Chronicles of the Long Shot Farm

Grape

The Makings of Rosé

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There are a couple of options for making a rosé, including blending different wines together, but we opted for using red grapes and basically processing them just like a white wine.  

With other words, we picked the grapes, ran them through the crusher/destemmer and the put them into the press.  We collected all the free run juice first (about 40 gallons), and then started to gently press the grapes for another 5 gallons, which were added to the free run juice.  We continued pressing the grapes, but kept this juice separately – which yielded about 7 gallons.  Toward the end of pressing, the juice had a distinct “vegetative” flavor, from the bits of stems and seeds that got crushed – not nearly as pleasant tasting as the free run juice.

ice bag floating in the fresh juice

We cooled the juice by dropping previously frozen and sealed ice bags into the wine, to keep the temperature around 65° F. 

After treating the juice with SO2 and adding Pectinase, we covered the barrel and let the juice sit overnight.  This should help with settling out impurities.  We also took a juice sample to test the pH, sugar level and TA (total acidity).

Today we racked the clear  juice into a new barrel – you can see the rose colored juice being pumped through a clear hose in the left picture.  There was a surprising amount of “sludge” left near the bottom of the barrel, nearly 5 gallons.  We racked the sludge into two small carboys to see if it would clear anymore (I just don’t see how it could).

We did the same with the 7 gallons of pressed juice, added the hydrated yeast to both containers and let the fermentation begin!

Harvest with Upgraded Grape Equipment

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We harvested over 750 lbs of our Chambourcin grapes this morning to experiment with making rosé wine.  This relatively small harvest served a double purpose:  to try and make rosé, and to make sure our new (used) grape processing equipment will work as we hope before be pick the bulk of the grapes later this month.
We got an early start, the fog had not even lifted, and it was still pleasantly cool.  First order of business:  remove the bird netting:

  

nice cluster!

We alternated picking and crushing/destemming, then dumping the   grapes into the press.  All this took five of us about two and a half     hours, plus another half hour for clean up.






The used crusher/destemmer we got earlier this summer worked surprisingly well.  Jeff had to rewire the barn in order to get a 220 V outlet, and a friend build us a stand for underneath the destemmer, which made it a lot more sturdy.  Yesterday we scrubbed everything again with soapy water, then power-washed it prior to using it today.  Here is a video showing how it worked:

We then dumped the crushed grapes into the press, and collected the free run juice first.  This will be the juice we use for the rosé wine.  We then pressed the grapes and collected the pressed juice for a separate batch of wine.  

“Bud Break” status

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As everyone knows, this year has had a challenging start, as far as weather is concerned.  Spring is way behind, and so are tree blossoms, asparagus and grapes – as well as everything else.  Today we got our first small harvest of asparagus, which I think may coincide with bud break of Concord grapes.

Here are some pictures of buds on our current grape varieties – for future reference:

Chambourcin
Vidal Blanc
Concord
Young Chardonel

Vineyard Expansion 2014

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Today we planted another 300 grapevines – it only took four of us one day this year.  I guess we are getting better at it.  

We added more Vidal Blanc vines, but most importantly we planted a new variety – “Chardonel”.    We are nearing the end of the upper field with this new “batch”, as we only have two or three empty rows left, and those rows are shorter than the others.  We are very excited for this new grape variety… it will be a challenge to wait at least two more years before we can have a small sample harvest.

Getting the grapes was a bit of a challenge this year – due to an unforeseen circumstance:  The Lufthansa pilot strike of 2014.  This story gets a bit complicated, but it started with a trip to Germany for Anja, Duff, Leif and Lars.  Their flight was to and from Boston.  (which meant that Tina and Sam took Lars to Boston for the beginning of this trip two weeks ago – hence so few blog posts).  Zach was able to arrange his work schedule in such a way that he would be in New England and be able to pick Lars up in Boston for his way back – and then also pick up the grapes, as those were on his way also.

Unfortunately, Lars and everyone else, was not able to fly back as planned – due to the pilot strike.  They got on another flight, but this one was much later than planned, and not a direct flight either.    So Zach could not pick up Lars, but he got the grapes and dropped them off at his grandparent’s house in Pittsburgh.  Meanwhile, Lars’s new flight returned via Dulles airport and Tina was able to pick him up in D.C. late Friday night.  Then she had to drive to Pittsburgh on Saturday to get the grapes, so we could plant them today. But it was a perfect day for planting, and everything turned out well in the end!

Still Pruning!

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Good news is that we finished pruning all the blackberries – including the newest patch behind the house.   Once the pruning and weeding was finished, Lars and Jeff set the remaining trellis posts.  Jens came this weekend and helped run the trellis wires.  It looks great.

We’ve continued the grapevine pruning as well – at least whenever the weather is decent enough to go out there.  Luckily with the time change, we do have some more daylight in the evening.  Hoping this helps us get the job done faster.