THE DRY COUNTY WINE REVIEW: RE-IMAGINING CHAPITALIZATION
Chapitalization is the somewhat controversial, somewhat common addition of sugar to wine to boost its alcohol content. The amount of sugar present in grape juice is directly proportional to the amount of alcohol it will produce. Chapitalization is an extremely regulated process, generally only allowed in regions where the sugar content of the grapes, or brix, consistently struggles to make it to a desired level of the producer. The controversy comes from winemakers and consumers alike: that you're messing with the nature of the ferment; or from the farmers: you're cheating by choosing your own alcohol percentage. If you're still with me, here's where it gets interesting.Nearly every––and I challenge you to find any DIY winemaking book in this country that doesn't say it––recipe I've ever found requires that you add pounds of sugar to any wine not consisting of grapes. POUNDS. The reason being is that many fruits have comparatively low sugar contents. Grapes are incredibly sweet, most other fruits pale in comparison. Blueberries, for example, hover around 10-14 brix where grapes often eclipse 20. The attraction to adding sugar is that it measurably raises the brix level, ferments quickly and efficiently, and is easily adjustable. The downside of sugar is that, well, it's sugar. It has next to zero nutritional properties. Despite the fact that I've made wine with everything from blueberries to apples, I have never added cane sugar to my wines and never will. However, I've definitely chapitalized. Even the most die-hard of skeptics will typically agree that a spoonful of honey is good for you. Local honey is a big market these days because of its nutritional and antiallergenic qualities. Honey is, almost without exception, one of the single most nutritious substances in the world. They say one could easily subsist on honey and water forever. When the brix level of my ferment requires higher sugar contents, I happily chapitalize with honey. Honey is almost twice as sweet as sugar so it must be used cautiously. Also, it takes a lot longer to ferment. But like our papa farmer, Eric, always said "Everything worthwhile takes time," and wine is no different. I used a couple cups each in the blackberry and wild berry wines which both took forever but turned out nearly perfect, and arguably all the more healthy for it. Adding honey to our ferments also contributes to the diversity of the drink itself. I like to assume diversity is to wine what diversity is to everything else: healthy.Originally, I was opposed to the idea. I felt the pressure of the purity dogma––that any addition is blasphemy. Whatever, I enjoy adding honey to wine. If done right, the wine will turn out not only palatable, but entirely comparable to grape wine. To attest to my strange luck, Hannah is an aspiring bee-keeper. Once we have our bee operation up and running on the farm I will have an extremely fresh supply of the stuff after a couple years. Already bubbling with microbiology and nutrition, I'd be a fool not to employ it.- Jesse.
THE DRY COUNTY WINE REVIEW: THANKS-AGAIN-ING EDITION
Hannah and I attended a dinner party last night with some friends. They had procured a fresh turkey and the obvious move was to have Thanksgiving again. And thus Thanks-again-ing was born. Since they said they had all the food covered, we were just to bring some libations.
I had been looking for my opportunity to break out the blackberry and wild-berry wines. They were the two wines this summer that, when we bottled them, tasted like grape wine. More specifically, like natural wine. For all the time I spend ranting about how we should drink more local wine and that you can make great, naturally-fermented wine from things other than grapes, I have yet to prove it to anyone besides my loving and patient fiancé, Hannah.
First, we opened the blackberry wine I'd harvested and fermented in July and it was nearly glowing in the glass. It reminded me of syrah from the Ardèche. It was light and almost effervescent, floral and refreshing and most importantly, everyone was enjoying it. Obviously, since the Food Network wont get on the ball and actually create that smell-o-vision they're always blabbering about, I can't share it with you, dear reader, but I'd pin it against any young natural wine out there with confidence. Although I had my doubts about the wild-berry wine––comprised of blackberries, rabbit-eye blueberries and black raspberries––it was similarly delicious! It was even lighter, but equally as alive.
I could have easily come all the way to Kentucky and failed - riding this hunch which assumed I could make dry, natural wine from any fruit. But as we passed the two bottles around the table until they were spent I felt exhilarated and inspired. Watching people not only indulge your whims but enjoy them is quite unreal.
At one point, Hannah leaned in and said, "We'll definitely have to cultivate those blackberry briars now," and I realized berry wines were going to be a staple in our life. Again, this was precisely the reason I came to Kentucky, I just couldn't believe it was someone else suggesting it.
THE DRY COUNTY WINE REVIEW: PAWPAW EDITION
There are one-hundred and twenty counties in Kentucky. Fifty-five or so are dry, around thirty-five are "moist," and thirty are wet. The county we're moving into, Bath, is completely dry. This is a rather hilarious state of affairs for a young man like myself who moved to Kentucky with the express intention of making his own wine.You see, after national Prohibition ended in 1933 many states including Kentucky preferred not to abandon Prohibition altogether instead opting for the local option which gave individual counties the opportunity to vote on their own dry laws. Bath stayed dry, but lucky for me, it's not illegal to make small amounts of wine for personal consumption, it's only illegal to sell it. In homage to this irony I'm starting The Dry County Wine Review to occasionally discuss our dry county winemaking or wine drinking. On Friday, Hannah and I went to visit the farm and packed a picnic of Thanksgiving leftovers and a bottle of Pawpaw wine. Pawpaws are a Native American tree fruit that taste like nature's ill-fated attempt at crossing a mango and banana. They're medium-sized, peanut-shaped green fruits with a tropical yellow custard flesh.
The outside of the pawpaw is bitter, and when I made the wine I wanted to include about 45% of these skins for tannin and a little savory edge. Apologies, but this is where it gets a little nerdy. As I understand it, and as Louis Pasteur tells us, different types of yeasts attach themselves to different kinds of fruit based on their acidity and sugar level. I wanted to maintain some of that in the fermentation in lieu of simply collecting random yeasts out of the air. I packed the pawpaws into a gallon jar and poured over them a couple cups of spring water and a cup of honey. Pawpaws are not particularly juicy or as sweet as grapes, so I had to add the water for liquid, and the honey to boost the sugar level. I don't mind chapitalizing with honey; it takes longer but I love the idea of incorporating the healthful qualities of honey to a wine along with the bio-diversity it provides in the end-result. Same for the spring water. I let the mess ferment in an open jar (or crock if available) for four days then moved it into a glass carboy––an airtight container for the secondary fermentation. It stayed there for one month, and then into bottle for several more. This particular gallon yielded exactly one bottle of wine. As I mentioned, we opened that bottle Friday. And it. was. interesting. I don't mind it when a wine turns out odd, and Hannah, to her credit, always obliges my whims. She's a trooper but admitted this wine was a bit too much even for her. It tasted like tart and tropical grapefruit juice. I would guess the alcohol was no more than 8%. The acidity was aggressive but I liked it with the food. Quite honestly, it wasn't the most enjoyable wine I've ever drunk, but I'd take it over a typical Parker wine any day. But the intention was never to make great wine––mainly because I don't quite know how yet––it was to make dry, healthful wines. And this wine was undeniably healthful––so alive it was grinning. Producers legally can't say it so I'll do it: Wine is extremely good for your health––from your immune system to your digestive––it's something we need in our diets. In her book Nourishing Traditions, Sally Fallon writes that “The enzymes in raw food, particularly raw fermented food, help to start the process of digestion and reduce the body’s need to produce digestive enzymes." We need fermentation, be it kimchi, beer, wine or pickles. If it's wine, it's not always gonna be 100 points. But the diversity is what we need, whether said diversity comes from using different fruits, waters or sweeteners, and sometimes you've just gotta shoot it back and pretend its medicine. Other times, when it's tasty, you can sip slowly and enjoy. Fortunately for Hannah, I made both kinds this year. What's fun is the mystery, what's exciting is the health, and what's hard to get beyond is the dogma that says the only good wines come from grapes. In The Dry County Wine Review, I'm always going to be begging to differ: good wine is the wine that grins––grape, blackberry, pawpaw or otherwise.- Jesse.