Norton Harvest

Just a quick note, somewhat delayed.  We harvested the Nortons Sept. 21.  We got 26 pounds of grapes de-stemmed and sorted.  It took about 5 hours to de-stem them--may have to consider some mechanical means in the future when we get more grapes???  The total reading from the scope was just over 20.  I would have liked to have seen a little higher reading, but still pretty happy with this. The birds have mostly left them alone, which is great.  In sorting them, there was a little more damage than appeared on the vine just because they are so tightly clustered.  There were some grapes particularly in the interior of clusters that mummified.  Overall, though, the grapes were sweet, with deep, dark juice.  It is now in the fourth day in the primary and working well.  I did use Montrachet yeast as indicated by this recipe.

• 12-16 lbs Summer Grapes
• 1/2 to 3/4 lb finely granulated sugar
• 1 tsp pectic enzyme
• 1 crushed Campden tablet
• 1/4 tsp acid blend
• 1 tsp yeast nutrient
• Montrachet wine yeast

Pick the grapes when fully ripe. Wash, destem and crush the grapes in primary fermentation vessel. Strain enough juice to float your hydrometer, measure specific gravity and return juice to primary. Add sugar to bring S.G. to 1.088 and stir with wooden paddle. Add crushed Campden tablet, stir, cover primary, and wait 12 hours. Add pectic enzyme, acid blend and yeast nutrient, stir, recover, and wait additional 12 hours. Add yeast and recover primary. Punch down the cap twice daily for 7-10 days (until S.G. is 1.010). Strain and press grapes and pour juice into secondary. Top up and ferment under airlock 30 days, rack into sterilized secondary, top up and refit airlock. Rack again every two months for six months. Stabilize, sweeten if desired, wait 10 days for dead yeast to fall, then rack into bottles. This wine can be consumed immediately but will improve with age. 

I did get the sugar a little high, being unused to this amount of natural sugar in my grapes, so I started just about 1.090.  It should be have plenty of kick!