The Big Chile

Having exhausted what I could learn from my “apprenticeship,” I was finally ready to start the winemaking process from scratch on my own.  In May 2010, I took advantage of the fact that our planet has both a Northern and Southern Hemisphere, and therefore two harvest seasons per year, and took delivery of 108 pounds of Malbec grapes from Chile.  Actually, I was supposed to take delivery of the grapes, and then use the crusher/de-stemmer at Harford to turn them into must, but they did me the “favor” of crushing the grapes for me right before I arrived to pick them up, so I didn’t actually get to crush them myself.  Nonetheless, I was pretty close to starting from scratch.  I came home with 11 ½  gallons of must, and over the course of the next few months went through the process of testing, adjusting, fermenting, pressing, oaking, and racking my juice until I ended up with what I have today, just under 7 gallons of very young Malbec wine currently aging in my basement. 

I plan to go through the entire process on my blog in more detail when this year’s crush comes in from California, so I’ll use this opportunity to give you a flavor for the stuff I’ve had to accumulate to stock my fully operational winery in the garage.  The largest expense is the basket press, although buying the stainless steal work surface and shelves to store everything was also a big ticket.  Other key toys include a refractometer, a PH meter, various sized glass carboys, large plastic buckets, hoses for racking, air locks, funnels and several kits for measuring various chemical elements within the wine.  Those are just the fixed costs.  Each time you make wine you also need to be armed with cultured yeast, sulfer, tartaric acid, malolactic bacteria, yeast nutrients, oak chips, fining agents and several other chemicals, some or all of which you will need to use and replenish on a regular basis.  I figure all in I’ve invested over $1,000 to be ready for my first production, and that doesn’t count the most expensive piece of equipment – a crusher/destemmer, which runs over $1,000 on its own.  For now I’m resolved to rent the crusher they have at Harford for $20 each time, and hope that someday they’ll actually let me use it myself.