GrapeFest 2009

[Richard S]

Wow, what a blast! Once again, what a great success Grapefest turned out to be. The usual crowd plus a few new faces turned up, it was nice to meet Kampervan, Dave H, Her Lushness, Crusher and Mr & Mrs Solly.

2 Tonnes of grapes were devoured by Bob's new crusher/de-stemmer which made light work of the task but the grapes still needed to be humped around by hand and this seemed to make everyone rather thirsty.

The Ciligolio (sp?) was processed first, then we had a lunch break which included beers made by Bob and Dave H which went down a treat (even me and Goldseal got some in the end ). The Merlot was done by around 3pm and after cleaning up, we stood around trying each others wines. One of the wines that stood out for me was a sort of wine number 1 made by Kampervan, we all agreed that it would make a fantastic sparkling wine. The wines I took were a fixed up recipe Kiwi that only Bob liked , a bottle of very young WinExpert Aussy Chard and a bottle of last years Ciligoulio both of which went down rather well.

Once we got down to some serious errrm wine tasting, things became a little hazy. I do remember the fab curry supplied by Anne-Marie and Martina videoing absolutley everything, so watch out for a warts 'n' all version of the vid hitting the small screen in the near future.

[Duffbeer]

AAAAArrrrrrrrr it were fun weren't it, got to admit it's good to meet fellow members, but it's also fun to chew the cud and talk with like minded home brewers.
I have met most members before, but it was nice to meet Kampervan, DaveH, Solly & Crusher who were new to this years GFest.
Great wines, great company, great curry ( so i'm told, don't remember ) and great fun.
Now knackered & retireing after a busy day at the Lincoln Fed show.

[DaveH]

Got home around 1 this afternoon - was a great day Bob and a pleasure to met everyone, roll on Grapefest 2010

Might upload some pictures to facebook this afternnon or is it better to up them to the forum Bob? (problem is there are loads

Further to this - is it worth setting up a 'Grapefest' group on Facebook, then we could all join easily without having to send friend requests galore etc (or am i barking up the wrong tree??)

Am currently trying to organise my thoughts to do a 'Reflections of Grapefest' post - look out for it later

Dave.

[solly]

Further to this - is it worth setting up a 'Grapefest' group on Facebook, then we could all join easily without having to send friend requests galore etc (or am i barking up the wrong tree??)

Dave.

Good idea, but it might be better if Wines At Home were on Facebook, what I dont know is can people view Facebook pages without being a member there?

[lockwood1956]

Further to this - is it worth setting up a 'Grapefest' group on Facebook,

Dave....

there is already a group on Facebook

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=741046063&ref=name#/group.php?gid=51630071781&ref=ts

just "Join" it

see you there

Great Fun to catch up with old Friends and make new ones, as ever, grape crushing is messy and fun...if you have never done it before, think about doing it next year, its fab.

Wines beers and food were all great again......

thanks go to Annmarie who did us proud with the food (again) to Karl for bringing supplies for those last minute "oops I forgot to buy some....." moments, Martina for being the Pic and vid girl...there should be some complete nonsense from late on in the evening, and to all for taking part

I finally got the webcam up and running at http://grapefest2008.camstreams.com

but I fear not everyone caught the post regarding that...it is still up and running so you can watch 100 gallons of ciliegiolo and Merlot fermenting int the winery (ring me if it overflows!)

[DaveH]

Dave....

there is already a group on Facebook

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=741046063&ref=name#/group.php?gid=51630071781&ref=ts

just "Join" it

DOH!

I blame the hangover i've still got (Looks sheepishly about to see if he's got away with it)


Dave


Edit...............duly joined!

[lockwood1956]

(here's M again)

there we go! 179 pics from grapefest on facebook!

I don't think the videos would be a good idea. We just watched a few, and .... well...


Oh my!



(of course we watched the ones after 8 pm, which were... well... a bit loud!)


M.

[danpug]

Sounds like good fun once again. The Cilieguilio i picked up (previous batch to grapefest grapes) had an sg of 1100, does that sound right? My hydrometer seems to be accurate..........?

[goldseal]

1.100 sounds feasible.

I measured mine yesterday just before fermentation and it was 1.094. This was after taking a gallon and letting much of the sediment drop out (for a rosé)
)

[goldseal]

All the fermenters are going well now - proper, thick caps forming, which fizz like a pan of boiling soup when broken

I'm punching down 4 times a day at the moment. I believe most of the colour extraction occurs early on, so I'm giving everything a really good squish by hand (elbow-deep in one fermenter).

I have noticed that the crusher left plenty of the merlot intact, so they are getting special attention squishing-wise.

I seem to have developed a streaming cold, so I have to be careful when leaning over the open fermenters, lest gravity takes over and adds a new ingredient to the must

Given that my garage is around 15c, I'm impressed how quickly and strongly the fermentation is going. Hopefully be slower than last year, otherwise I'll be racking tomorrow

I'm kicking myself that I didn't draw off another gallon for rosé, and another gallon for rosé port. Never mind, there's always next year.

Jobs for tomorrow:

1. Make sure everything is ready for the second runs
2. Clear up the garage (bits of stem and grape juice drips everywhere)

Red grape winemaking is messy, but real fun

[Richard S]

My yeast starters went in last night, I drew off a gallon in the hope I am not too late to make a Rose, it looks a bit dark but it will need topping up quite a bit in the near future so it looks like using a white to top up with. The Rose is in the house and the rest of the stuff is in the (rather cool) garage and is fermenting away nicely.

[Rich]

Put our buckets at the back of the kitchen, the garage was a little cold up here. 10 - 12 c overnight. Thick caps on all of them and getting a good squish 3 or 4 times a day. 2 lots of Rose taken off and are fermenting away happily.

My garage is a mess to, Moving house doesn't help though.

Elderberries I received from Kampervan and Bob's back garden yielded 5lb so that is on to ferment too.

[Duffbeer]

Oooo errrr, fermenters still in Bob's Garage, not fermenting, yeast not pitched

[goldseal]

Oooo errrr, fermenters still in Bob's Garage, not fermenting, yeast not pitched

????


Oh, and can anyone think of a good reason why I shouldn't use my Enolmatic to vacuum-rack to secondary? Obviously I can't just lift a 60 litre container onto a worktop and syphon off

[solly]

My Merlot is going great guns (just like Petes) nice thick cap which is being punched down 2 - 3 times a day.

The Ciliegiolo is just starting to "hiss" but only put the yeast in last night on that one, all the buckets are on the worktops near the boiler, a bit cooler in Kent today so about 23.C around the area of the boiler and no complaints from Mrs Solly as she seems to be enjoying the art of wine making since going to Grapefest