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The 2023 Riesling is from Nk’Mip Vineyards in Oliver. It was picked on September 21 and was scheduled for pickup by Clark Freightways on Friday September 22nd. However, due to different Clark offices not communicating with each other the grapes were not picked up. The next scheduled pickup by Clark was Tuesday September 26, which meant they sat for 4 days before they were picked up, upon which time they were in Clark’s cooler service (1 – 6 Celsius). Jeff moved the bins outside in the evenings to take advantage of the night temperatures, and into his shed in the day to try and keep them cool. He also sprinkled KMS over the surface to try and keep the grapes in better shape.
The saga with Clark continued on Thursday September 28th, when we assembled to setup in preparation for processing these grapes, only to learn that they were not put on the evenings barge and would come until the next day (Friday, September 29).
When we finally did receive these grapes on the Friday, they were the worst I have ever seen in 11 years bringing in grapes for the club. The grapes were brown from oxidation and there were smells of VA and acetic acid, and much of the juice had leaked out and sat on the bottom of the bin.
Is it possible to make wine from these grapes? We will see.
What are you doing to salvage these grapes? 200 ppm SO2 up front? Very short settling time? Killer yeast (e.g., EC118)? Please post your efforts (along with Brix, pH, TA). Let’s maintain a discussion to see if anyone is having success.
Thanks
-Dave -
pH 3.23
TA 10.46 g/L
°Bx 20.3
Temperature of grapes in the bin at least 16 °C (60F).
Lysozyme and C Max added.
Will bring Bx up to 22 to give me 12.5% alcohol.
PS NaOH was standardize with 0.1N HCl acid. But given the variable condition of the grapes in the bin our test result can be expected to be all over the place. -
pH: 3.34
acid 9.5
Brix: 18.8Andrew settled the juice, added another 100ppm, and added Lysozyme. When I came home from Vancouver on Sunday and put my nose into the carboy the first thing I smelled was vinegar. Not the strong kind of white, red or apple cider but more in the background – get the cooks in your family to smell your juice.
I believe that the grapes had started a wild ferment while sitting hence the brix numbers people are posting and the smell of vinegar. The acid is high because so many grapes had nothing left to them (hence all of the juice in the bottom of the bin). Doing research of whether or not these grapes can be savaged I read alot of articles and spoke with a commerical winemaker. Here is one article from Daniel Pambianchi https://techniquesinhomewinemaking.com/volatile-acidity-va/ I also spoke with a commerical wine makers who said: “About the only thing you could do with fruit that far gone is make feed for a brandy still.”
Andrew and I are not making wine from these grapes.You know the saying “you can make bad wine from good grapes, you can’t make good wine from bad grapes.”
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Note, the YAN number provided on my first post was incorrect. The number should be closer to 46. I have started my ferment with Q23 yeast. Like the others I get a strong VA/vinegar smell. I have set the must off in the corner away from my other ferments. I will give this a couple days to see what happens. I think the outcome is not going to be good.
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