First Time Home Winemaking Questions

Hello All,

I just ordered my first batch of Cabernet Sauvignon grapes, got a loans for it here maybeloan.com/bad-credit-loans. I read “From Vines to Wines” a few times now to get a high-level overview of what to do. I had a few unanswered questions after reading the text I was hoping you all could help me with. Here goes:

How do I select a yeast? The book recommended Montrachet (but warns of hydrogen sulfide) or Pasteur Champagne (but does this work for full-bodied reds and not just sparkling wines?)

After primary fermentation, the book states to “press” the must. How do I accomplish this? Do I need special equipment? I always just envisioned racking via siphon to my glass carboy.

Is using a malolactic starter important to the process?

What is the best practice for activating the yeast and what yeast nutrients do you recommend?

This is up to you. Champagne yeast is not a yeast that can produce only sparkling wine, since any saccharomyces yeast ferments sugar into alcohol. Champagne yeast is just favored in sparkling wine production because of its very neutral profile, as sparkling wine producers prefer to keep their fermentations neutral, so that the raw material shines through. However, it might not be the best yeast for higher-alcohol wines, since sparkling wines tend to hover at only 12% ABV. Montrachet yeast is much more tolerant of high alcohol, so it can more reliably ferment to full dryness. However, it often is far from neutral, producing all kinds of fermentation compounds, depending on the raw material. For example it is most famous for the buttery diacetyl notes often found in Chardonnay - after all, butter is not a characteristic of the grape variety, but most often yeast (although one can accentuate these characteristics by MLF, oak aging and lees stirring).

Hydrogen sulfide buildup can often happen when the wine is left to age on the lees. This can be countered if you siphon the wine off the yeast cake after the fermentation has ended (a small amount of very fine lees is not a problem; on the contrary, it often protects the wine from oxidation).

If the grapes come straight from the vineyard (especially if it is an organically farmed one), you might get the batch fermenting with indigenous yeasts. However, if the grapes are washed prior to their arrival, most likely they won’t harbor enough viable yeast cells.

After primary fermentation, the book states to “press” the must. How do I accomplish this? Do I need special equipment? I always just envisioned racking via siphon to my glass carboy.

Well, you can always use just the free-run juice that you can get from the crushed grapes without any aid. However, a sizeable portion of the must will remain in the wet, crushed but unpressed grapes, so pressing them to squeeze some extra wine can increase your yield. However, if you are going to press, you might want to be careful with the press juice; the harder you press, the more coarse tannins and easily oxidized solids you’re going to extract. A bit of press juice can do good for the wine, increasing the tannic structure and adding some character, but too much or too heavily pressed stuff and you’re going to have rough, rustic and not-that-pleasant wine.

To press wine, yes, you need to have some sort of press. The most traditional way of doing it is a classic basket press, i.e. a vessel big enough one to stand in, from which the juice can flow out freely and where one can stomp the juice out of the remaining grapes.

Is using a malolactic starter important to the process?

After the primary fermentation and before the MLF the wine is at its most vulnerable, since you really can’t use any sulfites at this point to protect the wine if you want to have a healthy MLF that runs through smoothly. It’s not necessary, but a good starter could be useful to kick that MLF up and running once the wine has fermented to full dryness. However, you want to make sure the primary fermentation has finished, since having alcoholic and malolactic fermentation going at the same time always risks for off-flavors.

https://www.winepress.us/ is the best online forum for home winemaking questions.
Lum Eisenman wrote a good home winemakers manual long ago. I think it’s still out on the internet somewhere.

My $0.02, which mostly reiterates what Otto said…

There are a lot of different yeast varieties with descriptors about their influence on wine taste and aroma. However, there is also an argument about whether anyone can identify these enhancement in a finished wine (i.e. using different yeast strains on the same grapes won’t show any difference in the finished wine). So, my advice is to first narrow your choice to something that is easy to work with (low sulfide production, good alcohol tolerance, good temperature tolerance) and readily available, then pick something that matches your style preference. You will also want to make sure that you have a robust yeast starter going before inoculating the must, and that you feed the fermentation appropriately.

You can just take the free run wine after primary fermentation by siphoning, but there will be a lot of wine left in the unpressed must. It sounds like you have a small amount of grapes (making a single 5 gal carbon?) and my recollection is that home winemaking books recommend a mesh bag (laundry bag will work) for squeezing out the remaining wine from the grapes by hand. Haven’t tried this, but it seems reasonable. If you have a larger amount of grapes (hundreds of pounds) then you’ll need to rent a basket press from a home winemaking store. The overall goal is to get more wine and leave behind skins, stems, seeds, etc. from the must. Carrying over too much of this stuff can cause off aromas/flavors in the finished wine, though it can be removed by racking the wine after letting it settle for 24hrs after transfer/pressing from the primary fermentation.

Depending on how the grapes were treated (i.e. if they were washed), malolactic fermentation can kick off on its own. However, I recommend you inoculate since as a first time winemaker your goal is to get through primary and secondary fermentation as quickly and cleanly as possible in order to avoid problems that can spoil the wine (e.g. stuck fermentations). As with yeast, there a different strains of bacteria available for MLF, but just choose something that is easy to use and readily available to you.

Hope this helps. There are many good resources on the web (I like Scott Lab website for technical resources and protocols), and winepress.us is the most active forum for questions and discussions.

BTW, one issue many home winemakers face with making wine this time of year is the cooler temperatures. This is often the issue with getting primary and secondary fermentations to complete efficiently. Just something to keep in mind if you don’t have a warm place in the house to make your wine.

Can I ask you all for your input, how much in your experience does it cost for you to start making your first batch of wine? Like how much should one expect to spend to try to make a homemade wine? Like a super cheap method or material to a costly method/ material? I was looking at some Muscat and I feel like the grapes that come from vineyards ( from the stalk/ whole plant and self spores) is 24 to 29 each. Is this a good option to start because planting and growing takes time… Even though I am new to wine, i was always interested in homemade wine. And now I have to consider how much everything costs before getting into it.