{"id":245,"date":"2008-09-19T19:31:39","date_gmt":"2008-09-20T02:31:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wineintheshower.com\/?p=245"},"modified":"2011-07-09T15:39:31","modified_gmt":"2011-07-09T23:39:31","slug":"hey-lets-make-wine-from-grapes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/index.php\/2008\/09\/19\/hey-lets-make-wine-from-grapes\/","title":{"rendered":"Hey, Let’s Make Wine From Grapes!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

This is what my friends said to me.\u00a0 This guy Paul knew this other guy that makes wine and likes to share the grapes from this great vineyard in Sonoma with home winemakers.\u00a0 So of course they thought of me when they found out they could get these killer grapes.\u00a0 It also happens that I\u2019m the only one of the bunch that has ever made any wine, so it\u2019s also convenient for them to include me.\u00a0 That\u2019s fine, I\u2019m sure it\u2019ll be worth it.<\/p>\n

We picked up the merlot grapes at Witch Creek Winery<\/a> in Carlsbad.\u00a0 They have a destemmer that they share with Chris Van Alyea of Christopher Cameron Wines<\/a>, who is the guy that shares the grapes with home winemakers. It\u2019s quite impressive: there are big boxes each holding a half ton of grapes. The boxes are loaded onto the destemmer with a forklift.<\/p>\n

There are various volunteers to help with the whole process, and so we tried to pitch in.\u00a0 As the grapes fall into an empty box, several things are mixed in:\u00a0 sulfite<\/a>, to kill any native yeasts or other bugs;\u00a0 vinozyme, to help break down the skins when they get crushed later;\u00a0 toasted oak dust and tannin extract, to add extra flavor;\u00a0 and dry ice, to keep the grapes cold for a while before the fermentation is started.<\/p>\n

\"Josh<\/p>\n

\"Merlot<\/p>\n

We took our portions home in trash cans.\u00a0 Yep, trash cans.<\/p>\n

\"Us<\/p>\n

The gray cans are a food-safe plastic, and are perfect for hopping into.\u00a0 Part of the merlot will be a shared effort, and then I took home 2 cans with 100 pounds each of grapes for experimenting.\u00a0 I stomped them so that they were about 80% crushed, so that there would be some whole berries to ferment also.\u00a0 They\u2019ll get taken care of when it all gets pressed, no problem.<\/p>\n

\"Doing

Doing the Lucy stomp<\/p><\/div>\n

It was a long day!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is what my friends said to me.\u00a0 This guy Paul knew this other guy that makes wine and likes to share the grapes from this great vineyard in Sonoma with home winemakers.\u00a0 So of course they thought of me when they found out they could get these killer grapes.\u00a0 It also happens that I\u2019m […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[34,33,4,32],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2228,"href":"http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245\/revisions\/2228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}