Westchester Amateur Winemakers Club

Making that GSM in 2012

Gene Fiorot — Thu, 17 May 2012 21:54:22 +0000

Our quest for making GSM have been documented here before. Going back to 2007 we tried to obtain the best fruit for this type of wine. Frank Musto of the M&M Grape Company has been working with us trying to obtain the fruit we wanted. Actually if we wanted to make a predominate Syrah based GSM that would not have been that difficult as Lanza Wooden Valley Vineyards have a very nice Syrah. But my personal mission was two fold. One to make a more Languedoc style wine needed more Grenache and second to make a Grenache Noir that could not be mistaken for White Zinfandel.

In 201o we thought we had a serious shot at some extraordinary 75 year old vine Grenache Noir from the Grand Pare Vineyard in Amador. But the one and only pallet was misplaced at a “Famous” packer and shipper. In 2011 we tried again but we lost the grapes to the weather. Instead M&M sourced us really nice Grenache from Paso Robles.

So here we are as 2012 approaches we still have our eye on the Grand Pare. But there may be another source for this elusive grape. Washington State. I am sure we will be having a conversation about this with Frank Musto but for now here is a very interesting article on Grenache from Washington. This may be what we are looking for…..Click here

Poor Man’s Enolmaster or Rich Man’s Enolmatic

Gene Fiorot — Mon, 07 May 2012 20:57:22 +0000

Sometimes things are too easy to ignore. I know my friend Cellar Rat is contemplating purchasing a Six Bottle Filler with electronic float control to use with his Diaphragm Pump. I can’t blame him but he is going to incur a very large expense to obtain a filler that has electronic control for his pump. The Ball and Float valve variety is a heck of a lot cheaper even when you cost factor in a pressure sensitive switch pump like the Sure Flo Even so I still have some reservations about a gravity system using a pump or not because you still are not sparging the bottles of O2 when filling them. ( probably not that big a deal )

The fact of the matter is the Enolmatic has served Amateur Winemakers for the past 20 years. It is a great machine that has proven reliability and easing maintained and repaired. It has however become a tad expensive in the 375-400 dollar range. While it works well, a good floor corker person can outstrip its ability to provide filled bottles with out some wait. Actually a good corker person can keep up with 2 Enolmatics.

Then there is the issue of cost. I posted recently a very nice smaller system that can do the job. This could save the small scale winemaker not only a few hundred in dollars but will also provide a pump for transfers and racking. Hard to beat that deal for 200.00 The AllInOneWinePump.com is something that can fit the needs of a novice and a medium producer very nicely. Besides it is 100% USA made product.

Getting back to the reason for this post. I am in the market for a pneumatic semi-automatic corker. I anticipate that I will be able to cork at a much higher rate than I am able to do now while saving a bursitis attack in my shoulder or elbow. I thought about the multi-spout units then it hit me. I already own 2 Enolmatics and a heavy duty vacuum pump I used for racking. Why not make an Enolmaster Multi-Nozzle Unit. I settled on 3 nozzles instead of 4. I can use the overflow tank of the Enolmatic or a gallon jug. For the vacuum I can use either my Enolmatic unit itself or I can use my vacuum pump.

After you look at the design it should occur to you that you can build a One Nozzle Unit using a small vacuum pump and gallon over flow for a lot less than an Enolmatic. Just a thought for Guys that are handy. And the best part is they won’t have to borrow mine anymore. Woo Hoo!!!!

At first I was going to fabricate a unit with one upright and a long cross tee with individual bars to off the cross tee to mount the nozzles. This design would have included a method to adjust the height of the main upright to allow for different size bottles. When I started to take measurements I realize that the differences between bottles were not that different. So I decided to simplify the entire design and go with 3 stationary uprights instead. After careful measuring I add a second set of holes for the shorter Burgundy bottles and the occasional Bordeaux bottles with little or no punt that tend to be about 3/4 of an inch shorter.

The Nozzles mounted nicely on the 1 inch square tubing. It could be a tad less wide but the levers fit ok. I also got the original Roller Pin and Knob. I have discovered that Glass and Aluminum don’t like each other when sliding together inserting a bottle under the nozzle. I will have to add a thin sheet of plastic or Teflon to make the bottle side better. As you can see I will use the standard Enolmatic table clamp, one on each side of the base.

From the back you can see I used cross hose barbs for the supply and the vacuum lines. I left extra length to attach to the overflow vessel and enough hose to attach to the Enolmatic Tandem Filter Canister. If not filtering I can join it to my Tri Clamp hose and go directly to a Tank in the Storage Room or a Blending Tank in the same room.

As I said above Glass Bottles don’t slide very well on Aluminum. SO I purchased some UHMW which is know for its anti wear, self lubricating character and slippery surface. Problem solved.

Email me if you need any other details or information

Enolmatic An Alternative

Marty Yule — Sun, 06 May 2012 14:53:13 +0000

I was reading a Winemaking Forum that was new to me. WinemakingTalk.com and I ran across an item that you may be interested in.

Some of our members don’t have or have put off purchasing an Enolmatic. For the past 20 years up to now no one marketed a reasonable alternative to the Enolmatic. Finally there is one and it is reasonably priced. The All In One Wine Pump works using a vacuum pump just like the Enolmatic. It does not have the Nozzle but relies on using a bottle bung with an inlet and outlet for overflow. Simplicity is key and with no moving parts other than the pump it will be reliable for the long term.

I know some members here that bottle on a small scale are needing a system. They should consider this alternative. What is even better is the manufacturer also sells all the accessories needed to achieve the same results if you have your own vacuum pump. So for roughly 60 dollars you can get what you need to make your own system. You can’t beat that.

The website has a video that demonstrates the operation and here is a link to reviews of the system Click Here

Suisun Valley gets Recognition Wooden Valley Leads the Way

Gene Fiorot — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 13:16:09 +0000

It is no suprise to us about the terrific fruit we have been getting from Suisun Valley since 2007. As East Coast Winemakers we are not only aware but experienced with multiple varietals and vintages of wines made from the Vineyards of Wooden Valley, Tembrink, Koch and Seibe. The efforts of Ron Lanza and the Suisun Grape Growers Association with the driving force of distribution of Frank Musto and the M&M Grape Company of Hartford has made all this possible. Our wines are fantastic!

It is nice to see that on the West Coast they are catching up with what we already know. Starting with a Double Gold Medal for a 2009 Wooden Valley Petite Sirah the Brothers Lanza have done it again with a much respected review of their Cabernet Sauvignon. What makes it better is many of us have our own vintages of wines from this fruit in our cellars.

Congratulations to the Lanza Family and Wooden Valley for receiving such a wonderful review in the Sacramento Bee by well respected author Mike Dunne. Here is the review. Click Here

The 2012 Westchester Amateur Winemakers Spring Wine Tasting Dinner Extravaganza

Gene Fiorot — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 13:08:07 +0000

It was a fantastic night! MORE Pictures to follow !!!!!!!!

Some of the Wines Only some of them!

Chef Paul Caputo of Risorante Chianti

Steve the Barbarian is happy. Whew!

Proud Puppy thinks he sees Marty Yule Oh No take cover!

Gene and Paul Gatti

Ron Lanza assuring Gene he will get the best grapes for his Guys

I am Frank Musto and I know we don't throw parties like this in Ct.

Commercial vs Amateur

Al Brush Battista and Anthony Forte

Some how I have to get this wine in my Smart Phone.

Dan Lodico from the Finger Lakes Division of the Club listens on as Frank Musto and Patsy Boiano of the Arthur Ave Market discuss Produce

The Telepompter was broken I felt like Obama Not

Gene discussing with Frankie Juice and Nick Copolla his plans to be the MC at the next Amenti Vino Competition Dinner

The Westchester Amateur Winemakers Club and Ristorante Chianti

Presents

The 2012 Spring Wine Tasting Extravaganza

honoring Ron Lanza and Frank Musto

April 25 Two Thousand and Twelve at 7:30 pm

Our host

Master Chef Paul Caputo

Antipasti

Vongole Oreganata

Spiedini alla Romana

Asparagi con Salame e Provolone alla Vodka

Zucchini con Soppressato e Mozzarella alla Arrabbiata

Pane della Casa Gina Marie

Primi Piatti

Orecchiette con Rapini e della Salsiccia

Pappardelle con Vitello in Salsa di Pomodoro Basilico

Intermezzo

Sorbetto

Secondi Piatti

Pollo Scarpariello

Vitello Milanese

Tilapia Incrostato di Pistacchio e Rucola Citrus

Dolce

Cannoli Sorpresa

But Will There Be Any Grapes For Us?

Gene Fiorot — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 19:45:44 +0000

In the past few days I have read about the impending grape shortage in California. I know that Frank Musto of the M&M Grape Company and Ron Lanza of Lanza Vineyards are committed to providing us with Grapes this Fall but all these recent articles certainly gives one pause. Simply the future of wine grape supplies are tight and will remain so for years to come. No growing area is immune to this demand. Those who depend on and are limited to Central Valley Varietals will feel a serious pinch as well. Shipping costs won’t help either with fuel prices where they are now. ( I am trying very hard not to get political here) But these seem to be the facts as they are today. All we need is a bad growing season and then all bets are off. Here are a few news stories that have appeared in the last few days….

Click here

Spring 2012 in the Micro Winery on Kimball

Gene Fiorot — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 14:29:40 +0000

Are you kidding me? What a blast! Converting my operation to what could be best described as, “Creating a Micro Winery” I am very excited. Better yet to all the old timers that gave up and now make juice. Guess what? Not necessary. But a lot of you were lazy bastards to begin with. So it is no surprise here. We get it. But for the sake of Real Serious Amateurs don’t pollute the environment. Just go to Corrados and be happy. Wineman2008 let Gary take you in case you get can’t find your way.

OK OK enough of the politics NOW let’s talk ……

Tanks and more Tanks. Tanks are like carboys You have to have quite a few. Mission accomplished with the last one going to the welder this week. I would like to think I will never use a carboy again but that is not a reality. I will get very close to that goal but I am sure I will need a few for small batch varietals. However I will have the capacity to MLF 4 varietals for a total of 275 gallons while at the same time storing 4 varietals up to 250 gallons and have 160 gallon capacity in the fermenting area for initial pressing and racking. That with the Zambelli Pump I can move wine in any direction. Perfect! Which brings me to the Black Bladders. After buying 5 of them, I can tell you Don’t. Black Bladders are like Bicycle Tubes. They lose air! There is no comparison to the original urethane bladder which is so tight I have not touched the pump on one tank for the last 2 months and not even a ¼ pound loss on the liquid filled guage. I cannot speak about the white bladders as they were out of stock and I could not obtain them. If you are welding covers have the welder use a plate to absorb heat all around the ferrule this will result in Warp Free Covers. So much for tanks…

Where is the S02? Sometimes ignorance is bliss. For all those years of making wine and bottling wine that has remained in good condition in a bottle for up to 10 years it never occurred to me that I was a Sulfite Free Winemaker. Well almost. What has been the regimen? But first , no I never owned a AO system but I have used the Titrets and thought they were good enough. Until we got the Vinmetrica. It usually worked like this 40 ppm after MLF rack another 40ppm after the Spring Rack and into the barrel. Using the Vinmetica on my Georges III Cab Sav was enlightening. With the wine in a new 59 French Oak Barrel we tested the wine after one year. 10ppm. Panic sets in so we add another 40 ppm we test again after six months 10 ppm HUH! We don’t want to but we add another 40 ppm. We check the machine it is working. We now have 50 ppm. Now after two years we are finally ready to bottle. So I send the wine up to the Cornell Lab for testing and the results floor me. Less than 5 ppm. So where is all the So2 going? I emailed Greg Perrucci here is his response…. “I see this with new barrels. The o2 transfer is very high. I also don’t worry too much about so2 in the sealed barrel. I want the o2 through the wood to react with the wine not the so2. Our typical adds are .8 mol after MLF and not again until blending and again before bottling. We go almost two years with zero free”

Lesson learned. By the way Vinmetrica has a new multi function model.

Another interesting thing resulted in getting the Lab results. We started at 25 brix and ended up after 2 years with 13.3% I assume we could have lost some in the Barrel for 2 years but fermenting at 25 brix or a tad higher is not going to make me pause in the future.

Anyway these are the lessons learned this Spring here. By the way the GIII is kickin’! Thanks Al Brush Battista for the help in bottling.

ZinfandelGuy has been banned by Winepress.us!!!!

Marty Yule — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 01:18:36 +0000

Yes it is true our own WestchesterWinemakers.com Club Member ZinfandelGuy has been banned by Winepress.us. This makes to date every member of this club having been banned due to their relationship with Marty Yule, me the Leader. No details of the banning are available nor was any reason given by the woosebags at Winepress. We have monitored all of ZinfandelGuys posts and to be sure banning was not necessary, except for pointing out that Wineman2008 is an asshole. Can’t really blame him for that, heck it’s true! In fact one can only say “ What a bunch of Pussies” We as a Club will continue the infiltration of Winepress .us on a regular basis. Why? For nothing else but to recruit new members and to provide a thorn in the side of the self righteous assholes at Winepress.us who think they are somehow better than us. At least ZinfandelGuy recruited Dan Lodico in his efforts. Good Job Zin Guy! The infiltration will continue and as usual we will continue to be the source of reliable information concerning Amateur Winemaking and always the first to provide information regarding the leading grape distributor in the United States of America the M&M Grape Company FOR ALL OF THOSE WHO NEED COMIC RELIEF CLICK HERE

The upcoming 2012 Grape Season… A preview from the M&M Grape Company

Gene Fiorot — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 13:07:57 +0000

In case you missed this on their site here is a letter to all of us from Nick Coppolla.
Dear Wine Grape Buyer,

Here we are in March. For many of us, we are still steering our wines from this past fall towards their greatest possible potential. For others, thoughts of the upcoming Chilean season has them contemplating just how much space there is in the cellar to accommodate that spring wine and maybe another tank or barrel might be in order.

Unless you are a winery or M&M Wine Grape Co., the thought of the fall 2012 harvest likely lingers off in the distance. Likewise, normally we would not be taking this time to form a communication regarding this upcoming Fall season. Yet, we are receiving significant information that warrants our communicating what we believe may be unprecedented demand within the grape market and a multi-year trend ahead of us.

What we are bracing for in 2012 (and saw in 2011) has been in the making for some time. Several years ago, the wine grape market was upside-down. Growers had more grapes in tonnage and acreage than wineries had interest. Wineries pulled back on contracts leaving growers with significant tonnage and no home for it. In some cases, the grapes simply rotted on the vines. In response, grape growers did a number of things including identifying other markets and reducing their vine acres. It simply did not make fiscal sense to manage more acres than whose yield could be sold.

Enter harvest year 2011. A combination of increased foreign demand and a renewed interest by wineries results in price increases across the board on top varietals such as Zinfandel, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Merlot. Couple this with a low crop set and less than perfect growing and harvest conditions and we see a grape shortage and inflated grape prices. The trouble is that the appetites of those interested parties were not sated. Going into 2012 the response has been that wineries are clamoring for grapes, making generous offers and in some cases are proposing several year contracts.

By now, someone who is reading this as a winery representative outside of California or a home winemaker might be wondering “how this will affect me?”. What will this do to availability of grapes and more importantly the price of grapes, juice, and must? You should know that we, at M&M Wine Grape Co., are paying close attention to this situation and are readying our options. For starters, we have already received confirmation through our network of suppliers that there will be wine grapes available through M&M Wine Grape Co. both this spring through our Chilean wine grape program and this fall via our North American/European program. Our network of partners understand that in order to maintain “the bridges” that have been built, options will need to be made available for M&M and its customers. The wine industry is not isolated to California and M&M Wine Grape Co. is a leader in representing the interests of wineries and winemakers outside of California.

As with most products, the Chilean wine grapes have been trending upward in price likely due to the growth of the market and Chile’s own winery demand that has not reached balance since the earthquakes in 2010. Even at rates slightly higher than that of 2011, the Chilean grapes remain a good value for the price.

Looking ahead to this fall, it is just too early to say what may or may not happen, though, indicators point to potential shortages and higher prices.

Throughout this year and into the fall harvest we will continue to update you on the state of affairs with wine grapes. We will also do our best to identify some strong buying options that may exist. With a little flexibility, resourcefulness, and some favorable treatment by Mother Nature we will do as we have been doing all along and that is to meet and exceed the needs of our customers.

Nick Coppola

M&M Wine Grape Co.

03/21/2012

The M&M Grape Company Expands the Chilean Grape Offerings UPDATE 4/5/12

Gene Fiorot — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 19:23:41 +0000

Louis Carrasco, the grower wrote to Frank Musto…..”

I am at the vineyard now checking the grapes. This is an unusual year, at the begining it was hot so grapes were maturing fast, now it is cooling down so they have slowed down. This means some varietites are 25 Brix but the seeds are not fully mature yet,others are almost ready. So I will start harvesting this coming Tuesday and will continue without stopping so all varieties will be ready in 10 harvest days.”

Frank Musto wrote to me …..”Fyi, it’s getting close. It is great to have this type of control, and grower commitment looking over our product !! Luis is very contentious, he could ship the grapes based on sugar levels, but he is concerned about maturity. Now that is the sign of a good grower. It is like having a Ron Lanza in Chile. In this business it is all about the relationship….”

Good for you Frank!! That’s why you are the best in the business.

The Reds have started to be harvested as of Tuesday April 3 2012 Waiting for numbers

It is good news for East Coast Winemakers making Chilean Grapes this season. Frank Musto never letting grass grow under his feet has expanded the offerings of grapes from Chile again for a second consecutive season. Last year it was grapes from the Bio Bio Valley. This year it is the Santa Cruz Valley.

Last year Club Members made the Bio Bio Malbec and it is coming along beautifully. One can only imagine what opportunity the Santa Cruz Valley Grapes will bring to winemakers this year. I have received a few emails about making wines from Chile. I thought it would be a good idea to start this posting so anyone could feel free to discuss the topic. I know many of our members have experience making Chilean Grapes and will want to share their knowledge.