7 March 2008
[Epi 21] TintoTV - making Amarone wine at home
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Tinto TV, 21 episodes in, and we’re starting our 5th wine batch! After blackberry wine, strawberry wine, Welch’s frozen concentrate wine, and Winexpert Argentine Malbec (all of which are bulk aging in their carboys), we continue onto a very bold wine: Mosti Mondiale “Meglioli” AMARONE Limited Edition!
Amarone wine is big and dense! It is from northern Italy (Valpolicella area, “The Tre Venezie”), made primarily of a grape called corvina. These corvina grapes for Amarone are left on the vines for a later harvest; this means a bit of over-ripeness, more sugar! When they are picked, they are not crushed; instead, they are laid on shelves and mats to dry for 90 to 120 days! As you can imagine, the grapes slowly transform into something that probably resembles a raisin or prune (they’re losing their water). So now the grapes are VERY concentrated in their flavor and are finally crushed and fermented! For this reason, Amarone can be known as “the last stop before Port”.
This Amarone wine kit does not have any concentrate, it is 100% juice from these crushed shriveled grapes. This preserves a lot of the original solids that were present in the must that will give the wine a long road to happy maturity and complexion! I think it will be worth the wait.
The Mosti Mondiale directions are a little different than Winexpert’s, but principles are always the same.
- bentonite is used to help clarifying down the road
- juice goes in the primary fermenter (bucket), no need to reconstitute with water
- take an SG reading to see where we stand, we started at 1.090
- pitch the yeast (Lalvin EC-1118)
Our specific gravity was a little lower than I expected for what will be come such a full-bodied wine. The good thing though is that this kit comes with RAISINS that we’ll add to the must soon. This certainly will add body (texture + SUGAR) which will raise the SG after the fermentation has started.
Wow, we’re going to have a A LOT of wine to bottle soon… how exciting! Thanks for visiting, leave your thoughts, advice, questions below in the comments!
I wish my knowledge of different wines and tastes was as large as yours. You and Stephanie are truly going for the gold in adding such a wine as this to your winemaking. Probably you can add certain amounts of sugar to raise the alcohol level to the one you desire. Anyway, thanks for the video. I look forward to seeing what you do with the raisins. I bet they would be good to eat with ice cream if you later remove them.
— Harry Hebert Mar 7 #
Says, Vid no longer available. :-(
— Darren and Laura Mar 9 #
Yes…..there we go….Viddler was probably doing some kind of reboot of it’s video servers. We’ve heard nothing but good things about Amarone and are looking forward to adding it as a BIG RED! We’re jealous ;-)
— Darren and Laura Mar 9 #
How’s the Amarone coming along? Have you had any excessive foaming in the 7.9 gallon fermenter? I’m about ready to start a Cellar Craft Amarone w/super grape pack and I’ve heard from some that a 10 gallon fermenter is probably wise.
Steph- Did you marry a new man already? I thought you were married to some long haired surfer looking guy?!? :)
— Mike Mar 18 #
Nice muscles Nico … At some point you have to sport a DIM jersey. Btw, do you like my non winemaking-related comments?
— Juan Carlos Apr 20 #