1997 Carmine Batch #2
December 2007 – This year I went bonkers making wine, trying a bit of everything. I purchased 274 lbs of Carmine from a small vineyard west of Winston-Salem, and made it into 2 batches – using different yeasts for each batch.
Then I did a second run off the skins of each, so I had a bumper crop of carmine.
Ingredients
| Fruit | 91 lbs Carmine |
| Sulfite | 2 tsp |
| Yeast | Lalvin EC-1118 |
Method
| Crushed fruit, added sulfite. Divided pulp into 2 fermenters, 91 lbs into Batch #2 (this log) and 183 lbs into Batch #1.
Inoculated with Lalvin EC-1118. [used Wyeast 2028 for Batch #2] |
09/13/1997 SG 1.080 |
| Lightly pressed fruit getting 7 gallons wine. Added 1/4 tsp sulfite and 3-1/2 tsp pectic enzyme. | 09/20/1997 SG 1. 000 |
| Added 2-1/2 cups sugar.
Note: My notes state the SG was 1.080, which is not possible. I assume the figure was 1.008. |
09/21/1997 SG 1.008 |
| Racked. | 10/19/1997 SG 0.996 |
| Racked. | 02/21/1998 SG 0.995 |
| Bottled. | 06/16/1998 SG 0.995 |
Notes
| Yield | 31 bottles |
| Alcohol | 12.6% |
| Afterthoughts | Every last bottle of Batch #2 spoiled in the fall of 1998, some 4 months after bottling. The second run from Batch #2 didn’t spoil, so the problem appears to have been introduced some time after pressing. |
| I didn’t care for this carmine, possibly because the vines were very young (3-4 years). Oddly enough the second run batches tasted better than the first!
Before Batch #2 went south, I could not taste any significant difference between the two batches. |