Reusing Bottles

Ever since I bottled the 2009 red, I belatedly realize that is worth saving wine bottles. Otherwise I need to pay around 120-130 Forints for new ones. That's about 45 Eurocents each. Multiply that by say 100 bottles, and it's a chunk of money.

Although I don't even drink all that much wine, I've now got around 120 bottles in the cellar, cleaned and waiting to be filled.  Plus a dozen or two more, waiting to be cleaned.

On the other hand, cleaning the damn things is labour-intensive and boring. First you need to get the collars and labels off. While many labels come off easily with soaking in hot water, some are stuck with some industrial super-glue that needs heavy duty treatment. Once in a while I fill the bath with piping hot water, dump in 20 or 30 bottles, and after a while, go to work to remove the labels.

Ah, but that's just step 1. They still need to be sterilized, this time with a solution of sodium metabisulphite in cold water.

And now, they need to dry out. This is harder than it sounds. Glass bottles stubbornly resist drying-out, in any kind of weather.  My technique is to leave them upside down for the best part of a day to let most of the water drip out; then I turn them right-way up, cover with sheets of kitchen paper weighted down a little so they don't blow off (the kitchen paper keeps out insects and dust), leave them in the summer house until the next time we visit - by then they will be dry. Finally I stopper them up with a rolled up wad of kitchen paper, put them in boxes and bring to the cellar.

The first batch I bottled, I didn't do any of this. I simply rinsed them out, let them drip up-side down for a couple of hours, then filled them up.  This is all completely against the book!  If they are not sterilized, bacteria and microbes can remain, ready to attack the wine - so sayeth the book. However, I'm not sure it made much difference at all. While a couple of the bottles went bad (the wine fizzed up when I pulled out the cork, and it tasted bad), there can be various reasons for this, and 95% were fine.

Similar goes for all the equipment we use - buckets, etc.  Theoretically it should all be sterilized, but in practice it would add an awful lot of time to the work.  It seems the average "man in the street" around here doesn't bother - in fact, I get strange looks if I propose sterilizing the equipment!

Racking, Decanting, First Buds

On Friday this Easter weekend we racked the 2011 wines. The weather forecast for the weekend was for cold and wet. Since a lot of equipment must be washed and dried, a warmer dry day is best. Luckily, on Friday morning it was still pleasant, and the rain only started later in the day.  By today, Sunday, the cellar (8 degrees) is already warmer than outside!

We didn't rack the 2009 barrel of white, mainly to save time, and anyway it has been racked a number of times before.  It took around 3.5 hours to do the 2011 wines.

Most important, I got a chance to taste them!

The red has no bad flavours, but it really hasn't developed any character at all yet.  After racking, there is around 75l.

The white in the large barrel tastes quite balanced, not as acidic as the 2009 white. We have about 150l of it.

There is also a smaller barrel of white which was from the second pressing, and Sándor says not enough sugar was added. This one definitely doesn't taste as good as the other white, the difference is quite marked, even though I don't have a particularly strong sense of taste (and even less of smell). There's about 40l of this one.

Finally, I had a small quantity of white which the girls pressed by foot, from the first batch of grapes to ripen, the Muscately variety. This has been in a glass carboy, or ballon, so I could have a bit more visibility to the process.  After taking out the wine to clean out the lees, I decided to bottle most of it, rather than wait for the carboy to dry out, as the day was getting colder.  I filled 11 bottles with the amount siphoned out first, which was clearest. A remaining few litres from nearer the bottom of the carboy went into the smaller barrel of white.  This one is a pale colour and a bit acidic, okay for fröccs (spritzer).  Doesn't seem to be much sediment in the bottles but let's see after it settles for a while.

 

In the 2009 reds and whites we bottled in 2010, there is a significant amount of sediment in the bottles. In the case of the red, it's not very noticeable. But the whites are in clear bottles and it looks rather ugly and off-putting.

Which leads to the subject of decanting wines. Until recently I would happily drink wine from the bottle, but with my own wines I always decant them.  Historically, wines were decanted as much for reasons of sediment in the bottles, as of flavour and appearance.  Nowadays, commercial wines are usually cleared and filtered so that there is no sediment (although I have seen sediment in some Hungarian commercial wines.)  When I decant my wine, I slowly removing the cork without disturbing the contents of the bottle, and pour gently so that in the end a few mm of sediment remains in the bottle.  As well as not separating the sediment,  the flavour of the red develops greatly with a lengthy period of time to breathe (at least 30 minutes, but even next day it tastes good without being stoppered overnight), and also adjust to room temperature if it came directly from the cellar.

Last and not least, the vines were pruned a few weeks ago and growth starts to appear. The weather forecast for tonight is below zero... hopefully frost will not damage the vines and other fruit trees.

 

After pressing the red grapes I took away a small bottle of the juice.  Already with only 2 weeks in the vat the primary fermentation - where the yeasts turn most of the sugar into alcohol - was complete, more or less.
The secondary fermentation - where bacteria turn most of the remaining sugar into alcohol - will continue slowly.

The taste of the juice was of wine, but very "raw".  After a day or two, I poured off the clear wine from the bottle into one glass, and the "lees" at the bottom of the bottle into another glass. The contrast is clear. This lees consists of sediment from the grapes as well as dead yeast cells.

This is an example of what is in the barrel at the moment.  The lees tasted more or less the same, but didn't look very appetising!

This week we will rack the white, maybe the red too.

Some pictures from the red grape pressing

The red grapes (actually some white too) had sat in the vat for 2 weeks to macerate (get the colour out from the skins).  Early on a cold sunday morning we pressed them.

The vat had been covered to keep off the fruit flies...

The partly crushed grapes float to the top. Every day the "cap" needs to be pushed down so the oxygen can get at the juice and help it ferment. After 2 weeks the primary fermentation is mostly complete and most of the sugar will have already turned to alcohol.

All the grapes are thrown in the press and the screw is turned. This press is a bit too big for a quantity of only about 100l.

The trick is to turn the screw so it won't easily go further, wait a minute, then it is possible to turn it again... and repeat for the best part of an hour.

When it doesn't seem practical to keep pressing, dismantle the press and remove the cake of grapes.  In fact they are still a bit juicy and if there was a large enough quantity it would be worth pressing them again. 

The pressed grapes get thrown back onto the soil...

And finally the barrel is (almost) full. About 90l in this case. After racking a few times it might end up about 70l. The first racking will be later in the year.

Harvest

After a disastrous 2010 when we made no wine at all, this year things got back on track.
The quantity is about half of 2009. Let's hope quality wins over quality!

During September and October we had three separate grape picking occasions.

At the very start of September, the Muscately grapes were already ripe and the wasps were starting to eat them. As there was only a small quantity, the girls pressed them by foot and we squeezed the remaining juice out by hand. Slow work. As we started in the afternoon, it went on into the very warm evening.  The must was very sweet, about 19 degrees sugar. It was only about 30 litres, so I used a 50l plastic container, and added a small amount of sugar - about 800g - to bring it up to the desired 21 degrees - the ideal level for starting the fermentation, which should result in a wine around 12.5 degrees of alcohol.

Having covered it to keep off the fruit flies, it sat - with occasional stirring - for a couple of weeks before it was racked into a 25l glass 'carboy' jar.  This year I wanted to make a small quantity of wine separately from the rest, and store it in glass, so the process is more visible.  The problem with storing it in a barrel, is that during the time when it ferments and settles, it isn't possible to see the separation of the clear wine and the 'lees' which float to the bottom (dead yeast, dead bacterial microbes, and other gunk). And it means that racking off the clear wine without disturbing the lees is more difficult. Finally, by keeping a small amount of wine separate, it will be interesting to compare the eventual taste of the wine versus the main bulk.

Then in mid-September the bulk of the white grapes were picked and pressed a few days later.  This year it resulted in only about 250litres compared with nearly 500l two years ago.  I'm not complaining too much. Most of the white from two years ago is still sitting in a barrel (although much less than the original 500l after multiple racking). This must was 18 degrees, to which 8kg of sugar was added.  These are currently sitting in two barrels a little over 100l each, until they will have their first racking in November.

And finally, a week ago, we picked the red grapes. There wasn't enough quantity to setup the machine which takes off the stems, and we had enough labour to do that by hand, since we were celebrating  Györgyi's 40th birthday that day.

The lightly-crushed red grapes are currently sitting in a large vat for 2 weeks. Unlike the white wine, to produce a red wine, they have to sit and macerate for 2-3 weeks before the pressing - this means the colour needs to come out of the skins.  If they are pressed a few days after picking - like the white grapes - a rosé will be the result. On the coming weekend we will press them.  My estimate is about 100 litres.  Actually we mixed in white grapes from Györgyi's mother's garden.  Otherwise it would have been only around 50 litres. Two years ago we had 100l from the red grapes alone.  The red must was 17 degrees, to which 450kg of sugar was added.

In the next posts, I plan to write about the books I've been reading about winemaking and how they are starting to influence my thinking about how I want to make the wine in future.