By: Hank Johnson

In a prior post, I talked about the winemaking discussions that Henry and I have on a regular basis. During a recent discussion, we started talking about the amount of natural sugar in grape juice and how much that sugar weighs. He explained to me that 1 brix, which is about 99% sugar, in 10 gallons of grape juice would amount to 1 pound of sugar. We try to pick our grapes at about 23 brix, which is the ideal ripeness. If that 10 gallons of juice that I just mentioned was 23 brix then in that 10 gallons would be 23 pounds of sugar. We make our Chardonel in 1000 gallon tanks and if that was filled with juice that measured 23 brix, that tank would have over 1 ton of sugar in it, actually 2,300 pounds of sugar. Sugar in the grocery store is sold in 4-pound bags. So it would take 575 grocery store bags of sugar to equal the amount of natural sugar that comes with the juice and is in 1 of our tanks. We inoculate the 1000 gallons of juice with yeast, which eats sugar during the process of fermentation and reduces the brix level of sugar from 23% to .2%. The reason the yeast does not consume all of the sugar is that some natural sugars cannot be metabolized by the yeast. Two tenths of a percent (.2%) sugar of the juice remaining in the tank after fermentation is equal to 5 bags of sugar that you buy at the grocery store.

To recap…

1 brix in 10 gallons of juice = 1 pound of sugar
23 brix in 10 gallons of juice = 23 pounds of sugar
1000 gallon tank with 23 brix juice = 2300 pounds of sugar or 575 four pound bags of sugar. After fermentation, the 575 bags is reduced to 5 bags. Pretty amazing how much sugar yeast can consume in a 1000 gallon tank!

Harvest at Chaumette This Year

The growing year of 2016 has been one of the wettest in memory. In some instances, we have had to delay sprays of fungicide because the floor of the vineyard has been too soft to bring in a tractor. We know of 2 vineyards in our area that have lost virtually their entire crops this year because of the wet conditions. I am happy to say that we have clean fruit at Chaumette due to the extra sprays that we have been able to get in between rain storms. Harvest began on September 13th which is a few days later than when we have picked in prior years. By waiting to harvest until a little later, we feel the extra time will allow more and complex flavors to emerge in the grape and therefore in the wine. As in the past, we hand pick everything at Chaumette and the fruit is not crushed, but rather goes directly to the press to minimize maceration of the skins. The temperature cooperated so we were able to go from the vineyard directly into the winemaking process without having to cool the fruit. The reason that is important is because individual grapes all have a net of pectin between one of the layers of the skin. If the temperature is approaching 90 degrees, the pectin net may melt and become part of the juice instead of staying in the skins, which are discarded. Pectin then becomes an undesirable addition to the juice. We are very optimistic about the quality of the fruit this season. We expect it will yield more high caliber, award-winning wines.

Cheers!