
Rose Style 4 – Rose Wine
12/11/2022
Christmas Discounts-DAY 1
30/11/2022Making Wine At Home
Introduction
Winemaking books offering recipes tend to fall in to one of two categories. One type of book is that written by winemakers who have a fair knowledge of the most technical aspects of the subject. Such books usually give a detailed reasoning behind the formulation of a particular recipe, and this means that much of the information will not be appreciated by the average winemaker. The second approach is the one in which the author compiles a mass of recipes from many sources. These recipes may be taken from all kinds of sources, including old books and magazines and are frequently very unreliable, including such absurdities as recommending the use of four or five pounds of sugar to a gallon of must and being uncritical about the yeast to be used.
My first winemaking book, Straightforward Winemaking, was intended for relatively novice winemakers; it gave the essential background and provided quite a number of reliable recipes. These recipes ranged from those in which just two or three ingredients were used to more complicated ones that were intended to give wines resembling particular commercial styles. As with most books, Straightforward Winemaking began to become a little dated and I allowed it to go out of print. Pending the production of a much more up-to-date book, Winemaking in Style, I wrote the first edition of the Gervin Recipe Book. It was a stop gap booklet, which provided a selection of well thought recipes that would give wines in a variety of styles. These recipes and many more were incorporated into Winemaking in Style, so I allowed the recipe book to go out to print. The more comprehensive book ran to two editions, but the prohibitive cost has ruled out a third edition. Many winemakers have asked me to provide at least a booklet that gives reliable information and includes good sound recipes. Accordingly, I have produced this third edition of the recipes book, modifying recipes where this is appropriate and including some new material.
In this introductory section I have summarised the factors that influence the choice of ingredients and the best ways of handling the fruit etc. For a particular style of winemaking, the extra ingredients needed by particular musts, the best way of carrying out the fermentations and ways in which the finished wine could be improved. The recipes form the bulk of the booklet. In producing these recipes, I have made all the necessary detailed calculations to ensure the must contains everything needed for a successful fermentation and that the wine produced has the levels of body, acidity, sweetness and tannin appropriate for the style of wine that is wanted. The sugar levels are chosen so that the alcohol level produced is appropriate. As a rough guide winemakers can assume that a level of 10% of sugar will produce just 6% of alcohol (by volume) provided that a descent wine yeast is used and the fermentation proceeds to dryness. I have tried out all the recipes and various modifications and I believe that winemakers should get very drinkable wines using them. As before, I have produced the recipe in several sections, ranging from dry white table wines to heavy dessert wines. In each section I have started with the similar recipes, using ingredients available all year round and then moved on to more elaborate recipes. These latter recipes use fresh fruit rather than fruit juices and give rather better wines; the ‘freezer’ is invaluable if wines are to be made at any time during the year.
Choice Of Ingredients
Fruit Juices
In the recipes that follow, apple and grape juice are often used. Ideally, we should use freshly pressed apple juice rather than cartons of supermarket juice, since the latter are usually made of concentrated apple juice and may be a little on the dark side and lack the intensity of aroma found in freshly pressed juice. If you have access to juicing facilities, do make your own juice when fresh apples are in season. Choose the variety of apple that give you the best aroma and use a blend of varieties if you can. The better supermarkets and food stores may well stock freshly pressed apple juice of named varieties of apples, but such juices are rather expensive and should be reserved for those ‘special batches’ of must when quality is a priority. Even the juice made from concentrate is very useable and there are ways of reducing the colour if it bothers you and additives are available that will improve the aroma.
Read the labels on the fruit juice packs carefully, since some may have unwanted additions such as sweeteners (e.g., saccharin), stabilisers and colour. Be especially careful if stabilisers such as benzoates and sorbate are present, as these will hinder the fermentation and possibly bring about a stuck fermentation. Nutrients may be at a lower level than in fresh juices and the addition of a small amount of descent nutrient mix may help the fermentation. The better food stores now stock a whole range of fruit juices including a number of tropical fruit mixes and you can experiment by using a little of such juices in place of the apple juice. One juice I have found extremely useful in adding a floral note to some of many white wines is apple and elderflower.
Concentrated Fruit Juices
Grape concentrate is available from many homebrew shops. Sometimes the label does not specify the country of origin and my inclination is to avoid concentrates where this information is not given. The variety of grape used is often given with the more expensive grape concentrates. The problem that arises is usually that the concentrates for making white wines are invariably too dark and gives the finished wine a deeper colour than would be expected for the style of wine (especially when a dry white wine is being made). Colour can be reduced in these circumstances by using caseinate in the fermentation. Avoid buying old or out of date concentrates, since the colour darkens with age and even if cheap, the concentrates are never a bargain.
I have found that some concentrates have acidity levels that are too high and on occasion the sulphite levels (stabiliser and antioxidant) can be on the high side too. Any concentrate with high levels of both sulphite and acid will give a must that is difficult to ferment.
Canned Fruit
Canned fruit can be a useful source of winemaking ingredients, but I think it is worth buying a named brand and paying that little bit extra. The two fruits I find especially worthwhile are apricots and peaches. Thus, fresh apricots often arrive in this country still rather unripe and lacking in flavour, although quality ripe fruit is available (at a price) in top of the range stores. The canned apricots are easily used, stones being removed, and the syrup and apricot flesh being made into course pulp slurry. Peaches are especially valuable in cans. Even when ripe, fresh can give a wine a characteristic and somewhat unpleasant aroma. The source of the problem appears to be the stringy bits around the stones. These bits have been removed in the processing of the fruit for canning and there are no unwanted aroma notes.
Other canned fruit that can be useful are gooseberries and occasionally pineapples and other tropical fruits. I have found a little passionfruit works wonders in full bodied wines.
Dried Fruit
Dried grapes (sultanas and raisins) and dried apricots are excellent materials but do remember that sultanas and raisins inevitably add brown colour to your wines. I feel this makes them most suitable for heavier dessert wine or Madeira and sherry style wines. One piece of advice. In order to keep the dried fruit soft and resistant to fermentation by stray yeast it is normally given a coating of oil and sulphite. I believe it is worth while to give all dried fruit a quick rinse with hot water to remove most of this surface coating. The wash also removes odd bits of stalk etc., which are found even in the most expensive fruit. The other point to keep in mind is that the drying process has concentrated the acid and sugar levels. With apricots for instance, the fresh fruit typically has acid and sugar levels of 1.2 and 6% while the corresponding values for dried apricots are 4.0 and 40%. As a rule of thumb, I take a pound of the dried fruit as equivalent to four pounds of fresh fruit.
Frozen Fruit
Anyone with a freezer can make good use of surplus fruit in the growing season. There is a difference in freezing fruit for winemaking and fruit for eating. Thus, when we intend to eat the berries, we want the fruit to retain the structure as much as possible; this is very difficult with strawberries! So, we try to freeze the fruit for eating as quickly as possible, with the freezer set at its coldest. I always freeze the berries in single layers before putting into the final containers or bags. With strawberries I find interlacing layers of the frozen berries with sugar in the container helps the berries to keep their shape. When the fruit is frozen quickly, the water produces tiny ice crystals and their effect on the texture of the fruit will be minimal.
By contrast, for winemaking we would like the texture to be broken down such that the juice can be extracted more easily. Accordingly freeze the berries slowly so that the ice crystals grow quite large and break down the cell structure. When I come to use frozen fruit, I remove the fruit from its container or bag. Put it in to a Pyrex glass vessel, pour over boiling water and add the pectolytic enzyme when the mixture has cooled to lukewarm.
I have found the freezer ideal for storing gooseberries, rhubarb, and all red and black berries. When the freezer supply runs out, you may be able to obtain frozen fruit from one of the larger farm shops. Our local one keeps an excellent range including Morello cherries, which I have used successfully for making my cherry brandy!
Fresh Fruit
In general, we can’t beat fresh fruit, although, as I have pointed out, there are good reasons for using dried apricots, and canned peaches. Fresh fruit should always be ripe and never under-ripe. There is a common misunderstanding that really unripe gooseberries should used for making dry table wines and ripe gooseberries for making sweet white wines. This is wrong. You can use culinary varieties of gooseberries for making dry table wines and dessert gooseberries for making sweeter wines but always use fruit that is pretty ripe.
One word of caution. Do not use gooseberries that are so over-ripe that they have begun to split. In such a state the fruit is an ideal place for bacteria to grow. I believe it to be more of a coincidence that on every occasion that my wines have developed the dreaded ‘mouse’ infection, very ripe gooseberries have been involved. It is now known that ‘mouse’ is a consequence of infection by particular strains of lactic acid bacteria, so you can see why I am suspicious.
Bananas are the exception to the rule of fruit being ripe but not over-ripe. Thus, bananas are full of unwanted starch when they are under-ripe, but once they begin to turn black, they are full of sugar.
Never used badly bruised fruit and wash all hard fruit such as apples and pears to remove the inevitable grime on fruit grown in suburban areas and the leavings of our feathered friends. I throw away any apples suffering from the attentions of the dreaded codling moth.
With soft fruits such as elderberries and blackberries, there are two schools of thought. Some winemakers ignore the odd leaves and stalks, or the occasional grub and spider, and pour the lot into the fermentation vessel. I belong to the other school and give my fruit a gentle and brief soak in cold water. I put the fruit in a bucket and cover it with cold water, stir gently and let the fruit settle. Unwanted debris gently floats and can be skimmed off. Unripe green elderberries also come to the surface. You may lose a little juice by washing the fruit but I think you will get a better wine. Get the body in your wines by using more fruit rather than incorporating the debris.
Must Preparation
With white wines, and especially those of a lighter kind, the highest quality is normally achieved by using juices that are as free as possible from suspended particles. By contrast, red wines need fermentation on the berry skins so that both colour and tannin can be extracted. Such pulp fermentations give more full-bodied wines, so the procedure is also used when heavy white wines of the dessert type are made.
These are various ways of extracting the juice needed for making white table wines. With hard fruits such as apples and pears, the ideal way is to use a fruit press with the addition of a fruit crusher to pulp the fruit first.
If any form of crusher or press is used, care must be taken to prevent the juice going brown through oxidation; the judicious use of a sulphite solution is normally effective. With soft fruit and even such fruit as gooseberries and with rhubarb, the freezer is the best way of extracting the juice and separating it from the unwanted solids. With rhubarb, cut the stalks in to thumb sized pieces, stopping short of the leaves which are full of undesirable oxalates. Put the pieces into a polythene bag and put it in to the freezer on fast freeze. After 24 hours the bags can be taken from the freezer and put into a bucket until the rhubarb has thawed. There is no need to take precautions against browning with rhubarb. When the thaw is complete put the mix into a large sieve and allow the juice to filter through. Alternatively put into a nylon strainer bag and squeeze it gently to force the juice through.
With gooseberries, I wash the fruit with cold wate and remove leaves and odd pieces of stalk. I throwaway any berries that have split, since the fruit is liable to become infected by bacteria, with a risk to the flavour of the wine made from them. I do not bother to top and tail berries but put them into a polythene bag and let them freeze solid. Such berries can be kept for several months without deteriorating significantly and are still good for winemaking a year or so later. When I want to make my wine, I remove the berries and place them into a bucket and pour boiling water over them. As a guide I use 2 litres of boiling water to 2 kilos of fruit. The mixture then ends up at room temperature and I then squash the berries between finger and thumb, now an easy task and add a suitable amount of pectolytic enzyme. I cover the bucket with a clean, sterile cloth and put it in a warm place such as the airing cupboard for some 12 hours or so. The juice is then easily separated from the solid residue, by the means of a simple nylon bag. I use a small Walker-Desmond press to speed up the process. The fist-full or so of pulp is consigned to the compost heap, with the juice containing the delicious flavour that has been extracted from the berries. I always treat gooseberries this way rather than fermenting on the pulp, since then the wine is likely to be a little ‘course’.
Apples can be frozen too, but in this case, there is the problem of preventing the fruit and juice from going very brown. Keep the apples whole, with skins still on, then remove the frozen fruit from the freezer, add a little 10% sulphite solution, place the bag in hot water to bring about a quick thaw and press the juice in the usual way.
Juices can be extracted from most fruits by means of a ‘steamer’. I never use this procedure on white fruits since it seems to give the juice a rather cooked taste. The steamer is quite effective with fruits such as blackberries and elderberries, giving a juice diluted with about 25% of water. Use a powerful source of heat so that the juice can be extracted quickly. The juice is less harsh than juice extracted from these fruits by pressure and is a very useful adjunct for musts designed for dessert wines, adding body without the excess tannin.
Other Must Requirements
Acid
If the fruit you are using is low in acid, then I recommend that you use tartaric acid to top up the acid level. Tartaric acid is preferred to citric or malic since it is less likely to be attacked by bacteria and any excess can be partly removed by chilling the wine. Of course, you can use citric or malic if tartaric is not available. I see little point in using a mixture of all three acids. Some older books recommend this but there is no good reason and I believe the practise is based on nothing but ‘old wives’ tales’!
Nutrient
Most recipes based on fruits are likely to contain enough nutrient for the yeast to function well. Processed juices may lack some essential nutrient and apple juice is often low in nitrogen. I feel it is best to be on the safe side and add a little balanced nutrient mix to all musts. Avoid using a large excess of nutrient, since some will remain in the wine and make it a desirable medium for bacterial growth. The recipes in this book recommend yeast nutrient, which has been developed especially for amateur winemakers and contains essential minor constituents.
Yeast
Quality counts so always buy yeast made from the commercial winemakers. All Gervin Yeasts fall into this category and are supplied in nitrogen flushed sachets to ensure long shelf life. Do not buy tubs, since the yeast deteriorates once the container has been opened and avoid buying yeast mixed with nutrient. Deterioration sets in as the nutrient picks up moisture quite easily. Look on the label to see if the strain of yeast is given. If not, ask yourself why! Do not trust labels such as Liebfraumilch, which are misleading. Some suppliers seem to be a little casual in their yeast descriptions. If the sachet is said to contain wine yeast but doesn’t say the strain use it is a general-purpose yeast. Such yeasts are unlikely to have the special characteristics you may want, such as an ability to ferment at lower temperatures, desirable for making white table wines.
Do remember that a yeast described as Burgundy will not guarantee a Burgundy wine; the flavour and the bouquet of the wine will depend primarily on the ingredients and the right yeast will ensure that these ingredients give their best.
The active dried yeast should be rehydrated carefully, using a dilute sugar solution (half a teaspoon of sugar dissolved in around 50ml of water at about 35-40 Decrees Celsius). Pour the dried yeast in to the sugar solution and stir vigorously. Leave the mix to stand for about 20-25mins, by which time it should have developed a good head and then again stir vigorously.
The stirring gives the yeast cells a good supply of oxygen, which ensures a healthy cell growth. If there is no head, then it seems likely that the yeast contains a large number of dead cells. This can happen
If the dried yeast is past its best before date or has been stored in hot conditions. It is not worth risking the must by using a yeast not in good health, so start up another yeast.
Bentonite
You can ensure a smooth fermentation by adding a suspension of bentonite (sodium form for preference) at the start of fermentation. This is sensible for white wine musts without any solids, since the bentonite provides a surface on which the carbon dioxide gas bubbles can form, so they there will be no sudden surges of gas. I do not use bentonite with red wine musts since there can be some reduction in the colour and in any case many red wine musts contain enough solids to take care of the gas surge problem. One snag with bentonite is that it does absorb some of the nutrients and they will not necessarily be readily available for the yeast cells.
Pectolytic Enzyme
This serves two functions. First of all it breaks down the pectins released by the fruits and so prevents subsequent pectin hazes. A second reason for using the pectolytic enzyme is that it helps to release the juice from the fruit cells. Pectolase is available in most homebrew shops.
Sulphite
This should be used in moderation when the must is being made up, since excessive amounts will hinder or prevent fermentation and are often a source of unacceptable amounts of hydrogen sulphide (‘rotten eggs’). Also avoid over sulphating the finished wine, since the wine then has a most unpleasant pungent nose, which is likely to upset any asthma sufferers. I make up a 10% solution of potassium metabisulphite (or sodium) in water, and add a teaspoon to a gallon (4.5 litres) of wine just before it is bottled.
Water
While clean tap water is satisfactory, it may sometimes suffer from over chlorination. Such water should always be boiled to expel the chlorine and allowed to cool before use. Boiling the water also removes the unwanted calcium bicarbonate found in hard water areas.
Fermentation Method
The fermentation vessel should be made of either glass or white (or clear) plastic. When the simpler recipes using just juices are being used, the fermentations can be carried out in the standard glass demi-john, with a little space being left to accommodate any foaming. Once the fermentation has settled down, the fermenting must can be topped up with water so that the jar is almost full. When relatively low alcohol wines (i.e., Table wines) are being made and the must has been well aeriated by shaking, the fermentation trap can be added at the start of the fermentation, since the must will contain sufficient oxygen for the yeast to ferment out the sugar and give a dry wine. This wine can then be sweetened and stabilised, if necessary, before the wine is bottled. If much more alcohol wines are being made, such as dessert wines, I recommend that the neck of the jar be simply plugged with a paper or cotton wool bung for the first 36 hours; the wine should be swilled around at say 12 hourly intervals during this initial period to give the yeast cells the oxygen they need to build strong membranes and resistance to the paralysing effects of the increasing of alcohol levels.
When the fermentation is to be carried out on the pulp for at least the first few days then I suggest using your plastic bucket, fitted with a lid or at least clean tea towel kept in place by placing a sheet of cardboard over it. Usually, I ferment with just the fruit and perhaps a little water and allow the fermentation to continue for around 4 days. I stir the fruit night and morning to break up any fruit cap and help with the flavour extraction. In the case of the heavier dessert wines, I ferment the pulp for up to seven days. The fermenting liquid is then separated from the pulp by means of a large flour sieve or a standard nylon straining bag.
With white wines I try to keep the temperature between 15-20 Degrees Celsius to ensure I get good fruit/floral bouquet in the wine. Red wines do rather better at 20-25 Degrees Celsius, when the colour extraction is superior. However, I do not ferment in too hot a place, such as the airing cupboard or on top of the boiler, especially if you are making larger amounts of wine (e.g. 5 gallons). Remember that the fermentation produces quite a lot of heat and if the fermentation is very vigorous the heat may be sufficient to weaken the yeast and possibly bring the fermentation to a premature close. The boiler top will heat the bottom of the glass jar, where most of the yeast will be and give the yeast cells the unwanted ‘hot foot’.
The Finished Wine
When the fermentation is over the wine should be racked from any sediment as soon as possible and except in the case of dessert wines, there is much to be said for clearing the wine by fining.
Various fining agents are available, but I like two-part finings because they work quickly and rarely fail. If you prefer you can filter the wine, but take care, since rough treatment can give the wine a flat, tired taste; this will go in time and the wine settles down but is a little disconcerting at first. If you filter first, then first sterilise the equipment with a sulphite solution and then rinse through the pad with a dilute sulphite solution followed by water. I continue to wash the filter pad until the water that comes out of the filter tastes just the same as the water I poured into it. Before filtering the wine give it a modest sulphating, typically 5ml of the 10% solution to a gallon of wine. This prevents oxidation, the prime cause of the tired taste.
If you want a sweet wine then add the required of sugar or fruit concentrate or juice, sulphite the sweetened wine and also add the potassium sorbate. The wine will now be stabilised against refermentation and be safely filtered and bottled. If you prefer it you can simply sulphite the wine, filter it and then add the sweetening agent. This way makes the filtration rather quicker as the wine is less dense. If you use sorbate for stabilising you must also add sulphite; otherwise the wine is vulnerable to bacterial attack and the bacteria may attack the wine to give a distinct ‘geranium’ taste and smell.
I suggest bottling rather than leaving the wine in demi-johns, since it is less likely to spoil. I use descent true wine corks, soak them in a little warm water containing a little sulphite. After half an hour or so I pour off the liquid and wash the corks with water containing a little glycerine. The bottles should be stored on their sides in a cool place. Enthusiasts may mature their red wines in an oak cask if they make sufficient wine to fill it. I find that most lighter white wines can be drunk quite young, although 6 months storage will improve them a lot. The heavier wines and the reds need longer, at least a year and several years for really full-bodied wines.
Improvement Methods
There are various tricks of the trade that can be used to improve wines, either by removing unwanted colour and off-smells, or by adding suitable aromas and flavours. This relatively short booklet cannot deal with all the various methods of correcting faults but offers advice on how to improve sound wines that lack a little character.
Aroma Improvement For White Wines
The addition of a little elderflower extract will give the desirable floral note. The extract can be made by making some elderflower wine and bottling it in half bottles, this being enough for up to 5 gallons of wine. Alternatively you could soak freshly picked elderflowers in a suitable white wine, and again bottling the product in half bottles.
Of course we may not be able to make such ‘essence’, perhaps because the weather unsuitable for picking the flowers, or because of other commitments. These days, help is at hand because many supermarkets sell a juice that is a blend of apple and elderflower. This can be added to the must at the start of a fermentation or added to the finished wine.
‘Oakiness’ For Red Wines
Ideally we should get the oak flavour and aroma by storing the wine in an oak cask. Casks are very expensive and difficult to maintain in good condition, and in any case can only be used when at least 5 gallons of wine is available. A good compromise is to use oak chips or granules. The granules made from American oak gives the wine the desirable vanilla nose. The current granules are of French oak with a medium toast. If you especially want American oak you may be able to get a piece of American oak from a specialist timber merchant and make your own chippings. Use a surform tool or plain to obtain shavings of around 1mm thick. English oak make splendid ships but is rather aggressive on the palette. You can make shavings of a mature piece of English oak, soak them in hot water to remove the more phenolic compounds and then dry them in an oven. If you want toasted chips then put the chips under the grill for a short time; toast the chips but don’t burn them!
Adding A Smoothening Agent
Young wines can sometimes seem a little rough on the palette. The addition of sorbital to the extent of a level teaspoon to the gallon of wine will bring about a marked improvement. Sorbital is a sugar alcohol, which is not very sweet so it doesn’t alter the character of the wine at the level recommended. Most pharmacists can supply sorbital under the heading of diabetic sugar; it is not fermented by yeast.