Harvest 2016

This year the white grapes were hit badly by mildew resulting from a lot of rain during a very hot July. Interestingly, only a few of the red grape vines were hit (we have a mix of Kékfrankos, Portugieser aka Kékoportó, and Zweigelt). We sold what survived from the white, and kept the red grapes for wine. They were picked 25th September. They could have stayed on the vines longer to take advantage of the Indian Summer weather, but I was available only that week.

Mainly due to time pressure - but also in order to experiment a bit - the grapes were left on the skins for just 3 days before pressing. The outcome ought to be more like a Rosé wine than a red. In total there was in the region of 75 litres after pressing. This is down from well over 100l in a good year.

The 75l was too much for one of my plastic fermentation containers so I half-filled two.  After primary fermentation, the resulting wine will be moved to an 80l barrel.

Sugar levels were quite low which is strange, after quite a hot summer and very warm September.  I hope nothing wrong with my Mustfokmérő (Must degree measurement device). Must get a spare for next time around.

And I had a little panic. After 24 hours, the juice in one of the containers appeared to be fermenting and the other one was quiet... then next morning, it was the other way round. A few days later, although I was not there, I was told both had been fermenting but one went quiet while the other was still active . This is odd. Possibly they were affected by temperature - the containers are in the Pressing House where it was warm during the day and quite cold at night. Or possibly related to the fact that one of the containers had the free-run juice, the other had the juice from pressing (although that seems a bit odd) - next time I will mix them anyhow.