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.