Here's the tale of last year's Chambourcin making. After a search on the
internet to find a local source of wine grapes, I got my order in late to
Vigna Del Monte Vinyard in Easton Pennsylvania (www.jacksgrapes.com).
Harvest occurred on a Thursday, I believe, and I asked Jack if he could keep
my grapes cool until Saturday when I could pick them up. My significant
other, myself, and our next door neighbors (coming along for the ride)
loaded up in our Subaru Outback and headed off early on Saturday morning.
The trip from the Philadelphia suburbs to Vigna Del Monte on the banks of
what I belive was the Delaware river was beautiful. Even the rest area off
the interstate held a surprise ... a local farmer's market, where we
purchased 3 gallons of apple cider (yes, that became apple wine), and 15 lbs
of local honey (and if you're guessing that found it's way into some mead
and melomel, you're right again).

Jack lives in a big, wonderful white house with a long driveway and his
vinyard surrounding it. He's the kind of guy that radiates good-natured
affability from the minute you speak to him. We loaded up the Subaru with
75 lbs of the Chambourcin grapes, which we carefully packed into plastic
trash bags set into cardboard boxes. I'd also purchased 5 gallons of
DeChanauc juice and frozen skins ... and being clueless about how that would
arrive, did not have an appropriate container (luckily I was able to obtain
one from Jack). But, the DeChanauc is a separate story.

The drive back home was a little more rushed. I'd prepared my equipment ...
a plastic milk container sterilized to use as my destemmer, and my plastic
primary fermenters pre-washed and sterilized. After unloading the grapes
and hastily consumng a cup of coffee, I destemmed the grapes by rubbing them
against the bottom of the milk container. This was uncomfortable mostly
because the grapes were quite cold still after being kept refrigerated for
me, and my hands kept going numb! I dashed over to the sink periodically to
revive them with some warm water.

After totally destemming the grapes, I crushed them by hand in the primary
fermenter, which resulted in even number hands. I had more grapes than
would fit into one fermenter, so I divided into two batches. Having read
about cold-soaking, and hoping to extract color and fruitiness to offset a
planned malo-lactic fermentation later (which can reduce frutiness, or so
I'd read), I then floated sterilized plasted soda containers that I'd filled
with water and previously frozen into the must. For 3 days, I swapped these
out, and kept an eye on the temperature of the must. This started out at 45
degress F, and at the end of 3 days when I was ready to pitch the yeast, had
risen to 64 deg F.

Before starting the cold soak, though, I did some adjustments ... I measured
the two batches separately, and one came out to 20.5 Brix and the other to
19. Batch B seemed to be composed of siginificantly less ripe grapes than
Batch A. I contemplated working with the batches separately, but in the end
I combined the two, mostly because the acid levels of both were about the
same : a quite high 1.2% TA. Higher than I 'd hoped for. To the batches,
I added a total of 1lbs 13ozs of sugar, brining the Brix up to between 23
and 24. In retrospect, I think less sugar would have been called for. I
also gave each batch a 1/8 tsp of potassium metabisulfite.

So, on wednesday morning I pitched the Red Star Pasteur yeast that I had
first hydrated, added 3 tsps of yeast nutrient to each batch, and set the
primary fermenters over heating pads to raise the temperature, which by that
evening had risen to 70 degs F. At this point I added an Oenos Malolactic
culture and "ACTI-ML Malolactic Nutrient." The malo-lactic fermentation is
supposed to like higher temperatures and grape skins, and this seemed a good
time to take advantage of both. Plus I alread had one obstacle to a good
malo-lactic fermentation: a quite high total acid (TA) level. The
malolactic fermentation was an attempt to reduce the acid level, but the
irony of it all is that a too high acid level discourages the malolactic
fermentation itself.

By evening the next day, the temperature was at 80 degs F! I removed the
heating pads. By saturday morning, Batch A was a 2 Brix, and Batch B was at
0 Brix -- wow, a very fast ferment. I strained both batches through nylon,
just squeezing lightly with my hands, and filled a 6 gallon glass carboy
plus an extra 1 gallon. Over the next few weeks, and I started to taste
some of the "buttery" taste and finally see the "littlier" bubbles that
convinced me that the malolactic bacteria were trying to do their jobs.

About 20 days later, there's no signs of fermentation (of either variety),
and the Brix is reading well below 0. I racked both the 6 gallon and 1
gallon carboys, and added 1 1/2 ozs of untoasted american oak chips to the 6
gallon batch. About 3 weeks later, I was tasting the oak, so I racked
again, topping off the 6 gallon carboy from the 1 gallon, and then topping
off the 1 gallon with distilled water. I added 1/8 tsp more of meta while
racking, and also 1 1/4 tsp of Bitartrate (just cream of tarter from the
spice rack) in hopes that a last attempt at lowering the TA through cold
stabilization would help out. You see, the wine was still quite acidic
(about 1% TA after the malolactic fermentation) to my taste, and I hoped for
a bit more reduction by seeding the wine with Bitartrate crystals which, at
low temperatures, would encourage some more of the tartaric acid to
crystallize and drop out of solution to form on the bottom of the carboy.

It's now well in to an unusually cold December in Philadephia's suburbs, and
the night-time lows are around 32 deg F, so I lug the 6 gallon carboy up the
basement stairs after replacing the airlock with a solid rubber stopper
covered over with saran wrap and fixed in place with a rubber band. After
a good 2 weeks of weather in the right temperature range, and after seeing
an encouraging deposit of crystals form on the bottom of the carboy, I
lugged it back inside to the basement. TA is still quite high ... about
0.95% now, which really is an okay reduction for cold stabilization.

At this point, I give up on any further acid reduction ... I've never
reduced acid chemically before, and I didn't want to start with this batch.
So, I went ahead with fining, using a 2-stage Kiesel/Chitsan fining, which
comes in little separated plastic packs. You add one to the wine, stir,
and then a bit later add the other. This type of fining is supposed to
leave a nicely compact deposit, which it indeed does, I guess the chemistry
having to do with one fining ingredient being positively charged in solution
and the other negatively charged, with the laws of attraction doing the
rest. The 1 gallon topping off batch is getting pretty dilute, and after
the final racking a couple of weeks after adding the fining ingredients, I
discarded what was left in the 1 gallon.

About a month later, the vinometer reads 11% alcohol (but vinometers are
notoriously inaccurate), the TA is still at 0.95%, and a Titret reading
shows 70 ppm of sulfite, which is probably falsely low (Titrets read low for
red wine) by up to 30 ppm. I added a packet of "Crosby & Baker Ltd.
Super-Smoother" which is again 2 clear plastic packets, one with glycerin
and another with sinatin 17 oak extract (I'd decided the oak as a little
light, and the glycerin an attempt to balance the acid out a bit more). I
then bottled, giving 26 bottles of wine. I have an Italian floor corker,
and I want to sing it's praises over trying to cork with some hand-held
plastic device -- so much faster, no broken or spilled bottles, and no corks
inserted too high or too low.

Now, it's 8 months later ... there's some nice bottle bouquet to the wine,
and the malolactic fementation while it may have reduced the fruitiness,
left a lot. I do think the wine could have used a bit more tannin, and I
wish I had pressed part of the grapes (I have a small, table-top wine
press). I did that for the 2nd run I did on the skins from the Chambourcin,
from which I made a rather nice sweet (1 Brix) wine with a right-on acid
level, where the tannin added nicely to the flavor.

The main (1st run) wine is still quite acidic for me... certainly drinkable
and enjoyable, but distracting. If I were to do it all again, I might try
to reduce the acid chemically. I was reluctant to sweeten the wine more, as
additions of potassium sorbate to retard refermentation in the bottle is a
necessity for sweetening substancially with sugar, but unfortunately a
malolactic fermenation and potassium sorbate don't mix well, producing (or,
so I have read) a distinct flavor of geraniums in the wine. I suppose
another alternative is to skip a malolactic fermentation, and aim for a
sweet wine, but I don't enjoy that style of wine so much ... in fact, I
prefer the acidic but drier wine I've in fact managed to produce.

So, that's the story of the Chambourcin. If any part of it helps you out,
fantastic. If I've led you astray, I appologize in advance.