D

Live Blog Feed

Science Project: Making Wine at Vintner’s Cellar, Stage Two

Posted on May 15th, 2009 7:54am by Nancy Nichols
Filed under Crazy Technology, Travel, Wine & Spirits

Measuring the gravity of yeast: Science projects are not always pretty.

On May 1st, I decided it would be a good idea to blend my own batch of Viognier. I headed to Vintner’s Cellar in Plano with very little expectation of producing a world-class wine, I just wanted to go through the process and create something. Here’s my first report.

Yesterday I returned to rack the wine–the process of separating wine from its sediment, or lees, and transferring my creation into another glass container using a plastic siphon. My “instructor” Larry McDowell measured the gravity of the yeast (.994). This is a good thing—the yeast had converted the sugars in the grape juice into alcohol. I must tell you at this stage, the juice looks like murky off-color pee floating on top of lemon curd. (If you were at the gynecologist, you would be talking kidney infection.)

We inserted a long siphon into the nasty plastic bucket with my soon-to-be-FUQUA-caliber-award-winning wine, and transferred it to a splendid glass bottle where the wine will sit for two more weeks. Lesson number one from lesson number two: do not eat a spoonful of lees. Pictures below.

Rack King: Tim siphons cruddy yellow liquid into pretty glass jar.

Tim's shoes and a many hangovers waiting to happen.

Tim's shoes and many hangovers waiting to happen.

Racked and ready to rest. Pay NO attention to the cell phone number on the card.

Toasty fries at Neighborhood Services. Whoops, wrong post.

SideDish is a food-related discussion among editors at D Magazine about the Dallas-Fort Worth dining scene -- everything from good meals to bad service, kitchen gossip to restaurant news, chefs’ secrets to culinary trends. Bon appetit.

Subscribe via RSS (What is RSS?)

Follow SideDish on Twitter