Award Winning Wines – Bill Smith
I thought it might be interesting to start a thread on this technique. For those not familiar with Bill Smith, he produced a book in 1988 called “Award Winning Wines. Professional methods for the amateur winemaker” (I got mine from that well known internet behemoth at a cheap price!).
In essence his philosophy is that good, balanced and fruity wines can be made very simply by 1. initiating a very quick red grape concentrate yeast starter (advocating the need for quality yeast), followed by 2. the late introduction of various fruits (dried, fresh, etc.) at various stages in fermentation so as not to “blow off” the aromas that would normally be lost in more traditional methods of primary fermentation on the pulp. This should lead to a wine that retains much of the characteristics of its parts, with good body, acid levels and tannin to match.
There are a number of excellent recipes in the book, and if there are other winemakers on this site that have used his methods, I would certainly encourage you to post your results.
I was fortunate enough last year to scavenge a couple of kilos of elderberries in my local area, the rest of the ingredients I had to buy at the supermarket. For this initial batch experiment, I made three gallons in total: Burgundy style, Chianti style and Claret style.
When thinking about these recipes I was wondering where I would get red grape concentrate from, and had a chat with Karl (Duffbeer). He convinced me to use a Beaverdale red kit (in this case a Shiraz) as the base for the wine. So, even though I followed the original recipes more or less to the letter, some characteristics may be different. It’s also worth noting that there may be subtle changes in sugar content of the fruits from year to year, etc. But this is experimentation after all!
Bill Smith notes that his Dry Red Wine style is:
“These dry red wines can be complex and heavy, with noticeable astringency from tannins, although the tannins should be soft and velvety in the more mature wines. Alcohol ranges are usually 12-14% with acidities between 0.45% and 0.65%. In making these styles the amateur winemaker should pulp ferment the red fruit. Grape concentrate is a useful backbone ingredient and can be used to build up the yeast starter allowing the winemaker to carry out the pulp fermentation much later in the vinification procedure. This allows the extraction of the fruit to be conducted at high alcohol levels, facilitating the extraction and lowering contamination problems.”
Dry Red Table Wine: Burgundy Style (From Award Winning Wines – Bill Smith)
Red Grape Concentrate 227ml (I used a Beaverdale Shiraz concentrate from a 6 bottle kit)
Elderberries 454g
Blackberries 680g
Raspberries 57g
Strawberries 28g
Dates 142g
Oak shavings 28g (French Heavy Toast Oak Chips)
Sugar 369g
Sultanas 369g
Pectolase
Nutrients
Yeast (I used Lalvin RC212)
This wine is designed to give an alcohol content of 13% and an acidity of 0.5-0.6%.
Build up the yeast starter with the diluted red grape concentrate and the sugar at a volume of about 4 pints. When most of the sugar has been used, pasteurise the elderberries, blackberries, dates, sultanas and oak, cooling immediately. Mash the pasteurised fruit, treat with pectolase for 4 hours and ferment on the pulp for 2 days before adding the mashed raspberries and strawberries. Ferment on the pulp for only 2 more hours, stirring frequently. Strain into a gallon jar, rinse the pulp with water and re-strain. Top up the gallon jar, and ferment to dryness. When clarified put 2 strips of oak into the gallon jar and mature for 6 months, stirring monthly to aid maturation of the wine. The wine benefits from a further 6 months in bottle.
My comments thus far (to be edited as I progress):
I decided to use Lalvin RC212 (Bourgovin) because this yeast is traditionally used in the Burgundy region for full red wines and is a favourite of home winemakers seeking similar big reds.
It has good alcohol reach (14-16%) and high temperature (68-86° F.) tolerance and excellent colour stability. This yeast requires high nitrogen nutrient additions to avoid the potential development of H2S. It is quite suitable for use with non-grape black and red fruits and berries (blackberries, raspberries, dewberries, mulberries). It is quite tolerant of concurrent malolactic fermentation.
Fermentation went well, starting on 26 May. I didn’t take any initial hydrometer readings, trusting in the recipe only at this stage (I wanted to keep this simple and wasn’t sure how to work out an sg for the yeast starter, then an overall sg for the fermenting wine with both the yeast starter and the late fruit additions).
By 29 May the sg was 1000, so following the recipe I added the pasteurised fruits. Fermentation went well – no real liveliness to report. I fermented in the gallon jar, so a large cap of the fruit pulp was visible on top of the wine. I occasionally swished this around but pretty much left it to it.
By 2 June the sg was 0996. I strained from the primary fermentation, according to the recipe instructions. By 7 June the sg was still 0996, but what can only be described as floating clumps of “yeast” (?) had settled on top of the wine. It looked quite funky. Not sure what it was, but after a second racking on 7 June (sg 0996) and leaving it to do its thing, by 16 June the wine is sg 0994 and most of the “clumps” had disappeared. So it’s still ticking along.
The aromas are very pleasing so far – a big hit of dates with sultanas and elder. This looks and tastes the “thinnest” of the three so far.
Dry Red Wine: Chianti Style (From Award Winning Wines – Bill Smith)
Red Grape Concentrate (Solvino) 568ml (I used a Beaverdale Shiraz concentrate from a 6 bottle kit)
Bottled Morello cherries 454g
Elderberries 340g
Raspberries 57g
Strawberries 113g
Sugar 454g
Oak shavings 28g (American Oak Chips Heavy Toast)
Nutrients
Pectolase
Yeast (I used Gervin no. 2)
Designed to produce a wine with 13% alcohol and 0.5% acidity. Build up the yeast starter with the red grape concentrate and sugar to a volume of about 5 pints. When most of the sugar has been used, pasteurise the elderberries, raspberries, strawberries and oak. When cool, add the Morello cherries, mash, treat with pectolase and pulp ferment for 2 days. Strain, rinse the pulp with water, retrain, make up to 1 gallon with water and ferment to dryness. Rack and clarify using standard procedures. This wine will benefit from further oaking during maturation.
My comments thus far (to be edited as I progress):
I decided to use Gervin Yeast - No. 2 Red Label, for a full bodied red table wine. It’s vigorous yeast giving a rapid start-to-finish to fermentation. Excellent for all red table wines, it is especially recommended for making wines from autumn fruits such as blackberries, elderberries and sloes. It will ferment at temperatures down to 15° c. Beware of foam (comment: I didn’t see this at all).
Fermentation of the yeast starter was initially the slowest of the three, starting on 26 May. Again, I didn’t take any initial hydrometer readings, trusting in the recipe only at this stage (I wanted to keep this simple and wasn’t sure how to work out an sg for the yeast starter, then an overall sg for the fermenting wine with both the yeast starter and the late fruit additions).
By 29 May the sg was 1050. Following the recipe I added the pasteurised fruits. Fermentation went very well following this; by 2 June the sg was 0995. I strained the primary fermentation, according to the recipe instructions. By 7 June the sg was 0990, I racked and left it to do its thing. By 16 June the wine was sg 0992. (?!) My thoughts on this are that I either misread the initial 7 June reading, or that more fermentation/fermentables are still happening (i.e. the slower release of some sugars caused by the pulp breakdown during initial fermentation)? So it’s still ticking along.
The aromas again are interesting – not a big hit of dates like the Burgundy, but more toffee smelling and fruity – with cherry and subtle elder hints (that smell a bit like “feet”!? I’m guessing this may be the aroma profile from the American heavy toast oak). The taste is very pleasing though!
Dry Red Wine: Claret Style (From Award Winning Wines – Bill Smith)
Red grape concentrate 568g (I used a Beaverdale Shiraz concentrate from a 6 bottle kit)
Elderberries 454g
Blackberries 454g
Blackcurrants 539g
Raspberries 85g
Dried Apricots 85g
Dates 113g
Lychee flesh 57g
Sultanas 198g
Sugar 227g
Oak shavings 28g (French Heavy Toast Oak Chips)
Calcium carbonate (chalk) 7g
Pectolase
Nutrients
Yeast (I used Gervin A)
This wine, with an alcohol content of about 13% and an acidity of between 0.5 and 0.6% benefits from the use of many ingredients which add complexity to the wine. Only small amounts of powerful flavours such as lychee and raspberry are required to lift the aromas in the final wine. The high acidity of the ingredients has been lowered by the addition of calcium carbonate.
Build up the yeast starter for a week using the red grape concentrate and the sugar at a volume of 4 pints. Following this, pasteurise the elderberries, blackberries, dried apricots, dates, sultanas and oak shavings, then cool, mash and treat with pectolase. Add the yeast starter, and ferment on the pulp for 2 days. Pasteurise the blackcurrants and raspberries, mash along with the lychee flesh and treat with pectolase. Add these fruits and the calcium carbonate, ferment on the pulp for another 24 hours and strain into a gallon jar. Rinse the pulp with water, re-strain, top up the gallon jar, and ferment to dryness. Rack and clarify by standard procedures. When clear, mature further by adding 2 oak strips per gallon of wine, stirring monthly to aid maturation of the wine. The wine will improve when bottled for more than 12 months.
My comments thus far (to be edited as I progress):
I decided to use Gervin Yeast - Varietal A for a quality red table Bordeaux SF strain. This French yeast was selected to complement and enhance the characteristics of the “grapes”. Used for the production of red Bordeaux (Claret) wines, it ferments well at 18-35° c.
Fermentation of the yeast starter went well, starting on 26 May. Again, I didn’t take any initial hydrometer readings, trusting in the recipe only at this stage (I wanted to keep this simple and wasn’t sure how to work out an sg for the yeast starter, then an overall sg for the fermenting wine with both the yeast starter and the late fruit additions).
By 29 May the sg was 1002, so following the recipe I added the pasteurised fruits. Fermentation went a little too well – with some real liveliness to report! I fermented in the gallon jar, so a large cap of the fruit pulp was visible on top of the wine and began to project itself upwards and outwards. A 4am intervention by me saved a catastrophic redecoration of the kitchen and the wrath of the misses! I transferred half the potion into another demijohn and let it carry on doing its thing.
By 3 June the sg was 1000. I strained the primary fermentation, according to the recipe instructions. By 7 June the sg was still 1000, I racked and left it to do its thing. By 16 June the wine is sg 0996. So it’s still ticking along.
The aromas again are very pleasing so far – not a big hit of dates like the Burgundy, but more “oaky” smelling and fruity – like strawberries and toffee with subtle elder hints.
Next Steps
I’m not going to get too hung up on the taste/aroma profiles this early on; I think there’s still a lot of mileage in this set of experiments, particularly after I stabilise and rack and think about the way forward with the levelling out of the elderberry profile and the additions of more oak. I’ve got both French and American Heavy Toast Oak left and intend to follow this through with the respective oaks that I used in the initial fermentations for the maturation process. But certainly not leaving it in for 6 months as these are chips. There is some rough information on oak additions on the net (scarcer than I thought it would be actually). Looking at: http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/...ps-wine-17110/ I’m heading for 1-2 tablespoons of chips per gallon and taste testing at months 1 and 2 before deciding on either further oaking or racking. I’d certainly be grateful for input and advice on this from my fellow forum members!
Cheers for now,
Owl.
I thought it might be interesting to start a thread on this technique. For those not familiar with Bill Smith, he produced a book in 1988 called “Award Winning Wines. Professional methods for the amateur winemaker” (I got mine from that well known internet behemoth at a cheap price!).
In essence his philosophy is that good, balanced and fruity wines can be made very simply by 1. initiating a very quick red grape concentrate yeast starter (advocating the need for quality yeast), followed by 2. the late introduction of various fruits (dried, fresh, etc.) at various stages in fermentation so as not to “blow off” the aromas that would normally be lost in more traditional methods of primary fermentation on the pulp. This should lead to a wine that retains much of the characteristics of its parts, with good body, acid levels and tannin to match.
There are a number of excellent recipes in the book, and if there are other winemakers on this site that have used his methods, I would certainly encourage you to post your results.
I was fortunate enough last year to scavenge a couple of kilos of elderberries in my local area, the rest of the ingredients I had to buy at the supermarket. For this initial batch experiment, I made three gallons in total: Burgundy style, Chianti style and Claret style.
When thinking about these recipes I was wondering where I would get red grape concentrate from, and had a chat with Karl (Duffbeer). He convinced me to use a Beaverdale red kit (in this case a Shiraz) as the base for the wine. So, even though I followed the original recipes more or less to the letter, some characteristics may be different. It’s also worth noting that there may be subtle changes in sugar content of the fruits from year to year, etc. But this is experimentation after all!
Bill Smith notes that his Dry Red Wine style is:
“These dry red wines can be complex and heavy, with noticeable astringency from tannins, although the tannins should be soft and velvety in the more mature wines. Alcohol ranges are usually 12-14% with acidities between 0.45% and 0.65%. In making these styles the amateur winemaker should pulp ferment the red fruit. Grape concentrate is a useful backbone ingredient and can be used to build up the yeast starter allowing the winemaker to carry out the pulp fermentation much later in the vinification procedure. This allows the extraction of the fruit to be conducted at high alcohol levels, facilitating the extraction and lowering contamination problems.”
Dry Red Table Wine: Burgundy Style (From Award Winning Wines – Bill Smith)
Red Grape Concentrate 227ml (I used a Beaverdale Shiraz concentrate from a 6 bottle kit)
Elderberries 454g
Blackberries 680g
Raspberries 57g
Strawberries 28g
Dates 142g
Oak shavings 28g (French Heavy Toast Oak Chips)
Sugar 369g
Sultanas 369g
Pectolase
Nutrients
Yeast (I used Lalvin RC212)
This wine is designed to give an alcohol content of 13% and an acidity of 0.5-0.6%.
Build up the yeast starter with the diluted red grape concentrate and the sugar at a volume of about 4 pints. When most of the sugar has been used, pasteurise the elderberries, blackberries, dates, sultanas and oak, cooling immediately. Mash the pasteurised fruit, treat with pectolase for 4 hours and ferment on the pulp for 2 days before adding the mashed raspberries and strawberries. Ferment on the pulp for only 2 more hours, stirring frequently. Strain into a gallon jar, rinse the pulp with water and re-strain. Top up the gallon jar, and ferment to dryness. When clarified put 2 strips of oak into the gallon jar and mature for 6 months, stirring monthly to aid maturation of the wine. The wine benefits from a further 6 months in bottle.
My comments thus far (to be edited as I progress):
I decided to use Lalvin RC212 (Bourgovin) because this yeast is traditionally used in the Burgundy region for full red wines and is a favourite of home winemakers seeking similar big reds.
It has good alcohol reach (14-16%) and high temperature (68-86° F.) tolerance and excellent colour stability. This yeast requires high nitrogen nutrient additions to avoid the potential development of H2S. It is quite suitable for use with non-grape black and red fruits and berries (blackberries, raspberries, dewberries, mulberries). It is quite tolerant of concurrent malolactic fermentation.
Fermentation went well, starting on 26 May. I didn’t take any initial hydrometer readings, trusting in the recipe only at this stage (I wanted to keep this simple and wasn’t sure how to work out an sg for the yeast starter, then an overall sg for the fermenting wine with both the yeast starter and the late fruit additions).
By 29 May the sg was 1000, so following the recipe I added the pasteurised fruits. Fermentation went well – no real liveliness to report. I fermented in the gallon jar, so a large cap of the fruit pulp was visible on top of the wine. I occasionally swished this around but pretty much left it to it.
By 2 June the sg was 0996. I strained from the primary fermentation, according to the recipe instructions. By 7 June the sg was still 0996, but what can only be described as floating clumps of “yeast” (?) had settled on top of the wine. It looked quite funky. Not sure what it was, but after a second racking on 7 June (sg 0996) and leaving it to do its thing, by 16 June the wine is sg 0994 and most of the “clumps” had disappeared. So it’s still ticking along.
The aromas are very pleasing so far – a big hit of dates with sultanas and elder. This looks and tastes the “thinnest” of the three so far.
Dry Red Wine: Chianti Style (From Award Winning Wines – Bill Smith)
Red Grape Concentrate (Solvino) 568ml (I used a Beaverdale Shiraz concentrate from a 6 bottle kit)
Bottled Morello cherries 454g
Elderberries 340g
Raspberries 57g
Strawberries 113g
Sugar 454g
Oak shavings 28g (American Oak Chips Heavy Toast)
Nutrients
Pectolase
Yeast (I used Gervin no. 2)
Designed to produce a wine with 13% alcohol and 0.5% acidity. Build up the yeast starter with the red grape concentrate and sugar to a volume of about 5 pints. When most of the sugar has been used, pasteurise the elderberries, raspberries, strawberries and oak. When cool, add the Morello cherries, mash, treat with pectolase and pulp ferment for 2 days. Strain, rinse the pulp with water, retrain, make up to 1 gallon with water and ferment to dryness. Rack and clarify using standard procedures. This wine will benefit from further oaking during maturation.
My comments thus far (to be edited as I progress):
I decided to use Gervin Yeast - No. 2 Red Label, for a full bodied red table wine. It’s vigorous yeast giving a rapid start-to-finish to fermentation. Excellent for all red table wines, it is especially recommended for making wines from autumn fruits such as blackberries, elderberries and sloes. It will ferment at temperatures down to 15° c. Beware of foam (comment: I didn’t see this at all).
Fermentation of the yeast starter was initially the slowest of the three, starting on 26 May. Again, I didn’t take any initial hydrometer readings, trusting in the recipe only at this stage (I wanted to keep this simple and wasn’t sure how to work out an sg for the yeast starter, then an overall sg for the fermenting wine with both the yeast starter and the late fruit additions).
By 29 May the sg was 1050. Following the recipe I added the pasteurised fruits. Fermentation went very well following this; by 2 June the sg was 0995. I strained the primary fermentation, according to the recipe instructions. By 7 June the sg was 0990, I racked and left it to do its thing. By 16 June the wine was sg 0992. (?!) My thoughts on this are that I either misread the initial 7 June reading, or that more fermentation/fermentables are still happening (i.e. the slower release of some sugars caused by the pulp breakdown during initial fermentation)? So it’s still ticking along.
The aromas again are interesting – not a big hit of dates like the Burgundy, but more toffee smelling and fruity – with cherry and subtle elder hints (that smell a bit like “feet”!? I’m guessing this may be the aroma profile from the American heavy toast oak). The taste is very pleasing though!
Dry Red Wine: Claret Style (From Award Winning Wines – Bill Smith)
Red grape concentrate 568g (I used a Beaverdale Shiraz concentrate from a 6 bottle kit)
Elderberries 454g
Blackberries 454g
Blackcurrants 539g
Raspberries 85g
Dried Apricots 85g
Dates 113g
Lychee flesh 57g
Sultanas 198g
Sugar 227g
Oak shavings 28g (French Heavy Toast Oak Chips)
Calcium carbonate (chalk) 7g
Pectolase
Nutrients
Yeast (I used Gervin A)
This wine, with an alcohol content of about 13% and an acidity of between 0.5 and 0.6% benefits from the use of many ingredients which add complexity to the wine. Only small amounts of powerful flavours such as lychee and raspberry are required to lift the aromas in the final wine. The high acidity of the ingredients has been lowered by the addition of calcium carbonate.
Build up the yeast starter for a week using the red grape concentrate and the sugar at a volume of 4 pints. Following this, pasteurise the elderberries, blackberries, dried apricots, dates, sultanas and oak shavings, then cool, mash and treat with pectolase. Add the yeast starter, and ferment on the pulp for 2 days. Pasteurise the blackcurrants and raspberries, mash along with the lychee flesh and treat with pectolase. Add these fruits and the calcium carbonate, ferment on the pulp for another 24 hours and strain into a gallon jar. Rinse the pulp with water, re-strain, top up the gallon jar, and ferment to dryness. Rack and clarify by standard procedures. When clear, mature further by adding 2 oak strips per gallon of wine, stirring monthly to aid maturation of the wine. The wine will improve when bottled for more than 12 months.
My comments thus far (to be edited as I progress):
I decided to use Gervin Yeast - Varietal A for a quality red table Bordeaux SF strain. This French yeast was selected to complement and enhance the characteristics of the “grapes”. Used for the production of red Bordeaux (Claret) wines, it ferments well at 18-35° c.
Fermentation of the yeast starter went well, starting on 26 May. Again, I didn’t take any initial hydrometer readings, trusting in the recipe only at this stage (I wanted to keep this simple and wasn’t sure how to work out an sg for the yeast starter, then an overall sg for the fermenting wine with both the yeast starter and the late fruit additions).
By 29 May the sg was 1002, so following the recipe I added the pasteurised fruits. Fermentation went a little too well – with some real liveliness to report! I fermented in the gallon jar, so a large cap of the fruit pulp was visible on top of the wine and began to project itself upwards and outwards. A 4am intervention by me saved a catastrophic redecoration of the kitchen and the wrath of the misses! I transferred half the potion into another demijohn and let it carry on doing its thing.
By 3 June the sg was 1000. I strained the primary fermentation, according to the recipe instructions. By 7 June the sg was still 1000, I racked and left it to do its thing. By 16 June the wine is sg 0996. So it’s still ticking along.
The aromas again are very pleasing so far – not a big hit of dates like the Burgundy, but more “oaky” smelling and fruity – like strawberries and toffee with subtle elder hints.
Next Steps
I’m not going to get too hung up on the taste/aroma profiles this early on; I think there’s still a lot of mileage in this set of experiments, particularly after I stabilise and rack and think about the way forward with the levelling out of the elderberry profile and the additions of more oak. I’ve got both French and American Heavy Toast Oak left and intend to follow this through with the respective oaks that I used in the initial fermentations for the maturation process. But certainly not leaving it in for 6 months as these are chips. There is some rough information on oak additions on the net (scarcer than I thought it would be actually). Looking at: http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/...ps-wine-17110/ I’m heading for 1-2 tablespoons of chips per gallon and taste testing at months 1 and 2 before deciding on either further oaking or racking. I’d certainly be grateful for input and advice on this from my fellow forum members!
Cheers for now,
Owl.
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