2020 Sauvignon Blanc
October 2020
Along with grapes, we can order barrels of white juice — the catch is that it’s in 50 gallon barrels, so enough people have to be interested to buy the entire barrel.
This year, one guy backed out on his purchase, so Eric and I snapped up 7 gallon of Sauvignon Blanc. Yes, this was an impulse purchase! I have to purchase yeast tomorrow as I wasn’t planning for this.
September 2021
We finally got around to labeling the wines. Since this is a collaboration between my son and I, we went with 2 labels, one with his logo and one with mine. In the future, our solo wines will be labeled with our own logos, while collaboration batches will be split. In this case we have 30 bottles and the labels are 6/sheet, so I printed 3 sheets of Eric’s and 2 of mine.
Eric’s logo is the longsword wrapped in a grapevine, while mine is the grape warrior a friend made for me quite a few years ago.
Ingredients
| Grape | 7 gallons Lanza Sauvignon Blanc |
| Nutrient | 7 tsp Fermax + 3 tsp Fermax |
| Yeast | Lalvin QA23 |
| Fining Agent | 4 tsp bentonite |
| Acid | 1 tsp acid blend |
| Sulfite | potassium metabisulfite added at various points (see below) |
Method
| Juice is at 55 F, have to warm up to 65 F before inoculation. | 10/10/2020 SG 1.088 |
| Temperature rose to 72 F in the afternoon. Added 7 tsp Fermax and yeast. | 10/11/2020 SG 1.088 |
| Added 3 additional tsp Fermax.
Note: the fermenter is very full; when I added the Fermax and stirred, the wine foamed up and boiled over. I lost a few ounces of wine, which is more of an annoyance. I definitely plan to purchase at least one 10 gallon Brute for primary fermentation of small batches. |
10/14/2020 SG 1.058 |
| Racked and degassed. Mixed 4 tsp bentonite in 2 cups hot water and added to secondary fermenter.
The intention is to move this wine into a pair of 3 gallon carboys. However, for clearing, it makes sense to put in in a 25 liter demijohn. Once it’s cleared, I’m likely to move it to the carboys. |
10/18/2020 SG 0.998 |
| Racked, add 1/4 tsp K-meta, moved to 3 gallon carboys.
The SG dropped a lot more than I expected, so adding the bentonite was premature. However, the wine cleared nicely. |
10/24/2020 SG 0.992 |
| Racked, added 1/4 tsp K-meta per carboy. | 11/20/2020 SG 0.992 |
| Tasted wine, it’s flat tasting. Added 1/2 tsp tartaric acid per carboy | 01/25/2021 SG 0.992 |
| Racked, added heaping 1/4 tsp K-meta to entire batch, then bottled. | 07/04/2021 SG 0.992 |
Notes
| Yield | 31 bottles |
| Alcohol | 13.0% |
| 07/04/2021 | At bottling time, this wine is great! I’m very pleased with it and intend to purchase juice next fall along with my grape purchase. I don’t know how well it will age, but figure it’s good for at least 3 years, so purchasing 6 gallons so I’ll get a carboy sounds good at this time. |
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