2022 Chocolate/Raspberry Port
March 2022
Looking at my existing wine stock, I realized I’m down to about 15 bottles each of the Coffee Port and Black Forest Port. These are split bottles (375 ml).
Top that with the fact that I’ve been interested in a Raspberry port for a while, so I jumped on it.
Ingredients
| Kit | Global Vintners Chocolate/Raspberry Apres Kit |
| Bentonite | 10 g |
| Fermentation Oak | 20 g toasted granular oak |
| Yeast | 2 tsp Avante + 1/2 tsp Fermax + 1 tsp sugar |
| Sugar | 400 g chaptalization sugar |
| Sulfite & Sorbate | 7 g sulfite and 7 g sorbate |
| Fining Agent | 12.5 ml kieselsol and 150 ml chitosan |
| F-Pack | included |
| Glycerin | 3 oz |
| K-meta | as needed |
Method
| In a primary fermenter, dissolved the bentonite in hot water, then added the concentrate bag. Following that, rinsed it 3 times with about a cup of hot tap water each time. At the end, the bag had no visible solids remaining. Topped up to 3 gallons.
Created a yeast starter with 2 tsp Avante, 1/2 tsp Fermax, and 1 tsp sugar in 1 cup water. |
03/14/2022 SG 1.111 |
| Rechecked the SG, it rose a bit. This seems to be typical with musts, e.g., they don’t immediately mix as well as we think they do.
Added yeast starter. |
03/15/2022 SG 1.116 |
| There is no activity, so it appears the yeast starter failed. I had the yeast stored in the freezer, and suspect the jump between freezer temperature and room temperature was too much.
Created a new starter with 4 tsp Avante, 1/2 tsp Fermax, and 1/2 tsp sugar in 1 cup 93 F water. This one took off within 15 minutes, and I inoculated 8 hours later. |
03/17/2022 SG 1.116 |
| The SG dropped to 1.018, so I added the chaptalization sugar.
Created a starter with 1 packet EC-1118, 1/2 tsp Fermax, and 1/2 tsp sugar in 1 cup 96 F water. This one took off within 15 minutes. This will be added tomorrow morning. |
03/21/2022 SG 1.030 |
| Instructions state any SG under 1.010 is “done”, so the wine is ready for the next stage. I tasted it during racking, it’s dry.
Racked the wine and stirred for 1 minute, changing directions after 30 seconds. Add sorbate/K-meta pack and F-pack, rinsing the F-pack with 2 glasses of wine. Added kieselsol, then stirred for 30 seconds. Waited 2 minutes, added chitosan, and stirred for 30 seconds. |
03/27/2022 SG 0.998 SG 1.015 |
| Racked the wine, adding 1/4 tsp K-meta. I was short a bit in the 3 gallon carboy, and since I was drinking Rioja, topped with 4 oz.
Normally I’d not rack this quickly, but I had the wine in a 19 liter carboy while degassing and needed to get it out due to excessive headspace. My guess is 95% of the sediment has dropped, so what’s left is fine lees, which is OK to leave in. The SG dropped a bit, which indicates the stirring of the F-pack was not sufficient. |
03/31/2022 SG 1.012 |
| Racked, adding 1/4 tsp K-meta and 3 oz glycerin. SG stabilized at 1.014. Bottled in 30 split bottles. | 10/15/2022 SG 1.014 |
Notes
| Yield | 30 split (375 ml) bottles |
| Alcohol | 17.7 % |
| Residual Sugar | 4.2% |