Hi Folks,

I've been making wine for a couple of years now from kits and also trying my
own from different varieties of fruit.

This year, I decided to order some fresh juice from a winery in the Niagara
Region and today, picked up to 20 KG pails of Baco Noir.

Now this is a little different than what I have been doing before! The
pails are about 5 gallons each - but wow.. I didn't realize that there
would be so much grape content. I don't think my actual yield will be as
much as I had thought.

But I'm looking forward to having a go anyhow

But.. I'm a bit confused - and am looking for some experienced advice. When
I got home, I strained off some juice to measure the specific gravity and
was quite surprised it was only 1.014.

Surprised because I have been lead to believe that this year's crop,
although very poor in quantity, should be high in quality, including sugar
content. Is 1.014 "high" for Baco Noir? Does one normally have to add
sugar?

Or is there something else possibly wrong?

Anyhow, I've added five campden tablets to the pail, to kill off any wild
yeast, and am planning on letting this sit for 12 to 24 hours before adding
yeast.

But it seems to me that I'm also going to have to add sugar. But I have NO
idea what sort of volume of juice to expect from 20 KG (about 40 pounds) of
baco noir must with all the grape skins and mash in there.

My confusion I guess lays in the fact that I had thought I wouldn't need to
add any sugar - that in fact, this year's crop was supposedly higher than
normal in sugar content.. but 1.014 seems low to me!

Any suggestions or ideas or advice would be greatly appreciated!

I'm having a wonderful time with this hobby - mostly from kits in the past,
and my own experiments with blueberries, raspberries and currants. But I'm
not sure where to go with the Baco Noir must I purchased.

Thanks,

Ian

http://homewinery.info/blog