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Making Wine

The following pictures were taken while we were preparing to make the wine. Three types of grapes were used; Merlot, Sirah, Cabernet Sauvignon .

1 - 23 of 23 photos

Choosing your grapes.
We waited for the call from our supplier, and the grapes came in from California. Merlot, Sirah, and Cabernet Sauvignon.
The white container is just a 5 gallon of white grape juice which is a Chardonnay ,Pinot.
I will show more pics of that later on

Oct 8, 2012

Some of the equipment that was used. Demi-Johns , the grape press.

Oct 8, 2012

The grape crusher, this one had a motor. It just made for quicker crushing. The only difference with this one and the manual one is that you have more control with the manual , you have less of a mess as well.

Oct 8, 2012

Part of the press machine. This machine came all the way from Italy, works like a charm as you will see later.

Oct 8, 2012

Demi-Johns. We ended up making 4, besides what was used for the white.

Oct 8, 2012

This was used after the barrels were washed and disinfected. We tossed a few tablespoons into the demi-johns and then rinsed them out.

Oct 8, 2012

This was used just to wash everything.

Oct 8, 2012

Cleaning and prepping the barrels.

Oct 8, 2012

These were used to put all the juice of the crushed grapes in.

Oct 8, 2012

This is the crushing machine, it had a motor. We also used a manual one.

Oct 8, 2012

We just kept adding the grapes to the crusher.

Oct 8, 2012

This is what it looks like once you remove the crushing machine. A barrel of everything inside, crushed grapes, seeds, and the vines. We try to remove any leaves or big branches.

Oct 8, 2012

The machine in action.

Oct 8, 2012

The grapes this year were bigger and juicier than we ever saw before, it was a good year, it seems.

Oct 8, 2012

We covered everything for a couple of days. Then after this process comes pressing of the grapes.

Oct 8, 2012

We assembled the press and starting adding the grapes. Everything is done fairly fast at this time, we had two buckets going, as soon as one filled you had to empty it into the large barrel.

Oct 8, 2012

At this point we were pressing the grapes down with our hands as the juice was coming out, the other equipment had not been needed at this point.

Oct 8, 2012

Here we started to use the final parts of the pressing machine. This really applied alot of pressure to squeeze the juice out.

Oct 8, 2012

Oct 8, 2012

Oct 8, 2012

Removed the press machine and put all this back into a barrel,(we broke up the pieces so that the juice would leak out again) ready for a second press 4 hours later.

Oct 8, 2012

Breaking apart and getting ready for second press.

Oct 8, 2012

The two barrels were getting filled, once that was finished it was time to let the juice ferment.

Oct 8, 2012

Comments (2)

Pateachoux 12/15/12 at 8:17pm

Fun!

petalsandcoco 12/16/12 at 12:50pm

We do it every year, I wouldn't miss it. And do we laugh.

ChefTalk.com › Galleries › petalsandcoco's Photos › Making Wine