In Vino Falsus: 2020 Zinfandel Second Wine and the 2017 Sweet Merlot

My 2017 Merlot was finish two ways, most was finished dry and its great, but some was finished sweet. That's because my DW tasted the fermenting wine while it was sweet and liked it. I took ten liters out and finished it sweet by adding sorbet. Guess what? When the wine was done, she didn't like it anymore. I don't blame her, because this slightly sweet red was too robust to be a desert wine. 

I was unable to restart the fermentation, so I made little wine from frozen white grape & concord grape juice, and while it was vigorously fermenting, I added it to the 2017 Sweet Merlot, but it didn't restart. 

Last year with my 2019 Merlot, I added 2-3 quarts of rapidly fermenting must to the Sweet Merlot. No success. 

A problem with working so hard to recover problem wines is that each time you blend it, there is now more of it. I started with 10L of Sweet Merlot, and now have 15L of blended sweet wine that no one wants. 

Now, I am taking the pressed grapes from my 2020 Zinfandel, and making a second wine -- also called a false wine. (And not the same as what the French in Bordeaux call a second wine.) A second wine is made from sugar water and the already-fermented pressed grapes from a regular batch of wine. The pressed grapes flavor the water, and while no expects it to be as good as the first wine, and can be good enough. In fact, I recall the weaker, lighter second wine as being better than some of my grandfather & father's first wines. (Which says something about how robust and oaky those wines were.)

In this case, I am going to use my problematic 2017 Sweet Merlot to buttress the flavor. If this works, I'll have 30L of good wine instead of 15L of undrinkable wine. 

2020 Zinfandel Second (False) Wine and Blend with 2017 Sweet Merlot

16 L             Water

Pressed grapes from 110 pounds of fermented Zinfandel grapes 

15 L             2017 Sweet Merlot (modified as described above)

10 lb            Sugar

4t (17g)        Yeast energizer

4t (15g)        Pectic enzyme         

This fermented pretty well for a month, but did not go to dryness. I decided it was too acidic, and corrected it with calcium carbonate (and some Acid-X). Then I restarted the fermentation with Champagne yeast. 

After another month one container was good, and the other container was still sweet. I blended the two containers, and am hoping for the best. 

Sept 2021 Update: This worked better than I could have hoped. The wine eventually did ferment to dryness. 

The new wine blend is plenty good, and nothing to be embarrassed about. 

 

Yeast Strains

We know that yeast selection is important to avoid a wine-making disaster. 

Yes, it is possible to use a  wild strain to make a good wine. But what about the opposite, when you have already made a bad wine what can you do beside whine, nothing. You should have used a better yeast. 

Here is a good wine yeast selection chart.  Don't forget my old Lalvin post.

Formerly there was also Red Star Yeast, which was purchased by Lasaffre, and whose wine products are now sold by the Fermentis (fermetis.com) division. Red Star in the USA is a joint venture of Lasaffre and ADM. It seems to be 100% commercial and not for hobbies. 

2020 Symphony Wine

I called down to my grape vendor, Caputo's, for Muscato grapes, but when I got there they were sold out. I purchased Symphony grapes because that was the only white grape in stock. (Aside from Chardonnay, which am not interested in.) 

While I had never heard of Symphony, I learned it was developed in 1948 at UC-Davis by a famous viticulture professor, Harold Olmo, a cross between Muscat of Alexandra and Grenache Gris. Muscat of Alexandra is different from Muscat Blanc a Petits Grains, which is the usual Muscat. Both Muscats are among the most ancient grape varieties. Muscat of Alexandra was originally grown in Alexandra, Egypt. 

I paid for the grapes, and got them in the car, and finally tasted them. They had a good grapey flavor, and tasted sweet at the time. Later I learned I still need to add some sugar. The juice was 1.098 g/ml and 22.8 Brix which should make 12% alcohol. I targeted 13% alcohol and added about 1 pound of sugar. The juice was fermenting nicely the next morning.

I had a hard time pressing them because the soft grapes kept extruding themselves out of the grape presser, and it took a long time to get the juice to drip out. I expect I got 17 L from the two cases. 

2020 Symphony Wine Recipe

72 lb Symphony grapes (DePalma)

2 teaspoons yeast energizer

2 teaspoons pectic enzyme

17 ounces of sugar

1 packet Lalvin 71B

Update: 8/27/2022

I backsweetened this wine with 2.5% dextrose. This made the tartness milder and a little smoother. I tested a variety of sweetener levels, and 2.5% was the best. 

2020 Zinfandel Wine

This year I drove down to Caputo's in Carol Spring, Illinois for grapes. This is 95 minute drive for me. It was a clean professional operation with pretty good prices.  Being a professional, Covid-19 compliant operation, I could not taste the grapes before buying them. 

The Zinfandel grapes had a good strong flavor, and were sweet but not exceptionally sweet. The refractive index measured 25.2 degrees Brix, which gives 13.2% alcohol, and the density was 1.108 which predicts 13.4% alcohol. Target is 13.5% alcohol, so I added one pound of sugar, which is estimated to be 2.3% of the total sugar in the batch. 

I noticed that the free run juice from the crusher was less sweet than the juice after stirring the must. I expect the sweetest juice was trapped inside the grapes. My new crusher may not crush the grapes as completely as my old crusher. On the other hand, it is about twice as fast. 

2020 Zinfandel Wine Recipe

180 lb Zinfandel (DePalma)

7 g    pectic enzyme

5 teaspoons yeast energizer

1 pound of sugar

1 packet Lalvin RC212

1 packet of Red Star Premier Rouge, because fermentation was not noticeable at 18 hours

After another night the fermentation was vigorous. 

2020 Petite Pearl Wine

Marshall Vineyard in Oregon Wisconsin. Its in between Madison and my home base of Janesville Wisconsin. 

I found grapes at a local vineyard called Marshall Vineyard, which is in Oregon, Wisconsin. Sadly, they were sold out of white grapes. 

I am skeptical of northern-grown red grapes, but after a little reading online, I decided to try Petite Pearl grapes. It is another U of Minnesota variety. 

I ventured out in to the vineyard, and after a lot of walking, I found some vines that had not already been harvested, and hauled out 3 five gallon pails of grapes which weighed 56 pounds. They charged me $84 which seems steep, but on the other hand, they were rapidly selling out. 

I suppose there is some romance in picking local grapes and making wine from them -- maybe I have to pay extra for that. 

Petite Pearl grape vine

2020 Petite Pearl Wine Recipe

56 pounds Petite Pearl Grapes

4 pounds sugar

3 g pectic enzyme  

2 teaspoons yeast nutrient

Lalvin EC-1118 yeast, 1 packet

The juice had a sugar content of 19.4% which provides an alcohol content of 10%. I am shooting for 13% alcohol, and so  I added 3.5 pounds of sugar. I dissolved the sugar in juice that I heated on the stove. When I blended it all together, the measured sugar content was still low. This suggest to me that the spiked juice just sank to the bottom. The next day the must was vigorously fermenting, and I remeasured the sugar content at 24%, which should produce 12.6% alcohol. That is okay, and since there had already been a night of fermenting, the actual alcohol content will be a little higher than that, perhaps 13% as targeted.

Sept 2021 Update

I made the wine as above in glass demijohns, and have not added any flavors. 

It has a nice violet color with no haze. It tastes like a rose' more than a red wine. It has lemon note, strawberry, melon, a plant-y scent that I am calling hay, some tree fragrance that I need to pin-down, but perhaps hawthorn. It doesn't have currant, raspberry or blueberry fragrance or flavors one expects from California red grapes. Happily, there are no off-odors or flavors. 

I like it pretty well. I think I'd like it more if the color were lighter. If this were a pretty pink or orange, I'd like that. 

Maybe I will flavor some with my home grown Columbine flowers.