1988 Ravat 51 Batch #1
December 2007 – Around this time Ravat 51 was renamed to Vignoles, but everyone I knew continued to call it Ravat 51
I did 2 batches of Ravat this year — this one with Red Star Epernay II, and the second with Lalvin KV-1116.
Ingredients:
| fruit | 6 gallons Ravat 51 juice, 26.0 brix, 1.1 acid, 60ppm sulfite |
| grape tannin | 1/4 tsp |
| pectic enzyme | 3 tsp |
| yeast energizer | 1 tsp |
| yeast nutrient | 6 tsp |
| yeast | Red Star Epernay II |
Method:
| Started | 10/04/1988 SG 1.107 |
| Racked, 1/4 tsp K-sulfite added | 10/15/1988 SG 1.004 |
| Racked, 1/4 tsp K-sulfite, 1/2 tsp ascorbic acid, 1 tsp citric acid added | 01/28/1989 SG 1.002 |
| Filtered, #1 filter pad | 03/27/1989 — |
| Filtered, #2 filter pad; Bottled | 04/09/1989 — |
Notes:
| Yield | 27 bottles |
| Alcohol | possibly 14.3%, based upon the known SG, but could be as high as 15.1% |
| Residual Sugar | 1% |
| Afterthoughts | I recall adding reserved Ravat juice to sweeten the wine, but my records don’t indicate it other than to state the residual sugar. Sometimes my record keeping was right on … other times there were gaps. Also, at times I wrote notes on a piece of paper initially (to avoid getting the book messed up) and lost the paper before transcribing the notes. |
| October 2018 | In June of this year, I visited the Finger Lakes for the first time in decades, winery hopping with my niece and her husband. At Poplar Ridge I spoke with the original owner’s daughter, who now owns it. She mentioned that only certain wineries – I believe it’s wineries in operation before the official name of Ravat 51 was changed to Vignoles, could use the original name. Which she does. |
| November 2021 | While reviewing old records I realized this juice was not the same as Batch #2, which was started a month later and had a much lower Brix. Now I’m wondering where I got them from — this one was probably Mitchell’s, so the other was either Dave Bagley (Poplar Ridge) or Fulkersons. This information is lost to time, so I won’t dwell on it. |