Tool + Wine = Blood Into Wine

Maynard James Keenan, frontman of the band Tool, is making wine in Arizona. And he's made a documentary about it, Blood Into Wine. Here's the trailer:



Sadly, it's not showing in Seattle. Still, neat.

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Glögg For What Ails Ya

Continuing with the hot spiced posts!

So we live in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle, which although experiencing rapid and, in some corners unwelcome change, has historically been the Scandinavian heart of town. And it's still pretty easy to get a glass of Glögg around the neighborhood this time of year. Pronounced 'glug' with a 'u' like in "turtle", it's a hot, spiced, and often fortified wine that, for many, is a winter staple. I mulled some mead last year, and it was ok, but I've never made Glögg. So I figured what better way to celebrate my near-total lack of Scandinavian heritage than by taking a crack at it.

There are about a million recipes for Glögg. But in the words of Jeremy Clarkson, "I was on the Internet and I found this..." Looking at several recipes I went with this one from a gentleman by the name of Craig "Meathead" Goldwyn. What attracted me was his reference to a historical recipe, fortification of the wine, and the idea of making enough to bottle it, so you just heat some up when you want it, rather than making a whole batch every time. Brilliant!

Ingredients:

• 1.5 liters of cheap, dry red wine. I used a WA Cab Sav that was $10.
• 1.5 liters of port. I used one bottle of Whidbey's, a $14 WA fortified wine made by Chateau Ste Michelle from their Cold Creek vineyard and probably too nice for this application, and a bottle of Sheffield, a cheap CA port (Gallo) that was $7.
• .375 liters of brandy. His recipe calls for .750ml, but only uses half. It's a bit confusing. Unless I was supposed to add the whole bottle and he just left that part out. So I just added to taste before it was done, which was about half the bottle total. I used a cheap VSOP, probably $14.
• 10" of cinnamon sticks. I was suffering from stick envy and only had about 3", so I put a heaping teaspoon of ground cinnamon in to make up for the missing inches. DO NOT DO THIS. It just makes unpleasant grit at the bottom of your glass. Boo I say. Boo.
  
• 15 cardamom pods, cracked with a pan.
• 24 whole cloves
• 1 orange peel. Used a potato peeler to take it off a navel orange. Avoid going too deep and getting the white layer, it's bitter.
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 1 cup blanched almonds. I picked up some blanched, slivered almonds in the bulk aisle.
• 2 cups sugar

Ok. Wine and port go into a large pot. Add all the spices, the raisins, and the almonds. (It's probably a good idea to put the spices in a tea ball, or cheesecloth, to make separating them from the almonds and raisins easier later. I didn't do this and paid for it later.) Bring it up to about 120-30 and hold it there for about an hour. 'Simmer' on my stove worked pretty well. Remember, ethanol boils at 173 degrees. An hour at a near boil would significantly reduce the amount of alcohol in the wine. You wouldn't want to boil all the alcohol away now would you?

Meanwhile, in another smaller pot heat the 2 cups sugar and about half the bottle of cognac slowly until it starts to form large bubbles and is properly starting to caramelize. Remember: alcohol vapors can ignite, so don't go too hot on this one. Once it's caramelized nicely, into the large pot.

After an hour taste it. You can add more brandy or sugar to taste, I added about 100 ml more brandy. I think it's plenty of sugar. You could strain it and serve it now to a party full of thirsty family members on a frosty Christmas Eve, or to co-workers you don't particularly like and want to watch make fools of themselves at the company holiday party.

Or you could bottle it. He says to bottle while it's still hot, but I get the impression that he's reusing corks. Just shoving them in there. But I have a proper wine corker. And corking them while hot seems like it will just create a vacuum that will suck the cork further into the bottle. So I strained and let mine cool down to about 90 before I bottled. We'll see if cooling sucks the corks in any more. By the way, you could totally use beer bottles if you only have a crown capper. Or just shove an old cork in the bottle and drink it quickly.

I used four bottles, and you can reuse the bottles the wine came in. Didn't bother sanitizing anything, just made sure the bottles were clean. This high octane wine and will be drank by New Years. But I imagine a year in the cellar might meld things nicely, so I may make a batch for storage. Those bottles will be more thoroughly sanitized. When I was done I stuck some shrink capsules on, you know, just to be fancy.

Doing precise calculations is a bit difficult, particularly where sugar additions and heating, and thus water and alcohol evaporation, were involved. But I figure 1.5 liters of 13.5% wine, 1.5 liters of 18.5% port, and .375ml of 40% brandy works out to about 18.5% ABV. If you added the whole .750 of brandy it would be closer to 21%. Now that's a treat for Santa!

How is it? Outstanding. Delicious. Frankly, way better than the Wassail. Warm, spicy, nice oxidized-port notes, warming brandy finish, sweet but not too sweet, pleasantly orangy. The cardamom is a great addition.

With four bottles I've pretty much got Christmas covered, but I'm thinking I may do another 8 or so to get through the Winter. I figure I could make that much for about $50. Not too bad, considering that's over a gallon and a half of 18.5% spiced wine. In Scandinavia it is also made with aquavit. I'm thinking of getting another bottle of Linie and giving it a try. And I'll be saving the leftover raisins and almonds for something later in the week.

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Good For Wassail's Ya

Sunday was Chore Day. It has to happen. We all hate it. The bathroom needs cleaning. The kitchen's a mess. The bills need paying. There's four kegs and two draught lines waiting to be cleaned out, and a beer needs racking. Laundry threatens to engulf us all. The cat disappeared into the recycling a week ago and hasn't been seen since. Sometimes things just need to get done.

But who says you have to do it sober? And nothing spruces up wintertime chores like Wassail.

A week or so ago Alton Brown did a Good Eats Christmas Special that is easily one of the best episodes in years. My favorite part is where he and Santa are besieged by militant Elizabethan Christmas Carolers. Back in the day, Christmas had a lot more in common with Halloween, including a sort of Trick-or-Treat in which carolers would wassail around singing for food, money and ale (with an implicit "Pay up or we set fire to your Carriage House.") Once they start throwing rocks through his window and wheel up a catapult, Alton and Santa make up a batch of wassail to appease them with.

Here's the recipe.

We made up a 1/3 batch, because well it was just the two of us, too much of a good thing, yadda yadda. For Madeira we used a terrifying, cheap, evil Madeira because that was all Safeway had. For apples, Galas, because that's what we had.

For ale, Deschutes Jubelale because:

1. All "Winter Warmer" type beers in the NW are descendants of English Old Ales, which historically, being brewed around harvest in the Fall, would have been brewed stronger and saved in the cellar till Winter and Spring or even longer. As such they'd probably be the ale involved in Wassail.
2. It was on sale for $10.50 a case. w00t!
3. As I remembered, Jubelale is more English than most PNW winter beers, which tend to be hoppier. Wellllllll maybe they changed the recipe. In the wassail the beer became a bit too bitter. Next time I'd use a sweet, caramelly British import like Old Speckled Hen, Samuel Smith's Nut Brown or Taddy Porter, or Newcastle.
   

Otherwise, pretty delicious. And it certainly made the chores go faster! Too bad it didn't snow though.

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Punching Down The Cap - Sokol Blosser

So my vineyard guy sent me this link to a video of his son punching down the cap on some pinot for Sokol Blosser.



Contact with the grape skins is what gives red wine its color and tannin profile. But the skins will float to the top, buoyed on the carbon dioxide from the fermentation, and must be punched back down to increase contact with the fermenting must and prevent the top or "cap" from getting crusty and gross from prolonged air exposure.

Good toy. And an interesting peek behind the scenes at an excellent winery.

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Brewday: 2009 Riesling

Sunday was the Riesling crush. Just as with the Pinot Gris, I'd ordered the grapes from Doug Schaad of Schaad Vineyards down in the Chehalem Mountain AVA in Oregon.

Remember that storm the PNW had little over a week ago? Apparently things were tough for Doug and his son, who were up harvesting Pinot Noir before dawn on the 16th and didn't stop until it was done. Which apparently was worth it, the next day the rain made truck access to the vineyard impossible.

It's going to be a weird year for Chehalem Pinot Noir. A long dry sunny summer was great for the grapes. Wineries in the area were reporting harvesting at 26 or more brix, one even reported 28! (1.116!) At that sugar level these will be some high-octane wines, and it's going to take skill to keep the alcohol from overpowering the fruit. It could be a great vintage, or terrible, depending on the vintner. We'll have to wait and see!

Well a week later the Riesling was harvested. Rieslings are usually lower sugar, with high TA and low pH. No exception here, though the O.G. was a bit low. The grape clusters were a bit "rain attenuated" due to the weather, meaning there were rainwater drops within the clusters which diluted the pressed juice. Oh well. It was 20 brix at pressing, (1.080 for the homebrewers out there), so it should end around 10.5% ABV. I don't really like crazy dry Rieslings either, so I'll probably back-sweeten it a bit to near-dry and I may blend some of it into some of the Pinot Gris.

This time I only bought 100 pounds, so I got it home in a full 5 gallon carboy and two growlers. Sometimes having too many growlers works out. Took TA and pH readings, did the sulfite calculations, added 2.5 campden tablets. The must went into the lagering fridge overnight, where my Baltic Porter is currently hanging out at 36 degrees. This allowed the cold to drop a lot of the solids out of the must, as you can see here. I then racked off into a 6.5 gallon carboy and pitched two packets of Lalvin Narbonne, rehydrated with 14gm of GoFerm.

It's taken off finally, after lagging a day. But Riesling ferments should be long (up to three weeks or more) and cold so I'm not too worried. My little fermenting room is holding around 60 at night and 64 during the day, and it's the best I can do. Next year I'll make sure no lagers are going and use the fridge, set at around 55. I am also going to do reds next year, Pinot Noir and maybe Marechal Foch, and I'll have to find a way to heat those up to 80...

So it will sit and chug along for a couple weeks, then I'll rack it and begin settling it. Hopefully it will be in the bottles within six months.

Riesling is one of those varietals that is clearly terroir expressive, so I look forward to doing a head to head next year between mine, an Eroica from Chateau Ste. Michelle and one from Germany or the Alsace.

Everett Cellars Riesling 2009

• 20 Brix
• Initial TA .75
• pH 3.0
  

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2009 Pinot Gris

Last Sunday I pressed the grapes for my first wine from whole grapes! I've made several batches of wine from kits before, a Viognier and a Sav Blanc, and they turned out quite well. Making kit wine is actually very easy, and relatively cost effective. I figured it cost me around $3 a bottle, so if I made wine that tasted like it was worth more than that then it was a success! And it was.

This year though I went all out and am making two batches of wine straight from the grape. I got in contact with a man named Doug Schaad, owner of Schaad Vineyards. He's been supplying quality grapes to small-scale and home winemakers in the Seattle area for decades now. When I showed up he greeted me looking like a country doctor fresh in from an afternoon's flyfishing in some storybook Garrison Keillor-esq Minnesota. Which is funny, because he actually is a doctor and faculty at UW Med School and is very into fishing. But he was friendly and helpful to a somewhat confused newbie like me. His vineyard is next door to Rex Hill's vineyard in the Chehalem Mountain AVA of Oregon, which is a sub-AVA of the greater Willamette AVA and about 20 miles outside of Portland. The AVA has some other notable wineries, Adelsheim and Ponzi are there, as well as Momokawa Sake's brewery. It's known for Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris and Chardonnay. Though I had the option of getting some Pinot Noir, I'm taking it a bit easy on this first run and will only be doing whites this year. Next year I'll take what I learned, plus a winter's worth of study and anxious anticipation, and make some kickass Pinot Noir.

First up was Pinot Gris. The first grapes to ripen in the AVA are often the Pinot Gris and sure enough mine were ready to be pressed and picked up on Sunday. The first step was going through the 70 pound tubs of grapes to select the ones I wanted, then guestimating the amount I'd need to get a good 5 gallons out of it. I went with 110 lbs and we loaded the grapes up and sent them through the Crushinator. Seriously, the crusher-destemmer is a monstrously cool toy. Near as I can tell you load grapes in the top, then tiny gremlins crush the grapes, spitting them out into one bucket, then shoot the now grapeless stem cluster out into another bucket. Magic! (Actually it is a combination of rollers that crush the grapes and a drum with holes in it that lets the grapes fall through, then spits out the stem. Or gremlins, whichever you prefer.)

We then loaded the grapes into the press. Sampled some of Doug's wine. Collected the free run juice. Sampled some more wine. Started pressing. More wine... You get the picture. I had brought a 6.5 gallon carboy figuring it would be enough for my 5-ish gallons. Well the juice just kept coming and coming. By the end I had borrowed a carboy and was at 7 gallons. Maybe 110 lbs was too much. Meh. My only worry is running out of carboys, they are ALL in use right now. It's ridiculous.

So the numbers.

Everett Cellars 2009 Pinot Gris

• 23.5 Brix (1.099 SG)
• pH at pressing = 3.18
• Titratable Acidity (TA) of must = .65 g/100ml
• Estimated Final ABV = 13.5 to 13.8% alcohol
  

So as you can see the acidity is a bit low (.7 to .9 is more normal for dry whites) and the Brix is a bit high, which is pretty standard for Gris. The wines tend to be fruity, fairly high in alcohol but with lower acidity than say, a dry Riesling. I may tweak the TA a bit later but right now I'm just letting 'er rip. Also I have to note that I got the pH and TA readings later from Doug. Turns out the Sodium Hydroxide in my acid titration kit expired two years ago. Ooops. And my pH strips are only accurate +/- .1 pH. Which doesn't seem like a lot. But I couldn't tell if it was 3.1 or 3.2, and due to the logarithmic progression of pH that .1 is a fairly important difference. It also is very important in adding the correct amount of sulfite, as its effectiveness is pH dependent.

But I got the must home, did the tests, sulfited the must, stuck the carboys in the lagering fridge for 24 hours, racked off the solids that sank to the bottom, then pitched the yeast. I used two packets of Lalvin D-47, rehydrated in warm water and 7 grams GoFerm per packet. Today I added 7 grams total Fermaid K to the carboys to really get the fermentation going. And it is. I've got some very bubbly carboys in the basement.

Fortunately we get to drink this one young! A couple weeks of fermentation, then racking and clarifying, then into bottles and we start drinking it within about 3-4 months probably.

Up next I have some of his Riesling on order. Last week the grapes were only at 19 Brix so they've got a way to go yet. Hopefully two more weeks should do it. Cross your fingers and hope for good weather down there!

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