Water Log

My Russian River Pinot Noir grapes just arrived from California and were available for pick-up at Harford Vineyard yesterday.  I had a meeting to go to in DC that morning, however, and since Harford is an hour north of my house, that meant a total of 5 hours in the car.  It sure will be easier when I have my own vineyard.  Ok, maybe easier isn’t the right word.  How about more convenient.

  

Once again I was using the Harford crusher/de-stemmer to crush my grapes, only this time Roxanne gave me a hard time about combing through my 144 pounds one bunch at a time to pick out the bad grapes.  “If you take an hour do this again I’m going to have to charge you double.”  Then she started ridiculing me for removing all the dried-up raisins from my bunches.  “You’re crazy to take those raisins out, there’s good sugar in there.”  Finally she started hovering over me and telling me to hurry up, so in a panic I just ended up dumping the entire 4 lugs in. 

Well, when I returned home I confirmed that I know more about winemaking than Roxanne, as I found this kernel of knowledge in Jon Iverson’s book:  “If a cluster is raisined and hard, discard it and proceed using only fruit that is of sound quality.”  Seems kind of obvious.  Being smarter than Roxanne gave me little solace, however, since I immediately learned that my must now had too much sugar.  At 27 brix, the must would ferment to an alcohol content greater than 15%, excessive even for the least discerning of palates. 

Brix – A measure of sugar content in grape must.  The presence of raisins in your must will effect its reading.

So how does one reduce the sugar content of their newly crushed grapes?  By adding water.  Pouring water into your beautiful Pinot Noir must feels a little bit like getting punched in the gut.  The books say that if you have high sugar then that’s just what you do and there’s nothing to be ashamed of, but that rings like the kind of thing you might say to the one kid in your high school who couldn’t get a date to the prom.  It’s nothing to be ashamed of, but you’re glad it’s not you.  Nonetheless, it was me, and sense there was math involved in the project, I focused on at least doing that part right.

I've never seen a must with 27 brix before.  I’m pretty sure I could have avoided it if I had stood up to Roxanne and made sure to pick out every raisin one at a time.  On the other hand, I’m sure when those grapes were picked sometime last week they weren’t shriveled.  Funny how a trip across country in a refrigerated truck could effect their quality.  Did I mention I want my own vineyard?