One of my winegrower that we sold grapes from last year is offering to
press and pail juice for this next season. I have asked them several
times now how they will without retaining the skins hold any color for
the red wines, and I just don't get it. They claim that the juice is
processed somehow so that the color will be there.

He sent me 2 pails of merlot(no skins)last year with their
refrigerated shipment and yes the juice was very dark and the batch
seem so far great?! Sure I'm out of the loop somehow. Anybody know
what they are doing?

The two pails I received had a button on the pail for pressure
expansion and they certainly had a positive pressure coming out of the
pails.

SG Brix

sgbrix wrote:

> He sent me 2 pails of merlot(no skins)last year with their
> refrigerated shipment and yes the juice was very dark and the batch
> seem so far great?! Sure I'm out of the loop somehow. Anybody know
> what they are doing?

Some red juices use a steam extraction method, which extracts the
colour, but this juice is lacking in body, tannin and all the other
goodness that comes out of the skins during fermentation.

--
charles

"Once ... in the wilds of Afghanistan, I lost my corkscrew, and we were
forced to live on nothing but food and water for days."
- W.C. Fields

If they can do that with juice, why don't they just crush and destem them
and send that refrigerated - even better sulfated as well? A bit longer
maceration wouldn't be all that bad would it?

I suppose one down side is that it takes more weight and volume to include
the crushed skins than just the juice, but in that kind of shipment, the
marginal freight cost wouldn't be too great I wouldn't think.

Ralph

"sgbrix" > wrote in message
om...
> One of my winegrower that we sold grapes from last year is offering to
> press and pail juice for this next season. I have asked them several
> times now how they will without retaining the skins hold any color for
> the red wines, and I just don't get it. They claim that the juice is
> processed somehow so that the color will be there.
>
> He sent me 2 pails of merlot(no skins)last year with their
> refrigerated shipment and yes the juice was very dark and the batch
> seem so far great?! Sure I'm out of the loop somehow. Anybody know
> what they are doing?
>
> The two pails I received had a button on the pail for pressure
> expansion and they certainly had a positive pressure coming out of the
> pails.
>
> SG Brix

sgbrix wrote:
> Sure I'm out of the loop somehow. Anybody know
> what they are doing?
>


SG,

Two possible methods come to mind: 1) He's adding a color concentrate to
the juice, or 2) He is somehow heat processing the must to set the
color, as described above. I wouldn't care to use either, as both would
be lacking in character, as Charles said. Further, if it's heat
processed, the juice is likely to have elevated levels of
hydroxymethylfurfural, which gives that cooked, caramelly taste to many
kit wines. (HMF forms as low as 50°C)

Another possibility may be that he's buying the juice from a larger
producer and reselling.

How does the test wine compare to whole-grape wine & kits?

HTH, Mike MTM

MikeMTM > wrote in message >...

---snip

> How does the test wine compare to whole-grape wine & kits?
>
> HTH, Mike MTM

I have made Merlot from all the juice concentrate (6) that I have come
across this last year. This is definitely one step better, but not
like fresh made when it comes to the bouquet, it is not pronounced.
Color never done much for me, but it is Disney strong. Color is
vibrant.

I agree in pressing and keeping the skins with the lot that someone
suggested. I have done 4 different blends this way from frozen and
these wines have been quit well for me. But there still is the way
these frozen skins look compare to fresh skins, also how the tasted.
Freezing seem to have their own nuances.

SG Brix

As far as I am concerned the theory that hot pressed reds are inferior
products lacking body and character is hogwash.

Most of my reds are from hot pressed juice and they are all you should
expect from the area they are grown in, the hot central valley. Hot
pressed reds make excellent table wine. Anyone who expects to make
the equivalent of a $50 bottle from these grapes is just fooling
himself anyway. There is absolutely nothing wrong with hot pressing
reds. If I lived in Bordeaux or Napa Valley I would probably not do
this, but I don't and neither do most winemakers.

We make excellent Syrah and Valdepena from hot pressed grape juice.
The oldest we have to date is 6 years old and let me assure you they
are pleasant wines. They are mature enough at 1.5 years and to date
none of ours have fallen apart with age, (not that most get to sit on
the shelf for years). They do not lack body, color or character. I
have quite a bit of experience making good wine from red juice. The
wines taste fine and lack nothing I am looking for.
Regards,
Joe

Joe Sallustio wrote:

> As far as I am concerned the theory that hot pressed reds are inferior
> products lacking body and character is hogwash.
<<<snip>>>
Joe,

I have no experience with hot pressed red juice wines, so I fully accept
your description of them. Perhaps I unfairly lumped them together with
red concentrate wines, which I still maintain are inferior to whole
grape wines. At least the dozen or so I tried over the years were.

Please remember that the sgbrix never said that the juice in question
was hot pressed, but that the vendor gave some confusing explanation of
how the juice was processed. That vagueness, together with the vibrant,
Disneyesque color makes me wonder if the juice were simply cold pressed
and color added. The taste seems OK to sgbrix, so perhaps the juice is
everything it should be. The bright colors are still a puzzle, though.
Do hot pressed reds usually show such vibrant colors ?

I'd like to try a hot pressed red. Are they available in small
quantities or only in bulk? Maybe I can convince my local supplier to
stock some. When I was there recently, he was as surprised as hell (and
annoyed) to learn that the 5 gal pails of "juice" he'd gotten in were
actually reconstituted from concentrate. He hadn't read the fine print.

Regards, Mike MTM

MikeMTM wrote:

> I'd like to try a hot pressed red. Are they available in small
> quantities or only in bulk?

In Ontario at least, they are seem to available at small Italian and
Portuguese stores, in 18/19L pails for C$30-50, FWIW.

--
charles

"Once ... in the wilds of Afghanistan, I lost my corkscrew, and we were
forced to live on nothing but food and water for days."
- W.C. Fields

MikeMTM > wrote in message >...
> Joe Sallustio wrote:
>
> > As far as I am concerned the theory that hot pressed reds are inferior
> > products lacking body and character is hogwash.
> <<<snip>>>
> Joe,
>
> Joe,
What Cal. juices are hot-pressed? I know Alexanders isn't but expect
Lucerne may be.
Thanks,
Tim

Hi Mike,
I use Regina, which is from Lamanuzzi and Pantaleo. They have a
website and might be able to tell you where to get it in your area.
It's readily available in the Northeast where we have a hard time
growing good grapes. I don't know what SGBrix's producer is doing
either, but the only way I know of to get red juice from red skinned
grapes is natural fermentation or hot pressing.

I am not expecting to make fine wine from central valley fruit, just
good table wine. I apolgize if it sounded overly harsh, but as in all
things theres is a wide range of outcomes, we do not consider our
wines to be low end and lifeless.

Homemade wines here in Pittsburgh vary quite a bit, I have tasted some
gawd awful wines made from grapes, and some good ones too. I'm only
saying I am limited by the quality level of the grape itself, and hot
pressing if done corrctly does not seem to damage our end product. A
well made wine from hot pressed juice tastes better than a poorly made
wine from the same producer.

This year I bought some cab grapes to make alongside the juice and
while it's too early to tell, I am doubtful this will end up better
than the juice did. All that said, if I had access to high quality
grapes I would not hot press them, I would want to control the
extraction myself.

Regards,
Joe






MikeMTM > wrote in message >...
> Joe Sallustio wrote:
>
> > As far as I am concerned the theory that hot pressed reds are inferior
> > products lacking body and character is hogwash.
> <<<snip>>>
> Joe,
>
> I have no experience with hot pressed red juice wines, so I fully accept
> your description of them. Perhaps I unfairly lumped them together with
> red concentrate wines, which I still maintain are inferior to whole
> grape wines. At least the dozen or so I tried over the years were.
>
> Please remember that the sgbrix never said that the juice in question
> was hot pressed, but that the vendor gave some confusing explanation of
> how the juice was processed. That vagueness, together with the vibrant,
> Disneyesque color makes me wonder if the juice were simply cold pressed
> and color added. The taste seems OK to sgbrix, so perhaps the juice is
> everything it should be. The bright colors are still a puzzle, though.
> Do hot pressed reds usually show such vibrant colors ?
>
> I'd like to try a hot pressed red. Are they available in small
> quantities or only in bulk? Maybe I can convince my local supplier to
> stock some. When I was there recently, he was as surprised as hell (and
> annoyed) to learn that the 5 gal pails of "juice" he'd gotten in were
> actually reconstituted from concentrate. He hadn't read the fine print.
>
> Regards, Mike MTM

Joe Sallustio > wrote:

> As far as I am concerned the theory that hot pressed reds are inferior
> products lacking body and character is hogwash.
>
> Most of my reds are from hot pressed juice and they are all you should
> expect from the area they are grown in, the hot central valley. Hot
> pressed reds make excellent table wine. Anyone who expects to make
> the equivalent of a $50 bottle from these grapes is just fooling
> himself anyway. There is absolutely nothing wrong with hot pressing
> reds. If I lived in Bordeaux or Napa Valley I would probably not do
> this, but I don't and neither do most winemakers.
>
> We make excellent Syrah and Valdepena from hot pressed grape juice.
> The oldest we have to date is 6 years old and let me assure you they
> are pleasant wines. They are mature enough at 1.5 years and to date
> none of ours have fallen apart with age, (not that most get to sit on
> the shelf for years). They do not lack body, color or character. I
> have quite a bit of experience making good wine from red juice. The
> wines taste fine and lack nothing I am looking for.
> Regards,
> Joe

This interests me because I am sensitive to hystamines.

Do you, or anyone else, know if the hystamines are carried over to the
wine with this method. I know they are when the producer ferments on the
skins.

--
Thanks and regards, Shane.
"A closed mouth gathers no feet!"
Email: Beware the invalid word! shane at wonk dot demon dot co dot uk
Website: http://www.wonk.demon.co.uk/

Shane,

I am not a chemist and not an authority on hystamines but it does turn
out there is some research that has been done on this subject. You
might want to get access to Yair Margalits 'Concepts in Wine
Chemistry', pages 342-343. To sum up, grapes do not contain
hystamines and processing methods do not seem to affect hystamine
production. Niether does fermentation. They seem to appear after
malolactic fermentation, but not in all ML wines. They usually appear
in higher levels in reds than whites, but that makes sense, more reds
go through ML. He gives a few references for more info too. The
theory is that another bacteria that likes the conditions present
during ML might cause the hystamine production. The levels are pretty
low, reds are 5.7, whites around 3.3 mg/l.

To actually answer your question, wines from the central valley are
usually low in acid, so ML is not something you have to do. I rarely
do it, so you may be able to drink my wines. If I were you I would
make the wines on the higher side of the sulfite levels to stunt ML
production.

If you bought Regina juice, it comes in at 100 ppm SO2. I would touch
up the acid post ferementation, mine always seem to climb .5 to 1 g/l
after ferrmentation. That way you son't overdo the acid and want to
encourage ML. I would add 1/4 teaspoon pot meta per 5 gallon each
rack, and probably rack only 3 times. That's more than normal, if you
test sulfite just keep it at 40 PPM and I doubt it will go into ML
spontaneously.

Hope that helps.
Regards,
Joe


>
> This interests me because I am sensitive to hystamines.
>
> Do you, or anyone else, know if the hystamines are carried over to the
> wine with this method. I know they are when the producer ferments on the
> skins.