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I have been meaning to do an update for ages regarding my experiment with last years Trebbiano grapes. Having read about cold soaking the skins pre-ferment in a Brouwland flyer and then asking some questions on here, I decided to give it a go.
Grapefest 2012 Trebbiano grapes were much higher in sugar than the previous year and seemed in better condition. After crushing and destemming I left the 3 boxes of grapes soaking in a bucket with approx 50ppm sulphite for 48 hours. I used ice bombs made from freezing water in 4 pint milk cartons but one thing I didn't do was stir the must during this period and I did notice that the surface showed a little browning.
The must tested pre-ferment at SG1.090 and TA4.4g/l which was good sugar levels but low acid. I lightly pressed the must after 48 hours and then left it a further 7 hours overnight to settle out and then racked off. I tested SG and TA again (any excuse to play with my Vinmetrica SC300) and got the same results so I bumped the acid up with an addition of Tartaric Acid to 6.0g/l. A Lalvin D47 yeast starter was pitched with the must at 20c.
The ferment went quite quickly due to the warm weather at the time and the wine finished fermenting after only 15 days at SG.994.
After clearing, racking and ageing for 10 months I can say that the experiment has been successful in that the wine is light years away from my previous effort. I used the same yeast so the differences are a different vintage and temperature but the wine has much more depth to it, more bouquet and a much fruitier flavour and stands up against a bottle of commercial Trebbiano. It does have a darker slightly brown tinge to it from where I think the surface oxidised a little but you can't taste any oxidisation.
I will bring some to Grapefest this year for people to try but if you want to give it a go yourself then I would definitely recommend it and suggest that buying frozen would be an ideal and possibly safer way of achieving what I did. Would I do it again? Yes most certainly.
Grapefest 2012 Trebbiano grapes were much higher in sugar than the previous year and seemed in better condition. After crushing and destemming I left the 3 boxes of grapes soaking in a bucket with approx 50ppm sulphite for 48 hours. I used ice bombs made from freezing water in 4 pint milk cartons but one thing I didn't do was stir the must during this period and I did notice that the surface showed a little browning.
The must tested pre-ferment at SG1.090 and TA4.4g/l which was good sugar levels but low acid. I lightly pressed the must after 48 hours and then left it a further 7 hours overnight to settle out and then racked off. I tested SG and TA again (any excuse to play with my Vinmetrica SC300) and got the same results so I bumped the acid up with an addition of Tartaric Acid to 6.0g/l. A Lalvin D47 yeast starter was pitched with the must at 20c.
The ferment went quite quickly due to the warm weather at the time and the wine finished fermenting after only 15 days at SG.994.
After clearing, racking and ageing for 10 months I can say that the experiment has been successful in that the wine is light years away from my previous effort. I used the same yeast so the differences are a different vintage and temperature but the wine has much more depth to it, more bouquet and a much fruitier flavour and stands up against a bottle of commercial Trebbiano. It does have a darker slightly brown tinge to it from where I think the surface oxidised a little but you can't taste any oxidisation.
I will bring some to Grapefest this year for people to try but if you want to give it a go yourself then I would definitely recommend it and suggest that buying frozen would be an ideal and possibly safer way of achieving what I did. Would I do it again? Yes most certainly.
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