Series A Fund Raise

  

Winery Expansion

  

Security is the future

  

MMA Gym Start-Up

  

Changing the Game

  

Ronis Mac Bar Franchise

  

I want to acquire a dental clinic

  

Help starting a candle business from home

  

Pre-startup with best potential

  

Edooket - Because Education should be Free and Efficient

  

 

Pennsylvania Investment Network

Home


Recent Blogs


Pitching Help Desk


Testimonials

"Thank you very much for the extra input with my Restaurant/Nightclub proposal. I already have a couple investors who are requesting more info, and that's less than 24hrs after submitting the proposal to you. I am very pleased."
Rodrick Agcaoili

 BLOG >> Recent

Garage Mini-Winery: Part 4 [Agriculture] 
Posted on November 8, 2016 @ 09:39:00 AM by Paul Meagher

My Garage Mini-Winery project is now into production so I though I would provide an update on where things stand and what my vinification plans are. For some project background, you can consult part 1, part 2 and part 3 of this series.

My total farm wine production for this year is shown in this video. The video shows the current state of my wine making room and the process I use to "punch down" my red wine during primary fermentation. Some vinters also refer to this activity as "maceration".

Overall I'm quite happy with the harvest-to-fermentation steps so far. I don't think there were any major faults except perhaps that my grapes didn't come in at 22-24 brix, but mostly in the 17-18 brix range. That is to be expected given that I am growing on the northern margins of where you can grow grape vines. While they may not have achieved full brix, I do think they reached physiological maturity and when this happens you get a tasty balanced grape even through it may not be as high a sugar content as they get in California.

A decision could have been made to ferment without adding sugar but I opted to add sugar to bring the wine into normal levels of alcohol content (12-14) for red wines. I also added as small an amount of water as needed to achieve the appropriate volume of wine needed to maximize wine production in each 5 gallon fermenter.

When you decide to standardize on 5 gallon pails then you can refine your protocols for dealing with that specific size batch. You know how many campden tablets to add to each pail, how much pectic enzyme, how much yeast nutrient, how much potassium sorbate, sugar, water and yeast. There is no reason you can't do this process as good as a big winery with more expensive equipment and facilities.

Future vinification plans involve keeping the fermentation room at 23 C / 73 F for another month, then adding potassium sorbate to stop any further fermentation and as a preservative. The room will be kept at this temp for a few more days so the sorbate can coat the yeast with a covering to stop reproduction. The room will then be non-heated and will go into cold stabilization for a couple of months with a racking in between. The cold-stabilization will be used to deacidify the wine which is in my opinion one the most serious wine faults that can happen to wine in this climate. After cold-stabilizaton the wine will be moved to a cellaring area that I will have ready in the spring (basement of our 170 year old farm house). Temperature in the rock cellar will be around 4 C / 39 F all the time without any attempt to use energy to achieve those temperatures or the appropriate humidity levels. The only temperature cost during this process is to keep the winery heated during primary and secondary fermentation.

What guides me in my wine making is not a vision of making a perfect wine, but rather a wine without any serious faults, a wine that is drinkable. I am not going to take any risks in the process, no funky departures from established protocols at my level of knowledge and wine making ability. Solid execution all the way through, and getting stuff built as lean as possible, is what I'm after. This will be an organic wine as far as I'm concerned because the farm the grapes are growing on was organic before I bought it and I've done no spraying or fertilizing or soil tillage to maintain the grape vines. A small glass of this wine would ideally be a sociable health drink.

My vineyard production this year is not that impressive. I expect production from the vineyard to double next year and then double again as the 2 to 4 year old vines mature and become more productive. I will also have apple trees coming online in the next couple of years that can be used to make apple cider. As a licensed farm mini-winery with the required amount of producting vineyard acreage (2 acres), I can then buy local fruit like blueberries from local growers and vinify that. My garage mini-winery is a critical learning step before I build my next winery at the site of the farm. I'm hoping it will also help with the winery/wine certification process which I might start in the next few months (another set of milestones).

It has been a 5 year process to get to the current stage of this venture and there are many more steps required before I have an official mini-winery license and an ability to sell wine at my farm. Lots can still go wrong. What I do know is that my goal seems more doable as I keep achieving new milestones (cost effectively) and the goal closes in.

Permalink 

 Archive 
 

Archive


 November 2023 [1]
 June 2023 [1]
 May 2023 [1]
 April 2023 [1]
 March 2023 [6]
 February 2023 [1]
 November 2022 [2]
 October 2022 [2]
 August 2022 [2]
 May 2022 [2]
 April 2022 [4]
 March 2022 [1]
 February 2022 [1]
 January 2022 [2]
 December 2021 [1]
 November 2021 [2]
 October 2021 [1]
 July 2021 [1]
 June 2021 [1]
 May 2021 [3]
 April 2021 [3]
 March 2021 [4]
 February 2021 [1]
 January 2021 [1]
 December 2020 [2]
 November 2020 [1]
 August 2020 [1]
 June 2020 [4]
 May 2020 [1]
 April 2020 [2]
 March 2020 [2]
 February 2020 [1]
 January 2020 [2]
 December 2019 [1]
 November 2019 [2]
 October 2019 [2]
 September 2019 [1]
 July 2019 [1]
 June 2019 [2]
 May 2019 [3]
 April 2019 [5]
 March 2019 [4]
 February 2019 [3]
 January 2019 [3]
 December 2018 [4]
 November 2018 [2]
 September 2018 [2]
 August 2018 [1]
 July 2018 [1]
 June 2018 [1]
 May 2018 [5]
 April 2018 [4]
 March 2018 [2]
 February 2018 [4]
 January 2018 [4]
 December 2017 [2]
 November 2017 [6]
 October 2017 [6]
 September 2017 [6]
 August 2017 [2]
 July 2017 [2]
 June 2017 [5]
 May 2017 [7]
 April 2017 [6]
 March 2017 [8]
 February 2017 [7]
 January 2017 [9]
 December 2016 [7]
 November 2016 [7]
 October 2016 [5]
 September 2016 [5]
 August 2016 [4]
 July 2016 [6]
 June 2016 [5]
 May 2016 [10]
 April 2016 [12]
 March 2016 [10]
 February 2016 [11]
 January 2016 [12]
 December 2015 [6]
 November 2015 [8]
 October 2015 [12]
 September 2015 [10]
 August 2015 [14]
 July 2015 [9]
 June 2015 [9]
 May 2015 [10]
 April 2015 [9]
 March 2015 [8]
 February 2015 [8]
 January 2015 [5]
 December 2014 [11]
 November 2014 [10]
 October 2014 [10]
 September 2014 [8]
 August 2014 [7]
 July 2014 [5]
 June 2014 [7]
 May 2014 [6]
 April 2014 [3]
 March 2014 [8]
 February 2014 [6]
 January 2014 [5]
 December 2013 [5]
 November 2013 [3]
 October 2013 [4]
 September 2013 [11]
 August 2013 [4]
 July 2013 [8]
 June 2013 [10]
 May 2013 [14]
 April 2013 [12]
 March 2013 [11]
 February 2013 [19]
 January 2013 [20]
 December 2012 [5]
 November 2012 [1]
 October 2012 [3]
 September 2012 [1]
 August 2012 [1]
 July 2012 [1]
 June 2012 [2]


Categories


 Agriculture [77]
 Bayesian Inference [14]
 Books [18]
 Business Models [24]
 Causal Inference [2]
 Creativity [7]
 Decision Making [17]
 Decision Trees [8]
 Definitions [1]
 Design [38]
 Eco-Green [4]
 Economics [14]
 Education [10]
 Energy [0]
 Entrepreneurship [74]
 Events [7]
 Farming [21]
 Finance [30]
 Future [15]
 Growth [19]
 Investing [25]
 Lean Startup [10]
 Leisure [5]
 Lens Model [9]
 Making [1]
 Management [12]
 Motivation [3]
 Nature [22]
 Patents & Trademarks [1]
 Permaculture [36]
 Psychology [2]
 Real Estate [5]
 Robots [1]
 Selling [12]
 Site News [17]
 Startups [12]
 Statistics [3]
 Systems Thinking [3]
 Trends [11]
 Useful Links [3]
 Valuation [1]
 Venture Capital [5]
 Video [2]
 Writing [2]