WINE PROGRESS AND GETTING YOUR VINES READY FOR THE BIG SLEEP

Just to keep you updated on the wine, it is plopping away quite happily behind me right now. It has been on the go, fermenting, for two weeks now and the plopping sound is slowing a little, which means that some of the sugar content of the grapes has now been converted to alcohol.

Judging by the speed of the plops, I reckon around six per minute, it should be good for another week or two without needing to add more sugar to build up the alcohol level.

One point you must consider here is that if you do not add the sugar so that the maximum alcohol level is achieved, then you have to add campden tablets (sodium metabisulphate – those dreaded chemicals) to sterilise your wine to stop it fermenting further whilst in the bottle, which can occur when the temperature is raised slightly.

With the maximum alcohol, the yeast is killed off, and the alcohol itself is a preservative, meaning it is safe to drink because of the lack of bacteria, provided of course you do not overdo it.

When I set this batch up, the supposed alcohol content, according to the specific gravity, would have been around six percent, but this amount does not preserve too much.

What I am aiming at is nearer the fourteen percent mark, and this is arrived at by letting the wine ferment itself out, then adding more sugar, (it doesn’t need to be mixed with some of the wine or any water, as some folk would have you believe, just tip it straight into the fermenting barrel), say a half pound at a time, and then waiting for the fermentation to virtually stop –perhaps a few more weeks – before doing the same again.

As the alcohol level builds up, then the gap between replenishments with the sugar gets longer.

If it is taking more than a few weeks, then it is advisable to reduce the quantity of sugar to four ounce lots.

Each time, before adding the sugar, check the SG of your must and make sure the hydrometer is sitting down to around the 1.000 mark, otherwise you may just be sweetening a stuck wine.

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This sticking of the must is caused, usually, by the temperature dropping too low, and can also be caused by it going too high, although this way you usually finish up with a dead yeast, which means no more fermentation.

The simplest way round this is to set up another starter from the must, using around a pint with fresh yeast, and unite the two once fermentation is well under way.

It was in this way that champagne and fizzy wine was first discovered (some folk call it sparkling wine, but to me it’s just plain fizzy).

The wine was fermented in barrels, and once they thought it was complete, as winter drew on, it was bottled, although the must was not fermented right out because of the cooling temperatures.

It would have been stored below ground at a cool stable temperature, that way not allowing the yeast suspended in the bottles to convert the sweetness into alcohol, and that way everything was stable.

Once the bottles were transferred to a warmer place, or even as Spring came along, the wine warmed a little and the yeast became activated, releasing lots of carbon dioxide, which was trapped in the bottle.

Once it was opened…. Whoosh…. Lo and behold… Fizzy pop was produced.



Just to keep you updated on the progress of the vines, basically they are shutting down for the winter now.

A few leaves are turning brown and growing crisper, and this is the time, either now or in the next few weeks that I introduce the compost as a top dressing, two inches deep around the stems of the vines.

You can use manure, but try to keep it low in nitrogen, otherwise you will have a headache next year with all the stem growth you will get.

I have stopped all watering around the greenhouse vines, and will only give them a few gallons over the winter, but only on fine and warm days, and early in the morning too, that way washing some of the nutrients down to the roots, but making the vine send its roots out, searching for water and food.

Outdoors the vines have had their fruit removed and have had the same treatment, as they are open to the weather. Each vine has a quilt around its stem for around a foot high, just for safety’s sake. It saves me having to jump-to when the frosts come.

I shall leave everything to grow at random now, and when the time comes, around the new year, I shall begin the pruning.

Till next week then,

George