What would have been a liberal estimate of the possible alcohol ABA or %? How much sugar would have been in it/L?
Even wine for Kings?
What would have been a liberal estimate of the possible alcohol ABA or %? How much sugar would have been in it/L?
Even wine for Kings?
My neighbour buys grapes, presses them (not trampling), and puts them into demijohns with an airlock. He adds nothing. It ferments using yeast on the grapes over several months. Over the course of a year, he decants from one demijohn to the next, which clarifies yeast, then he bottles and lets it rest some more.
It’s very tasty wine, but doesn’t have any oak overtones or adjuncts (whether lead or vanillin or whatever else is added), it’s not blended, and it’s moderate abv (around 10%).
This process requires very little in terms of specific materials other than the glass instead of clay. Clay vessels, being porous, would alter the flavour and would harbour yeasties and other microorganisms. But even accounting for that, I don’t think there’s any basis to say ancient wine would be dogshit. It may be different, accounting for taste, but not bad. (Consider the popularity of sour beers (kettle sours or otherwise) and hazy beers. Both of those were considered highly undesirable properties of beer for most of the 20th century - so tastes change. )
There’s a winery in Sonoma called the “Jacuzzi Family Vineyards” (yes, that Jacuzzi) that does fermenting in amphora jars for their Clarum. It is just about my favorite wine. Very light and minerally, perfect for a hot day. At $50/btl, its not cheap. But I like to set aside a bottle or two for special events.
If ancient wine is anything like that, they’ve got nothing to complain about.
Congratulations, you just sold two bottles of wine. Do I need to use a referral code?
Jokes aside this looks amazing. One of the best wines I’ve ever tasted is called TALEiA, by Castell d’Encus out of Spain. It is exactly as you describe — refreshing, light, with a mineral note because they age it part of the time in these ancient granite basins. It has a trembling newness with a brave young heart underneath, simply magical.
https://www.decantalo.com/lu/en/taleia.html
Damn. Should have considered negotiating that in advance.
Turnabout is fair play. I suppose I should order a bottle or two myself.
The process seems simple but I made my own wild plum wine last year and just leaving it to ferment for 3 days too long almost turned it into vinegar. Also for anyone else wanting to try it, unless you’re using something with skin like grapes or plums you need to add your own tannin.
Standard saccharomyces will ferment all the simple sugars, unless interrupted. Some fruit don’t have much in the way of complex sugars (which are responsible for rounding out flavour), and some fruit just don’t have a pleasant flavour without sugar present. It’s also possible that there’s a Brett or other bug in there that ferments the less simple sugars and brings it down stupidly dry. I think plums are on the stupid dry list; I’ve had them in a sour beer and it was… crushingly tart.