different to migraines, however migraine sufferers are not necessarily prone to the RWH. Tannin is found in a host of food products such as tea, soy and chocolate and people who are normally affected by RWH can consume these ingredients without any problem.

For sufferers of Red Wine Headache it is a completely frustrating experience however many report that not all red wine gives them a pounding head. In fact, many doctors suggest experimenting with different brands, origins and varieties and to keep a list of safe wines to drink as the majority of people afflicted report that the headache sets in within 15 minutes of consumption.

Others attest to taking asprin or ibuprofen before indulging in red wine although there is little clinical evidence to support this theory.

There are a couple of products on the market that advertise a cure for the RWH. One product called Chaser Plus claims that the pills help relieve wine headaches and contain a special ingredient for wine sensitivity?? Sounds like a crock to me, be wary!

Perhaps there is not one particular cause, perhaps it is a combination of intolerances and each individual is different. If you are affected by Red Wine Headache then my heart goes out to you but as consolation, the next best thing to red wine is of course, Champagne! In my experience, bubbles can fix just about anything.

Is a blush wine the same as a rose?

With the dramatic increase in Finger Lakes rose and blush wines now available, the difference between the two is worth exploring.

Many information sources including Internet sites like Lexicus, The Cook's Thesaurus and The Free Dictionary by Farlex use the terms interchangeably.

Therein lies the trouble. According to The Cook's Thesaurus, "Blush is displacing rosé as the name given to pink wines, though some people use the name rosé to describe darker pink wines. Whatever name you give them, they're usually made from red grapes that are only allowed to ferment a few days -- too short a time for the grape skins to impart a deeper color to the wine."

Lexicus blurs the lines between the wine terms rose and blush even more. It says that a rose wine is a "pinkish table wine from red grapes whose skins were removed after fermentation began." The definition lists as synonyms: Blush Wine, Pink Wine, Rose.

The Free Dictionary by Farlex duplicates the definitions by Lexicus. It would appear we could close the book on the subject, but in reality we have only just scratched the surface.

Pressing on, I unearthed other Internet sites that provide a fuller understanding of differences between rose and blush wines. The online site www. terroir-france.com/wine/rosewine begins with "First of all Rosé wine is not a blending of red and white wine (abstraction made of the exceptional case of Champagne Rosé)." It then goes on to describe three different ways in which rose wine is produced using red grapes.

The first talks about gray or pale rosé wine. "The grapes are pressed as soon as they arrive in the cellar. It allows a quicker diffusion of the color in the must (freshly pressed juice containing the grape pulp, skins, stems, and seeds)." After only a few hours of skin contact, which provides the color, the wine is then fermented and finished like a white wine, usually in stainless steel tanks.

The next method of making rose wine starts like the first but, after pressing, the fermentation process is allowed to begin with the skins still in contact for up to a few days. The fermenting juice is then separated from the skins, which limits how much the skins add color and flavor to the wine.

A third way of making rose wine begins the same as the second method using red grapes, with an eventual twist along the way. After the fermenting juice has reached a pink color, some of it is drawn off and finished like a white wine in stainless tanks. There are two distinctly different reasons to use this procedure. The first has been used by winemakers for years to increase the depth of color and flavor in their red wines. By drawing off, or bleeding, some of the partially fermented juice, the remaining volume absorbs more color and flavor from the skins. California's Sutter Home White Zinfandel came into being more than 30 years ago using this technique, which the French call Saignée. A second reason is that some winemakers simply want to make a lighter-bodied wine that retains lively fruit flavors. The fermentation process is slowed by finishing the wine in cooled stainless steel tanks, which allows more of the fresh fruit flavors to be retained.

In contrast to these methods of making rose wines, blush wines are often made by blending mostly white wine with a small amount of red wine to achieve a pleasing pink, festive color.

This is what is done at Bully Hill Vineyards, which produces six blush wines. They range from the semi-dry LeGoat Blush made with seyval blanc, vidal blanc and Cayuga grapes to the smooth-tasting, sweet Pink Catawba made with almost all Catawba grapes. Colobel is the grape of choice used at Bully Hill to color its blush wines. A small amount of it imparts the delightful color for their blush wines.

Tim Miller makes a blush wine at Chateau Lafayette Reneau using almost all pinot noir grapes straight from the pressing to make his 2006 Pinot Noir Blanc wine. The colorless juice is fermented in jacket-cooled stainless steel tanks that capture wonderful fruit flavors that would be lost at higher temperatures. Tim adds a small amount of baco noir to provide the beautiful color for his wine.

Morten Hallgren, owner and winemaker at Ravines Wine Cellars, has produced a wonderful 2006 Pinot Rose. He followed the method of using skin contact with the juice to create the color for his wine. The juice was separated from the skins after less than two days and finished in stainless steel tanks.

At Heron Hill Winery, winemaker Thomas Laszlo has produced a blush and a rose wine. The nonvintage Game Bird Blush is blend of two reds, pinot noir and cabernet franc, and a white, Cayuga. Both of the red wines were produced using the bleed method. He also created the 2006 Cabernet Franc Reserve using the bleed process.

These are only a few of the blush and rose wines now popping up in the Finger Lakes. They are lighter in body and taste than full reds and range from bone dry to very sweet. You should be able to find something you will really enjoy.

Jeff Richards' wine column is published the last Saturday of the month. It also appears online at www.stargazette.com. Click on "Columnists" in box at left, then click on "All Columnists," then scroll down to the bottom of the page and the link to "The Wine Guy." For comments or questions, call (607) 271-8279 or (800) 836-8970, ext. 279, or e-mail: jrichards@stargazette.com