Lots to do in our little winery, particularly cleaning: making wine is joyously messy, sticky, business. Today I was delighted to hear the first signs of vigour from a ferment we are running at a very low temperature of 12• The aim of fermenting the juice at a lower temperature than normal is twofold: 1 From this batch we want a fruity, fresh tasting wine, low in tannins but acidic. We bunch-pressed the grapes and racked the juice before fermentation to use a clear juice from the start. We want to preserve the floral and fruity notes of grape from the brutish tannins of stalk and seed. Low temperature ferments are supposed to preserve complex and delicate fruit flavours in wine, whereas higher temperatures will tend to break down fruit compounds and release tannins. This makes sense if one thinks of the qualities of a good red wine, which will probably have been fermented at times above 20• Flavours will be prominently tannic and rich, low-acidic. Wonderful, but not desirable in sparkling white. 2. Temperature control is energy intensive, and we want to use fully renewable direct solar energy to power our winery, so heating 1000s of litre of juice to 18-20• is a burden to be avoided if possible. I have created a small water jacket for tank 3, which I used to briefly heat the base of the ferment, no more than 2• , to help start the ferment. Otherwise we have left the tanks to assume ambient temperature. There is a risk that the ambient temperature will fluctuate too much for the mass of fermenting must, and disrupt the yeast. The tank could get too cold over winter and put the yeast in hibernation. Or the ferment may become too hot, in a feedback loop of activation energy and yeast reproduction, like with Woody Allen in the kitchen scene of Sleeper. Some form of renewable energy heat source to maintain the temperature, as well as good insulation, would be optimum. For the moment the ferment is going along nicely. But we may want it to go quicker. We will measure the rate of sugar consumption and see what we see...
Posted on: Sun, 16 Nov 2014 16:48:25 +0000
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