Starting our 2nd batch of wine – Red Bordeax (Bordailles) – 7/13/08
We were a little disappointed upon reading the instructions on how to make blueberry wine that it could take 2-6 months before bottling the wine, then another 6 months before opening your first bottle. We wanted instant gratification!!!!
So we bought some juice from a company called EC Kraus, which sells wine supplies and already juiced grapes online. They promise drinkable wine in as little as 28 days. Sweet! That’s about as instant gratification as you can get in wine-land. We bought the European Select Red Bordailles, also known as Red Bordeaux. The grapes were grown in France, and then juiced, packaged and sent to us in a big bladder. We add the water, the yeast, the other miscellanous tablets over time and take various measurements and this and that. Then, 28 days later…poof…30 bottles of wine. Total cost will come up to about $3 per bottle.
On 7/13/08, here was our notes:
Instructions say to pour the juice, water, & yeast in to the primary fermentation bin and then seal and put an air-lock on . However in our vast experience and of course some online research, we hear it is better just to cover with a cheese cloth to let it breathe a little more and give the yeast a better chance to develop. We decided to buck the first instructions on the list and use a cheese cloth.
Hydrometer reading: 1.095 + .002 due to the tempeture in our house (77 degrees), so total is 1.097. Target on instructions was 1.080-1.095.
Hydrometer %: 13%
This process was extremely easy compared to the blueberry wine starting from scratch.
Our “total water/juice/yeast” mixture line was slightly higher than the anticipated 6 gallon mark.
