In this episode our wine goes from maceration to innoculation, and useless icky fruit rapidly becomes delicious, useful wine!

 

After two days in a cool spot (the Executive Washroom in my offices--bless the previous occupants of this space--a 250 square foot restroom complete with shower stall is a joy for the workplace winemaker) the fruit was as macerated as it was going to get.

 

The sugar had drawn the moisture out of the rhubarb and other fruits, the smell was fantastic and it was time to get the whole shebang going. The first step in my plan of attack was to add a white wine kit to the fruit mass, to serve as a base for all the rest of the flavours. 

It might seem superfluous to add a wine kit to a fruit base, but I love making fruit wines this way. First, the kits are heavily buffered for pH, and even very high or low pH fruits don't budge them. Second, wine kits can add a significant amount of body, and a lot of character to fruit wines. I like my social wines (i.e., wines to be drunk casually, in social situations as opposed to table wines meant to be had with a meal) lower in alcohol, and just off-dry as opposed to sweet, it can be difficult to get enough body in them. I've always surmised that seeking body is one of the reasons a lot of fruit winemakers choose to make very high alcohol, very sweet recipes. 

 

  I chose a medium-sized kit, 10 litres of juice and concentrate, an Australian Murray River Reserve. It's a blend of Muscat, Semillon, Sauvignon Blanc and a bit of this and that. The muscat really drives a grapey-grape fruit character, and it naturally shows a rich fruitiness when aged out properly, which I hope will enhance the final wine.

  It never rains but I pours . . .

 

  After the juice and concentrate blend were poured in, I added around 7-1/2 gallons of water. Since I live in a rainforest, and we have some of the best water in the whole world, I added it straight from the tap. Also, because the must aready contained a wee bit of free sulphite (from the addition I made with the sugar and pectic enzyme) I didn't worry about any chlorine or chloramines--they would instantly be converted to potassium chloride when they came into contact with one another. I also added 10 grams of yeast nutrient. It probably wasn't fully necessary, the organically grown fruit having plenty of trace elements and nitrogen, as well as the kit being fully balanced for YAN (Yeast Available Nitrogen) but it couldn't hurt and might help.

After a darn good stir, a tiny taste (yummy!) and a specific gravity check (1.082--bingo!) I pitched two packages of yeast, put the lid on and tucked it away to begin fermentation.

Time will tell, but I've got a really good feeling about this batch . . .