Show Us Your Wine

[T.D.]

Geez the wine and the folks at Pepper Tree were professional and awesome. What a great afternoon! And I actually bought stuff ... which I seldom do ...

Yeah I agree. Pepper Tree is one of the standouts of the hunter these days.

 

[kirem]

Yeah I agree. Pepper Tree is one of the standouts of the hunter these days.

any affiliations?

 

[KoNG]

Pepper Tree is great agreed...

I got married here at this winery just up the road... Tallavera Grove: http://www.tallaveragrove.com.au/
it was awesome, got married and had the reception there.

Dooo Itttt

 

[T.D.]

any affiliations?

:lol: maybe a teeny weeny one...

 

[warrenlw63]

Geez T.D. next thing you'll be telling us you're a forum sponsor.... Noooooo!

Warren -

 

[Gerard_M]

Geez the wine and the folks at Pepper Tree were professional and awesome. What a great afternoon! And I actually bought stuff ... which I seldom do ...
Scotty

Pepper Tree just gets better & better each year. Without a doubt "the benchmark" of NSW wineries. I was fortunate enough to have a serious sample at the Hyde Park wine festival a couple of weeks ago. Could be time for a Bulk Buy!
Cheers
Gerard

 

[drsmurto]

Pressing day today. Took us ~6 hours but no bucketing of wine into fermenters this year - Boston brought around his trusty march pump and HLT! We used a different press this year - this one had 2 gears so made life much simpler and we were able to press hard and extract some lovely tannins. Filled the press up 3 times - compost pile is huge.

Ended up with 860L (the big fermenters in the pic are 200L each).

Translates to ~95 cases (assuming no losses during bottling) B)

Tasted quite nice, one bin showed more oak character than the other but they will be blended up prior to bottling. Still to flick over to malolactic fermentation but despite that i could happily drink a bottle or 2 as it is.

 

[pokolbinguy]

DrSmurto I am very very very jealous of you and your setup + shed.

How much did you pay for the press? and how much does it fit?

Pok

 

[hoppinmad]

2010 Geelong Cabernet Sauvignon

Brix: 23.5
pH: 3.8
TA: 4.28
YAN: 337

Picked at flavour ripeness

2g/L Tartaric Acid addition

Currently fermenting at 19C... with any luck we'll get some warm weather to improve extraction!

Pumping over once daily
Plunging cap twice daily

To be macerated post ferment.

Looking like it will be a cracker!

 

[pokolbinguy]

Nice little setup by the looks there HoppinMad....really got to get myself my own winery when I head back to the Hunter after my wine making degree

 

[hoppinmad]

Nice little setup by the looks there HoppinMad....really got to get myself my own winery when I head back to the Hunter after my wine making degree

you don't need your own winery... you'll find your wine industry mates will do everything they can to help you make your first wine... eventually you'll have enough of your own stuff not to need their help! This is the first year I am flying completely solo. Apart from a friend who does lab analyses, I am able to do it all myself this year.

 

[pokolbinguy]

you don't need your own winery... you'll find your wine industry mates will do everything they can to help you make your first wine... eventually you'll have enough of your own stuff not to need their help! This is the first year I am flying completely solo. Apart from a friend who does lab analyses, I am able to do it all myself this year.

True...but I like the idea of having my own "back yard shed operation"

 

[drsmurto]

DrSmurto I am very very very jealous of you and your setup + shed.

How much did you pay for the press? and how much does it fit?

Pok

$0. One of the Barossa AMB brethren hooked me up. Its been cleaned and sulphured ready to return.

We estimate that in the 3 runs through the press we had ~1.2 tonne.

You'll have to drag your carcass along to an AMB meet for a sample.

Hoppin - looks good mate. Whilst i would love to have my own vineyard (hopyard, orchard etc) its so much easier when the grapes arrive at my doorstep on the back of a trailer! Agree - plenty of brewers around who are connected with the wine industry here, never short of a helping hand.

 

[fraser_john]

Looks excellent Hoppin, shame I could not be there for harvest, bummed about that

Good to see the stainless seive is working well too!

 

[hoppinmad]

Looks excellent Hoppin, shame I could not be there for harvest, bummed about that

Good to see the stainless seive is working well too!

Was a long day! started at 8.30am finished at 4pm. Vines were very low cropping so took ages to fill our bins.

Stainless seive works great. Mick the welder in drysdale did the job for $2! So in total the whole thing only cost me $22.

 

[manticle]

Quick question- The main time to avoid oxidation is post ferment? Splashing juice/must around before that doesn't matter?

Just got Fraser John's old grape crusher and thought I might miss this year's harvest but get set up for next season. Mainly hoping to do Reds. However, a work colleague lives locally and had a fair few grapes growing on a vine in the backyard. They are green, not red, very juicy but he reckons crap for eating so they'll form the basis of an experimental batch just to get an undertsanding of process. I'm not expecting much but I want to at least get a result that teaches me for next time and I'm avoiding sulphites so I need to be extra careful with oxidation.

Probably got 15 kg with at least that still left on the vine so maybe get half a case from it. Only wanting to start small and build from there.

Cheers

 

[Muggus]

Quick question- The main time to avoid oxidation is post ferment? Splashing juice/must around before that doesn't matter?

Just got Fraser John's old grape crusher and thought I might miss this year's harvest but get set up for next season. Mainly hoping to do Reds. However, a work colleague lives locally and had a fair few grapes growing on a vine in the backyard. They are green, not red, very juicy but he reckons crap for eating so they'll form the basis of an experimental batch just to get an undertsanding of process. I'm not expecting much but I want to at least get a result that teaches me for next time and I'm avoiding sulphites so I need to be extra careful with oxidation.

Probably got 15 kg with at least that still left on the vine so maybe get half a case from it. Only wanting to start small and build from there.

Cheers

Two chemicals come to mind...
SO2 and CO2

 

[hoppinmad]

The main time to avoid oxidation is post ferment? Splashing juice/must around before that doesn't matter?

I would only splash around fermenting wine, as it will be saturated with CO2 and will continue producing CO2. White wine juice and finished wine should handled more carefully with minimal exposure to oxygen.

Also, in regards to sulfites, I think you will be making life pretty hard for yourself if you avoid using them. It takes a fair bit of skill to make a good quality "low sulfite" wine. Try to make it with sulfite first, then when you become experienced you could experiment with using less.

 

[manticle]

Cheers for the responses.

This batch of grapes is purely experimental - I don't even know what they are so I'm just seeing this as practice of process for next season. I have no expectation of making anything drinkable but getting my head around the basics will be the aim. Then with a bit more of an idea I can make the wine I really want to make next harvest (which will be a different colour to this one).

 

[Airgead]

Pressing day today. Took us ~6 hours but no bucketing of wine into fermenters this year - Boston brought around his trusty march pump and HLT! We used a different press this year - this one had 2 gears so made life much simpler and we were able to press hard and extract some lovely tannins. Filled the press up 3 times - compost pile is huge.

:icon_offtopic:

I am working out a deal with an orchard for next years cider. I may be picking up a couple of hundred kg of fruit. I suspect my little bench juicer won't survive. How do you guys reckon a wine press like that would handle pressing apple pulp? I'm thinking of mashing the fruit to a pulp and putting it in the press inside a muslin bag to stop the pulp escaping. Do you think the press would be up to it? Apples have more solids than grapes so its likely to be harder going...

Cheers
Dave