I'm going to start this year too, any luck with finding grapes at flemington Markets?
Yes - i ended up purchasing two lots over two separate weekends.
Give them a call to see if the season is still going as from memory it ends very shortly.
The first batch i purchased was 12 boxes of Mataro (mourvedre). Got it home crushed and hand destemmed and then checked the must only to find that the must came in at 17 Brix - ie the grapes were not ripe. So i had to add sugar and probably pressed as early as possible so that the un-ripe seeds etc would not affect the wine too much. I ended up with a starting gravity of 1085 SG and with champagne yeast it fermented to 990 SG. There was mould present on some of the bunches so i aimed for about 70ppm SO2 when fermenting - a month or so later i tested the wine and it is around 20ppm so i am going to add SO2 shortly.
With 12 boxes (i think they say expect about 20kg a box but they didnt feel that heavy) I had a must of 150L and that pressed to over 100L which i am storing in old stainless steel kegs.
Unfortunately one of kegs is really suffering form sulfide smell - I think i kept the first pressing on the lees too long. ANyway I have been trying to rid the smell by splash racking and stirring with a copper pipe. Trying to avoid adding copper sulphate but i may be too late. Otherwise the first keg of wine is travelling well - it will be a light red - probably a good summer bbq red.
The second batch of grapes i purchased was cab sav - this time i took my refractometer out to the markets as i didnt want underripe grapes. I purchased 10 boxes and the must was 120L. The cab sav came in at 22 brix which is pretty spot on. The starting gravity was 1093 SG and again i used champagne yeast to ferment to 994 SG. I kept the must on the skins for 7 days before pressing using a soda stream to purge CO2 onto the must for the last few days. The grapes again had some mould on them - from Sth Aust and apparently a wet vintage.
Pressing came out with about 80L of wine. After first racking (after a week) I have about 68L or so and at the moment it is looking pretty good if i may say so myself - obviously needs time but tastes OK.
I have added MLF to both wines - probably should have done it during primary but anyway probably better late than never - although it is cold now under the house so MLF might not happen until spring. We shall see.
So my tips - take a refractometer to buy the grapes - you can get them pretty cheap on ebay from Hong Kong.
Now i just need to find a better source i think - not sure how i can do that - probably cold calling vineyards and asking if i could follow a mechanical harvester or something is probably the best bet althought convincing the family may be more problematic and for this reason the markets are a pretty good and convenient place to purchase from.
