Thaaat's right. Simple! (Hear that Miss Ash? You should talk your sweet boyfriend into doing the real deal! Come visit us next year and we will do it together!)
Several weeks ago, we placed an order for 75 lbs of syrah grapes from eastern Washington. We heard it wasn't a great growing season, but we are hopeful that our grapes will make a delicious wine. Sunday morning we drove up to our favorite homebrew store, Rocky Top Homebrew, in Olympia.
Here is your step by step breakdown of the experience so far:
Step one - Pick up the grapes at the truck.
Step two - Throw grapes in the crusher (the crusher sorts out the stems and gently mashes the grapes.)
Step three - Add sulfites to the grapes (sulfites are present in small amounts on the skins, but the added sulfites ensure a better fermentation and prevent oxidation and bacterial spoilage)
Step four - Take the crushed mess home. We purchased a 24 gallon bucket... for 9 gallons of crush. We could have done a 12 gallon bucket, but it would have been tight as the grapes fermented and expanded. Plus, we didn't want our grapes to spill all over the truck.
Step five - Take a gravity reading (1.090)
Step five - Add the yeast (after at least 24 hours have passed)
We think the garage smells like goats... Hmmmm.
Too bad it will be about a year before we can bottle this stuff... Hopefully we will end up with good wine. We will keep you posted on the progress... so far it is very labor UN-intensive!
I guess the argument over the real deal is that it takes much longer from start to drinking, though it probably is worth it when you taste it! I wonder if there is a major difference in starting from grapes for reds vs whites. Reds seem to have more body and complex flavors, so maybe it is more advantageous to start from scratch for them. But what do I know, I'm no where near knowledgeable about them! Looks really cool though! I'm excited for your year long wait to be over :)
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