Not under ripe… But some people would think red grapes picked at 12-13% alcohol is not ripe enough…
I’m making a small amount of wine on my own this year and wondered if anyone here has any thoughts about working ferments that are 100% with stems. I hear people speak a lot about the lignification of the stems and how they wont use whole clusters unless the fruit is super ripe etc…
I’ve worked for a lot of places that used whole cluster ferments, but it was usually with uber ripe fruit… Stuff from Santa Lucia Highlands, Russian River, Petaluma Gap.
Under and over ripe are loaded terms. I believe overripe is when your adding water (and usually nutrients) and acid to a lot. Ripe to me is not having to add acid or water. For Anderson Valley wines that can be accomplished with final alcohol’s 12.5-13.5% with ph 3.5-3.8.
I taste the stems to see if there are an abundance of bitter or green flavors. Stems can look green but if there is no sap running won’t contribute green flavors to the wine. Handle them as gently as possible by hand or rubber boot. I don’t use 100% stems as I have had va issues trying that with open top tanks. Whole clusters in bottom destemmed fruit overtop has worked well.
There was a pretty good discussion about this over in the Wine Talk section last week. Also, the stem discussion from the In Pursuit of Balance tasting is available to view on the IPOB website.
Thanks Joe Webb from Londer… I’m making a small amount of Oregon Pinot and/or a small amount of Tempranillo from a high elevation vineyard in the Yakima Valley, WA. I was very inspired by some of the wines made at the winery I worked at in the Douro Valley of Portugal. Tinta Roriz (Tempranillo) was the dominant grape in most blends and we used 100% stems in some lots. But these were 100+ year old vines being foot treaded in large open cement vats… We’ll see.
Sorry… was just thinking… Do you think the VA problems had to due with the the cap drying out or too much O2 up top?? I tried doing sandwiches (layers of whole clusters) of Pinot when I was in Tasmania and that seemed to work well.
I do think the VA issues were do to not enough juice to fill all the voids in the clusters. I have done layering, oreo, ferments that worked as well as whole clusters in the bottom and destemmed on the top. Though with 100% whole clusters there was not enough juice to keep the wine safe until the very end of the ferment. I have done some 100% whole cluster ferments in smaller closed tanks gassed with co2 and had success, just not with open tops which I prefer.
One thing to consider is that alcohol and heat are going to extract bitterness from the stems. With higher alcohol musts, you should have a shorter maceration period than with musts in the <13.5% range. If you are careful about over extraction and keep peak temps in the mid 80’s, you shouldn’t have to worry about extracting too much bitterness up until you get near 0 brix . You can also move to no punchdowns in the later stage of the fermentation to round out the wine if it gets grippy.