Our experiment with sparkling wine has suffered a setback.
No grapes!
The objective of this experiment together in collaboration with Maestro Alfredo was to make a few bottles of sparkling wine with white grape Airen. We (Wines Ambiz) would provide the grapes and wine and Alfredo provide the specific facilities needed for sparkling wine (refrigeration equipment, special shelves for bottles placed upside down, etc) as well as knowledge of how to make the brew itself!
The idea was to set aside a lot of our normal Airen wine (see Note # 1 below), which we have done, and also make a late harvest and ferment this second batch of wine separately. The resulting wine has a higher alcohol content and sugar residual for the second fermentation in the bottle needed for the production of sparkling wines.
Here too there are grapes!
Well, as you can see from the photos, no grapes! We think it will have eaten animals (rabbits, birds) and / or insects. It has not rained much in Madrid from harvesting, apart from a few torrential rains. And the night temperatures have dropped to only a minimum of -8 º C. We do not believe they have been the rain and cold the cause of this. They must have been the animals.
Another strain without grapes
Anyway all is not lost, and we have other options open. The most important thing for me now is to go ahead and produce some sparkling wine the way it is and learn from experience - after all, that's why we're doing all these experiments! I've been waiting for this since last June, and I'm not giving up now!
What we need is a source of sugar for the second fermentation in the bottle. And these are the possibilities that occur to me now (in order of preference):
1. The grapes from our own vineyard (It is not possible now)
2. Organic grapes from a neighbor (difficult if not impossible)
3. Conventional grapes from a neighbor (almost impossible)
4. Grape juice or green juice (?)
5. Grape juice or grape juice conventional (?)
6. Chaptalisation guarri-standard as they do in France (?)
I do not really like any of the alternatives. But there may be other options that I have not seen (yet). It may not even need to have any residual sugar to follow. "? I do not know! I'll have to read a little about the subject, and not leave all responsibility to the poor research topic Alfredo, as I have done so far!
In any case, next year (for surely we will return try next year), we will plan everything more carefully and consider alternative scenarios as well.
strains And no grapes!
Note # 1 Our Airen "normal", that is the kind of wine that have been doing for 8 years has gone very well this year - I know because I organized an informal tasting on Friday December 3 (the post on the subject is coming soon) and really liked the staff! We will present est Airen 'normal' tasting we have arranged on Monday December 13, at 20 am in Madrid (CSO La Tabacalera , Glorieta de Embajadores. See 'Events' on my Facebook page with the name "Natural and Organic Wine Tasting."
(translated by Ignacio Segovia )
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