MYTHMENDING.ENDING

The final battle nears. Since late January, I have coerced grape juice into wine. Yet if I don't begin bottling, it all risks ruin. Pumping oxygen out has carried my wine through weeks of racking. Now I must use the remaining two cleanser packs to purge thirty three bottles of their pasts.
Drinking through the weeks left me with a few bottles. Work provided the rest. I rinsed and scrubbed each. Then my Trojan horse of Sodium Sulfate trumped any resisting bacteria. I re-rinsed everything three more times until the burning subsided. Tired and impatient, I brought in the fan.
Once somewhat dry, my siege-work of bottles were set for the final assault. I attached the bottling "Easy"-Siphon to the racking set, propped the carboy on a chair one last time, and, with help, began filling the bottles...
Messy. The siphon did not work with bottles that had curved punts (bases). Filling the other bottles went too quickly, so I had to manually top up to the necks (otherwise there would be excess air contact with the wine). My hands were bloodied and/or pink, the bathtub battlefield was stained by fallen victims, and tears strewn across my cheeks from the sodium sulfate.
Although only twenty-six bottles could fill, victory lay at hand, so I readied the corker.
Since I had sixty fresh corks from the separate juice and equipment kits, I used both in case one set was defective, thus hoping to save half of my surviving wine...unless both set failed...
Before the cork squeezed into the neck (more or less), I pushed the last oxygen out with the Nitrogen blend. In antiquity, everything from olive oil to still fermenting CO2 kept their wine from spoiling. Today, most bottling is mechanized in temperature controlled environments, and bottles are wholly absent of oxygen. Me...well I might have cleaned the bathroom earlier.
With cruel irony, I put my pseudo-barbaresco into real bottles of Barbaresco (still no reply from the company as to the grape type[s], provenance, or vintage of the grape must). Like Patroclus in Achilles' armor, my wine and I aimed at undue glories.
Rarely did the corks fit the differing bottles sizes (although screw-capped bottles seemed the most forgiving). The last task remained: foil capping. While wine is in storage, vermin love to nibble corks, so wax caps and later foil kept them at bay. Given my poor corking, an extra seal to keep wine off the carpet would not hurt...

Even if it could not hide the corks sticking out of the neck.

Now the bottles needed two days to stand and allow the corks to fully expand. I then took my completed twenty six and laid them rest, so that their corks might remain moist and the wine age.

A few nights later I uncorked a bottle at a friend's pasta party. The wine's levity and fruit went quickly and well, showing none of the blood, tears or kitty litter that went into it.

Thus, then, did they celebrate the wine of mine, tamer of Barbaresco.

ROTA.FORTUNAE

Like fate's turning wheel, my burgeoning Barbaresco cycles to and fro between the glass carboy and fermenting tank, uncertain of its future. For the last week, the Chitosan bonded with the Kieselsol pulling the proteins, dead yeasts and excess junk to the carboy's bottom. Inches of debris now colored the base purple. So I racked the wine, hoping to not need filter pads.
Many winemakers take pride in avoiding filtration. They believe that it thins wine and removes complex flavors that could develop if left to age in bottle. That, and my wine already seemed thinner than any Barbarescos that had ever passed my palate.Racking the wine too many times, however, does risk ruining the end product. If you splash it too much or let oxygen froth into the tube, you get vinegar. So I did my best to be gentle. The grime left at the bottom = success.
The next day, I racked it again.
Although Barbaresco has pedigree, it bears little relation to the wines it claims from antiquity. Not only has the process modernized into a chemist's wet dream, the end products could not be further apart. The wine of antiquity saw massive extraction and addition of spices, honey, fruit and other inebriates like opium. Much was boiled down in lead tanks to increase the sweetness and weight. This sugary, alcoholic monster (akin to Madeira, PX Sherry or Port), was often diluted with water (unless you were a barbarian).No more digressing. Me knocking Barbaresco or antiquity won't make my Canadian Welches taste any better. All I know is that this racking makes me sleepy. Kneeling nearly prostrate before my bucket-o-wine altar I realized, at the heart of crafting wine lies patience, attention and mostly luck.Luckily, the only slough left this time fit into one glass.
I had to taste it. What if the nightly gassing with CO2, Argon and Nitrogen didn't keep oxidation away? What if all the shellfish glue, preservatives, dead yeasts and kitty litter killed the fruity, grape-y decentness that came maybe from Italy, maybe Canada? What if the apartment was too cold or too hot? The bouquet told me that I hadn't screwed up. No mustiness or yeast, just red fruit and floral notes. The appearance lacked haze. Going down everything seemed fine, if a bit bland. Light notes of dried red cherry, cranberry and pepper dust came and went. Alcohol and acidity presented themselves but only to flank the slim-bodied fruit.

Who knows? Maybe re-racking and bottling won't kill it.

TABULA.RASA

Now the step of clearing the wine lay before me. Last week had let the remnant CO2 bubble away. Windows had been cracked and the sun blocked, freezing my wife, but keeping the wine from jumping into a bacterial outbreak of disaster movie proportions.
Inches of grape must and dead yeast now lay at the bottom of the carboy. Tasty. They needed a proper burial, so I re-racked the wine, halting just before I sucked up the purple elmer's glue (melted mcdonald's grimace?) at the bottom.
Annoyingly, yeast corpses and bubbles still persisted. Another racking and stirring was in order. So I reenacted the bathroom scene in Pyscho...
cleansed everything with sulfur, let dry and double checked the specific gravity: 0.997ish...good enough.Once clean and dry, I return the wine to the carboy and begin the stirring. My instructions warn this could take "1 hour to 3 days depending on how much CO2 is present". Seriously?Luckily the bubbles whisk away after a few hours of intermittent stirring. I immediately switch to my chemical packets before too much oxygen sours the wine.
First up, Sodium Metabisulphite: the gods' gift to food preservation (n.b. if you get headaches from wine, don't blame a sulphite allergy, which is as rare as a peanut allergy (a serving of broccoli has more sulphites than a bottle wine anyway). Instead, you either react to the dehydrating effects of alcohol and tannin or the antihistamine inducing cogeners. So eat something, drink less or slower for crying out loud).

With my wine preserved for all time, I switched gears to the fining process. Within mystery packet #5 (what happened to #3 and #4 by the by?) was Kieselsol: a negatively charged silica gel. With the Kieselsol mixed in, I waited a half hour for it to go about negatively charging the yeast cells.
Finally, I squeezed in the Chitosan. This petrollium jelly-like substance comes from crustacean shells (sorry vegetarians). Its positive charge bonds to the negative mess of yeasts and Kieselsol dropping them in clumps to the bottom.

To make sure all this pseudo-chemistry had time to work, I called it a night. A worry lingered however. The instructions advise me to top off the carboy to avoid oxygen turning the wine to vinegar (you might recall that our recently-departed yeasts made CO2, which had kept oxidation at bay). However, watering down the wine or adding another wine sounded like horrible ideas.

"EUREKA"! Instead of squeezing Archimedes down my carboy's two-inch neck, I went in search of glass marbles to increase my wine's volume! Hah! Classics does pay! An hour and a few pet and craft stores later, I returned home empty-handed.

Then I realized: "replace the CO2 with...well...CO2"! I took my handy Private Preserve gas-in-a-can (that I used to keep half-drunken bottles fresh) and gassed my carboy and capped the top with the airlock. The next morning, the ladybug of prophecy signaled my success.

SPLASH SPLASH DEGASS

In the evening, after the yeasts had quieted, I set about setting about my secondary fermentation. I emerged from the sulfuric hot spring (i.e.: cleaning my equipment in the bathroom). Once the reek of rotten eggs lifted and my various tubes dried, I arranged the plastic rubber octopus into action.
My yeasts had done a brilliant job but they needed one last chance to ferment off any remaining sugars. So after a few forced pumps of the tubes and my wife's help, the wine frothed into the clear carboy. The book: "Archaeologies of Memory", edited by Ruth M. Van Dyke & Susan E. Alcock, Malden: 2003, once central to my master's thesis, now served as a better leverage to keep the settled sediment at the back of the fermentation tank and out of my tubes.
The yeasts had dissolved quite a bit of CO2 into the wine during fermentation. Near the end of pouring, a pink but very manly foam developed from this remaining gas. Another week would let it breath off.For the sake of science, we tasted the "wine". The yeasts had left the liquid quite hazy. The nose had gained more red current and apple pie qualities with a harsh metallic ring from the CO2. I took a sip, trying to not dwell on the dead, zombie-like yeast carcasses passing my lips.

The palate was gleefully dry and warmingly alcoholic with not a trace of sweetness (I love you goodly, honest hydrometer). A new but balanced acidity and structure of tannins had become apparent as well. The floral, cherry and red berry notes equally persisted from the last tasting: this all seemed like Barbaresco. Annoyingly, however, the finish closed with a light fizzy and bread-like, sourdough quality.

No bottling yet. Patience, patience. Next week would give the CO2 time to evaporate and the suspended yeast cells time to separate from the wine.

FERMENTATION PERSUASION

Yeast added. Lid shut. Airlock, well, locked. I wait. Austen's Anne Elliot knows how I feel: suffering quietly alone, waiting upon your sugars to become alcohol takes the patience of a truly goodwilled and kind nature. Yeasts, like most gentlemen, are at best conversely inattentive and then later overambitious in character. They must be treated with the ever lightest of attentions, even if one's bloom has vanished early with a rapid increase of the crow's foot about the eye, one might still indulge in the hope of exciting their esteem, thus someday garnering a place amidst their large fortune and...DAY 2: I wake and find the temperature up two degrees. Cracking the lid unveils a foam of Carbon Dioxide from the yeast on the surface. The hydrometer shows the sugars are down 0.004. So I begin the daily stir, giving the yeasts air to breathe. The foam separates and swirls like Jupiter's surface.

Two more days find the yeast cruising through the grape sugars, with the hydrometer bobbing its approval at 1.032 Brix. The apartment smells brilliantly.

The wife takes a turn letting the yeasts breathe.

Once lidded, the airlock pops and bubbles the CO2 safely out of the tank, not letting anything else in. Too much oxygen contact and the wine turns to vinegar or worse breeds invading bacteria.Day 4: A churning thick cap of burping yeasts has formed and Mr. Hydrometer tells me the end is near: 1.020 S.G. I give the wine a heavy last stir and take time to upload more photos.

The fifth day wakes me to a quiet airlock. A layer of lazy froth gets stirred away and the hydrometer dips to 0.999. Secondary Fermentation show time!

FOMENTING FERMENTATION

After a week of work and wait, I prepared for the first fermentation. Step 1: clean like crazy. After a heavy wash of all the equipment, I mixed water and sulphite powder. After fearfully reading and rereading the packet, I stuffed my nose and covered my eyes. Gloves would have been nice, but lacking a biohazard suit I cleaned carefully.
After a fervent rinsing/not bursting into flames, I left the equipment out to dry. Impatient, I poured over the instructions. The translation from Quebecios French was shaky but I had bigger worries.
The linger of sulfur sent me back to the bathtub.With equipment drying again, I lined up the usual chemical suspects.
First to go in, Bentonite, the clay of kitty litter fame.The single page of instructions wouldn't assure me why I wanted cat-tasting wine, so wikipedia came in handy. Supposedly, Bentonite has cleaning and bonding qualities perfect for drawing out unwanted proteins and haziness. However, my instructions asked for "2 litres of warm water". That's a lot of water for 23 litres of wine. So I checked the French, and behold, "500 ml (2 tasses) d'eau tiède".
Once the litter was stirred to near-lumplessness, I grabbed my bag o must and dumped it in. Welches and berry scents wafted into the air but luckily not onto the carpet.
Next came the hydrometer to test the specific gravity/sugar content/brix of the must. Packlab did their job, balancing mother nature to a near perfect 1.080. This is a big deal because the sugar in grapes will become alcohol. Not enough sugar means hungry yeast. Hungry yeast means no alcohol. Which means no wine, just yeasty, kitty-litter-y grape juice.
Next up: bread-making.
Adding yeast is cheating and sacrosanct to some winemakers, who believe in letting the naturally occurring yeasts in the grape skins to turn the sugars into alcohol. Yet most add Mr. Pasteur's genius stroke without blinking (and occasionally forget to filter them later).
So I added yeast to warm water (from, well, my coffee maker). While waiting for them to wake, Alton Brown will catch you up on these guys. My dehydrated yeast fungi zombies from Champagne should thus be resurrected with a little wet warmth. They may not absolve my sins, but once reborn will turn sweet into heat.So I set the timer and went back to staring at the yeast. Nothing. Maybe now? No. Ten minutes later? Nope. But then...thanks entirely to my mind meld...

IT'S ALIVE!!! The air became heady and bready. After stirring it vigorously into the grape must, I clamped the airtight lid onto the food safe trash can, accidentally jammed the grommet into the juice with the airlock and then proceeded to ignore the problem by tasting the leftover juice:

Appearance: clear, ruby, medium intense color
Nose: clean condition, medium intense aroma, grape juice and red apple notes
Palate: high sweetness, low acidity, light body, light tannin, forward blueberry preserves, blackberries, medium length, quality...um juice?

Now the five day wait begins!