(Continued from May 24, 2010)
“Making wine from grapes is not difficult; and, when the variety is Zinfandel, it is very easy,” I asserted.
“I know that grapes have yeast on their skins,” Thea said. “Therefore, one doesn’t have to fiddle with measuring cups, as is the case with other fruits. However, why is Zinfandel easier to handle than other varieties of grapes?”
“Zinfandel grapes have a high concentration of sugar, which will turn into alcohol during the fermentation process. That high percentage of alcohol will prevent bad bacteria from affecting the flavor of the wine. That is why my French friend mixed his backyard grapes with very sweet ones from North Africa. He wanted to boost the alcohol content to avoid getting a wine that would become too vinegary.”
“We will have to get barrels and all sorts of equipment, I imagine.”
“We will need a grape crusher, a wine press, and an open-end barrel for the first stage of our operation. Since we will have a relatively small amount of grapes, a manual crusher will do. We can make use of Alphonse’s muscles for the crushing as well as for getting as much juice as possible out of the pulp.”
“Alice and Elsie will definitely want to participate. So, we three girls won’t leave all the heavy work for Alphonse.”
“In the beginning, the manual wine press is fairly easy to operate. At that time, you girls can take turns. Later, when the heavy ratcheting needs to be done, Alphonse can apply his muscles.”
“What kind of equipment or devices do we need for the next stage?”
“If we have a sufficiently large quantity of juice, we can use a barrel. Can you remember the number of kilos of Zinfandel that you harvested last fall?”
“We had about 400 pounds. That would make how many kilos? You are fond of the metric system, aren’t you?”
“Yes, my early European education is showing through again. Anyway, to change pounds into kilos, we divide by 2.2. That would roughly be about 180 kilos; and, according to my buddy in France, 17 kilos will get us about 10 liters of wine. Therefore, 180 kilos would yield approximately 105 liters. That is about 27 gallons, which will allow us to work with two ten-gallon barrels and a five-gallon glass jug. When the time comes to remove the excessive sediment, one twenty-five gallon barrel would be much too cumbersome.”
(To be continued)