1997 Carmine Batch #1

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  183 lbs Carmine
Sulfite 2 tsp
Yeast Wyeast 2028

Method

Crushed all 274 lbs of grapes, added sulfite. Divided pulp into 2 fermenters, 183 lbs into Batch #1 (this log) and 91 lbs into Batch #2.

Inoculated with Wyeast 2028. [used Lalvin EC-1118 for Batch #2]

09/13/1997
SG 1.080
Lightly pressed fruit getting 13 gallons wine.

Added 3/4 tsp sulfite and 6-1/2 tsp pectic enzyme.

09/20/1997
SG 1.004
Added 6 cups sugar. 09/21/1997
SG 1.010
Racked. 10/19/1997
SG 0.996
Racked. 02/21/1998
SG 0.995
Bottled. 06/16/1998
SG 0.995

Notes

Yield 56 bottles
Alcohol 12.4%
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!