Wine making time What You Cooked Last Night Discuss Wine making time in the Brick Oven Cooking forums; Well we stared at 9 am and finished by 2pm today. 18 cases of grapes made 53 gallons of wine ...

[Chef]

Well we stared at 9 am and finished by 2pm today. 18 cases of grapes made 53 gallons of wine and a ton of compost for the garden. We did taste and and if the rest of the process goes well we will have some great wine to enjoy in the new year!

Enjoy the photos...now i have to fire up "the beast" as we sometimes call her my daughter wants to have a pizza party with her college friends.

[sarah h]

That looks like so much fun and as for the end result ... what's better than red wine?! Good luck with the next phases of the process - hope it turns out great!

[Chef]

Well I'm happy to report that the wine has been bottled and it came out great and we did not make vinegar!! 5 people participated and we bottled 53 gallons and it took us about 2 hours each person had his or her job. Chef Phil and I got a jump on things this morning and made a 5 gallon batch of Root Beer then started to sterilize bottles and corks before the rest of the crew arrived.

Each person was assigned a task (sterilizing the rest of the bottles, corking, labeling and 2 people siphoning)and it went very smoothly and time seemed to pass rather quickly. I’m wondering if it was the wine, cheese and good conversation that made it go so fast!!!

Since we used no other ingredients other than the juice of the grape this wine will need to be consumed within the year…..looks like we are going to be spending lots of time at home in front of the WFO entertaining, can’t wait for spring!!!

[mfiore]

Originally Posted by Chef

Since we used no other ingredients other than the juice of the grape this wine will need to be consumed within the year…..

Cab and Zin should both have quite a bit of tannin. I would think this wine should be fine if left in bottle for a few years. You'll likely have a boat load of harmless sediment, though.

Looks like fun. Enjoy!!!

[Chef]

Mike:

We racked the wine a few times so the sediment should not be too bad. In fact there was VERY little on the bottom of the carboys and Demi we used (some had none!). As far as keeping it around for more than one year; we may try a few bottles but with no preservatives I'm thinking its a risk. Heck we will most likey drink it all before the year is out!!!

Malinda

[Tim F]

If you have got this far without the sulphites, and it's still good in the bottle for a year, I'd be surprised if you couldn't leave it for longer!