Well, the grapes are finally arriving! Now's the time to review some of the options available to you at crush time. These options affect the style of your final wine.

Sulfite (Potassium meta bi sulfite), added at about 50 ppm, inhibits wild yeast, prevents browning, and kills spoilage bacteria.

(50 ppm = 1/2 tsp/100 lbs grapes or 1/4 tsp/5 gallons juice)

Traditional wisdom suggests that you add sulfite as you crush, for all the above reasons.

Be sure to mix it in thoroughly. If your grapes are going to sit for awhile before ferment starts, be sure to keep the cap of skins wet by punching them down as needed. This will inhibit the development of volatility (vinegar/nail polish smells).

50 ppm does not kill yeast, but it will inhibit them. Therefore, you do want to wait about 12 hours before adding your yeast. This allows time for the sulfite to do its work, binding with wine components, reducing the free, active SO2.

Even if you are doing an un-inoculated, spontaneous ferment, 50 ppm SO2 only inhibits the weaker, "bad" wild yeast. This leaves the "good" wild yeast able to start and to contribute their complexity.

After one day of active ferment, free SO2 levels will be below the level that will kill ML inoculums. This is the time to add your ML cultures … with Leucofood or Super-Super Food, of course.

If you choose to not sulfite at crush, your juice will brown. This is OK because all those brown compounds will drop out at the end of fermentation. Now, your wine can not brown … but, it can still oxidize. Therefore, keep all your secondaries filled, up into the neck, 1/2 inch below the stopper. Then, after ML is complete, bring your sulfite up to the recommended level.

(See the date for the "Post Crush Clinic" where we check for ML completion)

Standard information suggests to crush, add SO2, wait 12 hours, add yeast, ferment to 0*Brix, press and get on with your life. This works just fine.

However, there are a few other, very simple, options that can result in more interesting wines.

To really focus both the color and the fruit, try "Cold Soaking". You merely chill the must to below 50*F after crushing. The low temperature inhibits ferment, allowing the grapes to stew in their own juice. Color and fruit flavor are being extracted by the water in the grape, not by alcohol.

This chilling can be accomplished by lowering the room temp, by surrounding the fermenter with ice or iced water, or by inserting frozen containers into the must. A minimum of 4 days is recommended.

Helpful hints might be to insulate the water bath with a sleeping bag or old comforter; being sure the frozen containers do not leak; getting the grapes picked and crushed as cold as possible to start with.

If you can't actually chill the crushed grapes, at least you can crush them cool, allowing them to start to ferment slowly. When they warm to room temperature, add the yeast into one corner of your fermenter. The yeast will slowly creep through the must and then will start to ferment the entire batch.

This can give you 2-4 days of non-alcohol stewing and would be call "Pre-ferment Masceration".

In either case, be sure to add the 50 ppm SO2, mixing well. Also, keep the cap of skins wet by punching them down into the sulfited juice.

Additionally, some winemakers find that vigorous and frequent punching down, now, before alcohol is produced, extracts maximum "soft" tannins and avoids the harsher tannins. They then recommend minimal cap masceration during ferment. Just enough to keep the cap submerged.

In either of the above styles, most winemakers then press at 5-0* Brix, avoiding longer skin time. The feeling is that you've gotten maximum color/tannin/fruit at this point and that further masceration contributes unwanted harshness.

However, some winemakers continue to stay on the skins for some extended time. Thus, "Extended Masceration". With time, the harsher, short-chained tannins already extracted from the skins actually can link up. These, now longer chained or polymerized, tannins feel softer, less harsh. Thus, a softer, possibly more accessible wine.

The timing is 2-6 weeks extended time past 0*Brix. The length of time depends on how well one can protect the wine from oxidation. Once the CO2 produced from sugar ferment, plus the little produced from ML, is gone, your wine is very. very susceptible to air. This results in a marked loss of fruitiness and a build-up of those stale-smelling aldehydes.

To reduce this negative effect, keep your fermenter tightly covered as gas production slows and then ceases. Adding CO2 gas or bits of dry ice will help maintain a protective CO2 cap. Also, just before pressing, scope off and discard the top layer of aldehydic, stale grapes.

At The Daume Winery, I stopped doing extended masceration two years ago because I could not maintain a CO2 cap well enough, long enough, to achieve the desired softening without loosing fruitiness.

Now, grapes are moved into the walk-in and chilled prior to crush. Then we crush and it's back to the walk-in for anywhere from 4 days to two weeks. SO2 is added at crush and mixed in uniformly. The cap is punched down vigorously and as often as possible for both extraction and to keep the SO2 distributed.

As time permits, the grapes are removed to the warmer winery floor and allowed to warm up. As they warm, spontaneous/wild ferment starts, adding complexity. At a change of 4*Brix, a selected strain of wine yeast plus Super-Super Food or just DAP is added to finish ferment efficiently. ML culture with Leucofood is added the day after adding the yeast culture. The cap is gently punched down. The grapes are pressed at 5-0*Brix. The wine settles overnight or so and is racked to barrels for aging.

So, there you have it. Some easy options that can give you some control over style. Above all, enjoy the crush!

John E. Daume