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April 25, 2006 Niagara and Catawba, Blending acid adjustment
Making wine at Fall Bright, YOU are the winemaker! We basically provide the
amateur winemaker with the grapes or grape juices and winemaking supplies
and know-how to make his own wine. Check out our website, www.fallbright.com
for information and online shopping. Call the shop at 607-292-3995. We are
open Tuesday to Friday, 10-5 and weekends by appointment.
Now that there is a lull between finishing your wines and the next crop, I
will try to explore the varieties that we have at the shop. Niagara and
Catawba ripen at opposite ends of the season and yet they are a very
compatible and popular blend. Niagara is popular as a local wine and
eating (slip skin) grape. When ripe they have a low acid (and a higher pH)
that makes them taste really sweet, however, the sugar will read 17-19 brix
or lower. For winemaking we have found that this variety ripens sugar last
and drops the acid first. We end up picking them a bit earlier than you may
want them for eating, just to have a decent acid and pH for amateur
winemaking. The resulting brix in 2005 was 15%. The acid was perfect at
0.75 and the pH was 3.05. As the sugar is easier to adjust than acid and
pH, we pick by acid test of a field sample of grapes and let our winemakers
buy sugar and adjust. In our early years of business, we had some very nice
sugars in the Niagara with acid of .3 to .5 and had to adjust upward or
blend. We found that Catawba, which naturally is higher in acid just by
nature, was perfect for blending with some of these low acid Niagara wines.
To estimate how much of each variety was needed for the perfect blend
required a mathematical average of TA numbers. The yeast usually used for
these fruity wines are Cotes des Blanc as first choice for a sweet finish,
71B for a less sweet finish and D 47 for a more dry finish.
I will go down our list of grapes and elaborate on them as the spring and
summer come and go. May your wines fall bright. Marcy
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