How to Make Wine from South African Winemaking Juice
So how can you start making your own wine from South African juices? Follow these 10 Easy Steps (for fresh juice) and you’ll be on your way!
- Choose a South African variety that speaks to you.
- Come to Musto Wine Grape and pick up your pail of juice.
- Bring it home, pop open that lid, and add 1/4 tsp potassium metabisulfite to it. Add pectic enzyme if you’re going to (5 drops per gallon of juice). Give it a stir.
- Allow it to come up to room temperature – we’re talking 60 degrees or so.
- Choose your fermentation vessel: will you keep it in pails or ferment in a carboy or demijohn? Make sure everything is clean and sanitized. *Be sure there is enough room to account for fermentation foaming*
- If you are going to add fermentation tannins or additives (like oak dust, Booster Rouge, Booster Blanc) you can add that now. *Note: do not add tannins such as FT Rouge within 8 hours of adding enzyme*
- Pitch the yeast once the temperature has reached at least 60F. Yeast strain choices will vary depending on the juice you choose – ask a winemaker at Musto Wine Grape for a strain recommendation for the varietal you’re making. Follow the yeast starter directions explicitly. Be very careful of temperatures, never adding yeast if there is more than a 18 degree difference between the yeast starter liquid and the juice.
- Carefully monitor the fermentation by checking Brix levels daily. Add yeast nutrients as needed if you choose to do so.
- If you are adding malolactic cultures to your wine, you may also chose to do this at 1/3 Brix depletion. If using a malolactic nutrient (Opti-Malo Plus) with the bacterial culture, hydrate the nutrient in a separate container from the bacteria and add to the must directly before the addition of the bacteria. Follow all directions on the bacteria and nutrient packets explicitly.
- When the fermentation is complete, rack off the lees and continue aging. Many South African wines are aged with oak – if you choose to do this, you can do so in oak barrels or with oak alternatives (such as chips or staves).
Want to read more about making wine from Fresh Juice? Check out this blog post.
Can I make my own? Musto Wine Grape Company is here to help you make the wine of your dreams! The Spring South African winemaking season starts in late March, early April. Secure your winemaking grapes or juices and give us a call at (877) 812-1137 to speak with one of our Musto Crush Crew members. We can get you set up with everything you need and provide customer support along the way to ensure your success!
How to Make Wine from Chilean Winemaking Juice
So how can you start making your own wine from Chilean juices? Follow these 10 Easy Steps (for fresh juice) and you’ll be on your way!
- Choose a Chilean variety that speaks to you.
- Come to Musto Wine Grape and pick up your pail of juice.
- Bring it home, pop open that lid, and add 1/4 tsp potassium metabisulfite to it. Add pectic enzyme if you’re going to (5 drops per gallon of juice). Give it a stir.
- Allow it to come up to room temperature – we’re talking 60 degrees or so.
- Choose your fermentation vessel: will you keep it in pails or ferment in a carboy or demijohn? Make sure everything is clean and sanitized. *Be sure there is enough room to account for fermentation foaming*
- If you are going to add fermentation tannins or additives (like oak dust, Booster Rouge, Booster Blanc) you can add that now. *Note: do not add tannins such as FT Rouge within 8 hours of adding enzyme*
- Pitch the yeast once the temperature has reached at least 60F. Yeast strain choices will vary depending on the juice you choose – ask a winemaker at Musto Wine Grape for a strain recommendation for the varietal you’re making. Follow the yeast starter directions explicitly. Be very careful of temperatures, never adding yeast if there is more than a 18 degree difference between the yeast starter liquid and the juice.
- Carefully monitor the fermentation by checking Brix levels daily. Add yeast nutrients as needed if you choose to do so.
- If you are adding malolactic cultures to your wine, you may also chose to do this at 1/3 Brix depletion. If using a malolactic nutrient (Opti-Malo Plus) with the bacterial culture, hydrate the nutrient in a separate container from the bacteria and add to the must directly before the addition of the bacteria. Follow all directions on the bacteria and nutrient packets explicitly.
- When the fermentation is complete, rack off the lees and continue aging. Many Chilean wines are aged with oak – if you choose to do this, you can do so in oak barrels or with oak alternatives (such as chips or staves).
Want to read more about making wine from Fresh Juice? Check out this blog post.
Can I make my own? Musto Wine Grape Company is here to help you make the wine of your dreams! The Spring Chilean winemaking season starts in late April, early May. Secure your winemaking grapes or juices and give us a call at (877) 812-1137 to speak with one of our Musto Crush Crew members. We can get you set up with everything you need and provide customer support along the way to ensure your success!
2020 Winemaking Juice Update {071720}
We anticipate that we will have Winemaking Juices the week after Labor Day! It’s time to plan this year’s vintage and we have a lot of juice options for winemaking this season!
California:
We have many labels of high quality winemaking juices coming in from California this fall. Cry Baby, Bella California, Lodi Gold, California Select, and Colina del Sol, just to name a few. The fresh juices are stored at 35 degrees and arrive as if the juice just came out of your wine press. You can either hit the juice with SO2 and inoculate with your chosen yeast, or you can let the juice warm up and ferment using the native yeast found in the skin of the crushed/pressed grape.
Lanza Vineyard Juices:
The Lanza winemaking juices arrive directly from Lanza-Musto Vineyards in Suisun Valley, CA. Varieties available are – Muscat Cannelli, Rose of Gamay (Pink), Chardonnay, and Sauvignon Blanc. They come in 5.25 gallon pails, are cold settled, with zero adjustments made to the juice. If you want Suisun Valley fruit but don’t have a crusher these are a great option.
Fresco Juices:
Mosti Mondiale Fresco is proud to be the only product to offer home winemakers their own vineyard in one unique package. Each pail is carefully pre-balanced, inoculated with the perfect yeast, and infused with liquid enzymes to help create a delicious and palate pleasing wine. The Fresco juices come from California, Australia, and Italy.
Italian Juices:
Our Italian juices will arrive in late October. The Italian juices are always full of flavor and provide palate pleasing, age worthy wines.
Give us a call or shoot us an email to discuss your 2020 vintage!
877-812-1137 – sales@juicegrape.com
Making Italian Amarone from Juice: How to Drink like a Millionaire, but Make Wine on a Budget
A Little About Amarone:
The Italian Amarone wine is famous for its strong, tannic character and full bodied flavors of dried fruit. Rich and complex, it is a benchmark Italian wine, often challenging to recreate until now. Amarone develops its rich and complex character from partially drying the grapes, then fermenting them, decreasing the fruit to skin ratio. The higher levels of skin contact will give the intense tannins and dried fruit character that the style is known for.
How to Make Amarone/Amorosso from Fresh Juice:
When making Amarone with fresh juice, there are certain ingredients that you may add as the winemaker to help replicate the classic style and methods. To increase the skin contact for the juice, you can purchase an All-Grape add pack to add into your bucket of juice. The All-Grape pack is simply just that, wine grape skins and juice, designed to add more tannins and complex flavors to juice. The tannins found in the grape skins will become soluble in the juice and add more of the traditional Amarone character to it.
Juice Options:
Winemaking Kit Options:
A way to increase the tannin content at fermentation and mimic the classic style is by adding supplemental tannins. Yeast naturally consume some tannins throughout their metabolic process of fermentation. Without adding additional tannins, they will consume some of the grape tannins that give Amarone its unique style. By adding some very cost effective fermentation tannins such as oak dust or FT Rouge, additional tannins will be available to the yeast for their process, therefore preserving the grape tannins for the consumer. FT Rouge is a natural oak derived tannin that will not only provide stronger tannic character, but will also help to enhance and secure color. Apply FT Rouge at 1gram/gallon. Oak dust will also supply some “sacrificial tannins” to the yeast fermentation process. The yeast will consume these tannins, leaving the more favorable, smother grape tannins for the consumer.
Winemaking Add Ons:
- FT Rouge
- All Grape Pack
- Oak Dust
Another way to enhance your process of making Amarone from juice will be in your yeast and bacterial selection. Some yeasts that will enhance the rich fruit character of the Amarone juice are BM 4×4 and RP15. Both yeasts have a higher temperature tolerance and will help to secure the rich color. To recreate a traditional Amarone closely, the perception of acidity will need to be reduced. Using malo-lactic bacteria to metabolize the harsher malic acid, and turn it into lactic acid, which has a smoother, creamier mouthfeel, is a vital step in creating a traditionally styled Amarone. This bacterial fermentation can take place at the same time as the primary yeast fermentation, so that the bacteria will benefit from the available nutrients and heat generated via the yeast fermentation. For an individual bucket, we sell a pouch of bacteria that are very easy to use. Simply wipe the pack with sanitizer and stir it into the wine. The bacteria will finish up their fermentation shortly after the yeast finish their fermentation; approximately 2-3 weeks after it is inoculated.
Yeast Suggestions:
To round out the full bodied flavor and profile of Amarone, the winemaker will have to add oak to create a balanced bouquet. After fermentation, the winemaker should consider the addition of oak via a traditional barrel or a supplement, such as oak chips or staves. These will add additional tannic character, creating the Amarone most closely to its traditional style.
Aging Additions:
by the Winemakers at Musto Wine Grape
If you are interested in sourcing Italian Juices for winemaking please contact us at sales@juicegrape.com or 877-812-1137.
2018 Chilean Harvest Update
This year’s growing season should produce some intense and complex wines!
We are very excited and fortunate to be sourcing our Chilean grapes and juices from the “Heart of the Chilean Wine Industry” known as the Curico Valley.  Curico has been a wine grape growing region since the 1800s. With its fertile soil, microclimates, and the ability to grow over 30 different wine grape varieties, it’s no wonder this prestigious region is considered the heart of the wine industry.
Soil Content: Sand, clay, decomposed granite, and volcanic-alluvial.
The second region we will be sourcing from is the Colchagua Valley. The Colchagua Valley is known for growing bold red wines, such as Carménère, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, and Syrah. It has a mediterranean climate and is located along the southern end of the Rapel Valley. This topography creates a climate that receives around 23.3 inches of rainfall per year and little to no rainfall during their summer months. This helps keep the grapes safe close to harvest and ensures that the grapes are fighting for water therefore creating a more intense fruit.
 Soil Content: Sand, decomposed granite, and clay
This year’s harvest has gotten off to a great start. The white grapes are coming off the vine and will be in transit soon. Our early red grapes such as Pinot Noir and Merlot will start harvesting around March 30th.
Arrival Dates: White grapes should arrive around the last week in April and the red grapes should start to arrive around the first week in May. Get your crushers ready!
Grapes Still Available: Carmenere, Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio, Sauvignon Blanc, and Viognier
Sold Out:Â Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Malbec, Merlot, Petite Verdot, Pinot Noir, and Syrah
Fresco Juices Available: Cabernet Sauvignon, Carmenere, Merlot, Malbec, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Viognier, Chardonnay/Semillon Blend
Yeast suggestions for the following grapes via Manuela Astaburuaga
Yeast suggestions for the following grapes via Manuela Astaburuaga. Manuela is the enologist at “Correa Albano” and has studied in both France and New Zealand. Her family also owns many of the vineyards we source from.
- Sauvignon Blanc – For the SB the most important thing is the yeast that express the thiols aromas. Try VIN13 to bring out such thiol aromas like tropical fruits.
- Carmenere & Merlot – Try a yeast that expresses the black fruits like CSM
- Cabernet Sauvignon –You want the fruit and earthiness to shine. Try D254, BM4X4, or CSM. Maybe think about blending yeasts for more complexity!
- Pinot noir – RC 212 is one of the best yeasts for Pinot Noir.
Manuela’s Favorite Blend: Merlot-Carmenere
Why does Sauvignon Blanc wine taste so good from Chile? (According to Manuela)
- “The different temperature between day and night is very important to the aroma expression, we have that kind of climate in our Valley (Curicó) so our SB is very aromatic and with a good acidity. We ferment at 58-50ºF to preserve the aromas.”
2017 Chilean Wine Harvest Update
2017 Chilean Harvest:
2017 was a fantastic growing season up until the other day. As many of you might have heard on the news massive fires broke out in Chile. The fires have been a devastating blow to the Chilean people. However, The Curico Valley and the Southern regions of Colchagua Valleys were thankfully not affected. Unfortunately other Chilean wine growing regions such as the Maipo Valley were greatly affected by the fires and might not be able to produce vintages this year. We encourage everyone to donate to the Red Cross to aid in the relief of these fires.
The growing season for the Curico and Colchagua Valley’s was a hot and dry one. Expect wines with great character, intense flavors, complexity, and distinction. We should be receiving grapes around the same time as last year, maybe a little earlier for the whites. The first white grapes will be picked at the end of February. Carmenere will be in shorter supply this year as the demand has gone up for this grape, so put your orders in early!
The wines of Chile – along with the winemakers and vineyards that produce them – have had some profound transformations in the past 30 years. Grape growers have successfully determined which varietals thrive in their vineyards, have experimented with unique trellising systems, and explored interesting new areas for planting. The wines now have a head start because of the wonderful grape quality.
Musto Wine Grape Company, LLC. has been importing quality Chilean wine grapes for over 10 years. We have developed long lasting relationships in Chile and are constantly growing and developing the program. The vineyards are located between the Andes Mountains and Pacific Ocean. Therefore, the vines have excellent growing conditions for perfect ripeness and complexity thanks to the ocean breeze and Mediterranean climate.
The Curico Valley has been a wine grape growing region since the 1800’s and is located about 115 miles south of Santiago in the Central Zone of Chile. It is known as the “Heart of the Chilean wine industry”. Curico has the perfect fertile soil and is best known for its micro climates and the ability to grow over 30 different wine grape varieties. Situated along the Guaiquillo River and nestled between mountains on its east and west sides, Curico’s Mediterranean climate and unique topographical features helps to create some of the finest wine grapes in South America.
The climate in the valley is characterized by morning fog and wide day-night temperature fluctuations. Climatic conditions in some parts of the valley favor wines with higher acidity, such as white varieties including Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Vert and Gris. High quality Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Merlot, and Carménère grapes are sourced from warmer areas of the valley, such as Lontué, particularly when produced from ancient vines.
Terroir: Sandy, clay, decomposed granite, volcanic-alluvial
Grape Varieties Available: Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Carmenere, Malbec, Merlot, Petite Verdot, Pinot Noir, Syrah, Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, Sauvignon Blanc, Viognier
Juice Varieties Available: Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet-Merlot Blend, Carmenere, Malbec, Merlot, Petite Verdot, Pinot Noir, Syrah, Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, Sauvignon Blanc, Viognier, Muscat
The Winemaker’s Think Tank: Vol 2 – What do I need to get started making wine with fresh juice?
The Winemaker’s Think Tank?Â
Every Thursday we will post about a few frequently asked questions that our winemaker has answered. If you have a winemaking question you would like to have answered, please email us at support@juicegrape.com and we will try to get into next week’s post. Cheers! 🙂
What do I need to get started making wine with fresh juice?
When elevating your winemaking to the next level, often sourcing the best ingredients is the most direct path to better results. After getting great base experience using wine kits, the next logical step to wine making greatness is fresh juice. When making this change from wine kits to fresh juice, other ingredients may be needed to ensure the juice will reach its greatest potential as wine. First, evaluate your juice for acid (pH) and sugar (Brix). What are the levels present in your juice? If the Brix level is below 20, you may consider adding sugar to increase the Brix levels to 24-26. What is the pH of the wine? Juice should have a pH greater than 3.1 to ensure a successful fermentation. If the pH is higher than 3.8, consider adding tartaric acid. This will ensure a better tasting wine after fermentation as well as a more stable wine.
The next area to consider is yeast. Certain strains of yeast will amplify certain traits within the finished product of wine such as fruit character, spice notes, or floral notes. The yeast has certain parameters that it will ferment best within, so consult a winemaking expert at Musto Wine Grape to help you select the best yeast strain for your wine. The yeast is the important catalyst that will process the grape juice into wine. The yeast will need certain nutrients to best assist it with its fermentation such as a rehydration nutrient like Go Ferm, and subsequent nutrients to finish out the fermentation process such as Fermaid O and Fermaid K. Musto Wine Grape stocks yeast along with all of the aforementioned nutrients in small packages, designed for the individual buckets of juice. This will give you perfectly measured amounts of products to add to your wine, making proper fermentation simple and with no wasted/unused product.
We hope this information helps with your winemaking. If you have any follow up questions or winemaking questions in general, please email us at support@juicegrape.com.Â
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