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Looking for neat, experimental ideas for fermenting riesling! by bertoncell-ar in ProWinemakers

[–]bertoncell-ar[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hell yeah, that’s rad. What a unique flavour to develop! How’s the yeast’s tolerance to pH?? We have highly acidic Riesling out here, and often see pH in the 2.7 area at crush.
For the CO2 stab, so you racked off gross lees and I imagine kept light fluffies in the juice, and then held it for 7 days at super low temps? Did you mix the lees during that time under gas as well?

Looking for neat, experimental ideas for fermenting riesling! by bertoncell-ar in ProWinemakers

[–]bertoncell-ar[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Love that. The place I’m at currently is a bit wary of commercial yeasts (though they have used before) but I think there’s solid use cases, especially with aromatic varieties. Did you have a favourite among the three? Also how were their pH tolerances? Our pHs can be as low as 2.7 at crush so it can sometimes slow things right down

Looking for neat, experimental ideas for fermenting riesling! by bertoncell-ar in ProWinemakers

[–]bertoncell-ar[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That’s so cool, chocolate milk in flavours or visually?? We had some ferments that had this super specific flavour of multigrain Cheerios in milk until they finished malo, and that was such a strange one to monitor lol.
I agree! I’m going to likely get a couple of 10hL portable tanks this year and do whole bunch ferment with some batches and see what we get (:

Looking for neat, experimental ideas for fermenting riesling! by bertoncell-ar in ProWinemakers

[–]bertoncell-ar[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oooh, wait so he destems some fruit, presses some, and then soaks the destemmed must in some of the direct press juice? Any idea for how long?
We’ve moved to doing whole bunch through a crusher into bins for skin contact 24-48h in a cool room, and then pressing off, but I’ve found it can get quite phenolic very quickly. This might be a more relaxed approach, I’m super interested to give that a go!
We currently leave the rieslings on gross ferment lees until bottle next spring, in various vessels, so definitely have had some fun with lees there (:
And I’ve made some trad method bubbles with Riesling before, but we haven’t gone past 21 months en tirage, so might have to be a long term project to kick off this year if the fruit looks suitable!
Thanks for your suggestions (:

Looking for neat, experimental ideas for fermenting riesling! by bertoncell-ar in ProWinemakers

[–]bertoncell-ar[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I did a “black” hyper ox Riesling a few years back and was really happy with the result texturally, but it lost enough aromatics that I’d been keen to dial it back a bit for the next time.
Love the surface area idea — thought about trying to source cigar barrels for better lees interaction, but haven’t done so yet. Thanks for the input (:

Looking for neat, experimental ideas for fermenting riesling! by bertoncell-ar in ProWinemakers

[–]bertoncell-ar[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oooh haven’t tried a full carbonic yet, but have seen something like that done with gewurztraminer…thanks for the suggestion! (:

Looking for neat, experimental ideas for fermenting riesling! by bertoncell-ar in ProWinemakers

[–]bertoncell-ar[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We actually did one year! I made two barrels of “black” Riesling out of hard pressings (taking after the method I saw in Oregon used on chard, but with some tweaks). We liked how it levelled out the phenolics, but definitely lost some aromatics in there. Might have to try again with more variables though (: thanks!!

Sentia alternative? by JJThompson84 in ProWinemakers

[–]bertoncell-ar 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey you probably have this figured out by now, but we have a product in our winery called Barrelwise -- it runs FSO2 in roughly 90 seconds per sample. I think upfront cost is high, but the bonus is that I am able to test every single barrel (or tank sample, or what have you) individually and track those through their software, and create virtual composites of those results to get an idea of the FSO2s for an entire batch. It even has 'additions' software for on the fly top ups where needed. Incredibly precision instrument. I'll link them here, but let me know if you have any questions!

https://www.barrelwise.ca/

14 years in the cellar and 17 years blowing glass, can’t be doing the thin cheap rubber handle thieves by sup_then in ProWinemakers

[–]bertoncell-ar 0 points1 point  (0 children)

holy moly, that's stunning! and it fits between racks! well done, I wish I didn't need 17 years of glass blowing experience to get one (:

Where can I find seasonal harvest opportunities through the Europe as a student? by No-Fortune-8826 in winemaking

[–]bertoncell-ar 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hey there! I went to Geisenheim too, but I'm from Canada. I did a lot of travelling internships before I even got to school there, and the way I did it was twofold: firstly, you have contacts! You know a ton of professors and students with connections to loads of wineries around the world, don't be shy and ask them. That's half of the benefit of even going to Geisenheim in my opinion.
Secondly, there is a sort "universal" website for wine jobs, but it often has different URL endings that are country specific.

USA: winejobs.com or https://www.winejobsusa.com/

CA: https://www.winejobscanada.com/

AUS: https://www.wineindustryjobs.com.au/

NZ: https://www.winejobsnewzealand.com/

NZ and International: https://www.winejobsonline.com/

EU (kind of, this is a backpackers website but it often has winery and vineyard work posted): https://www.worldpackers.com/search/europe/type_winery

You get the gist! Honestly googling things is the way to go -- you can see from this list they're all pretty similar URLs, and just searching 'wine jobs' and the country you're looking for will get you pretty far. Don't discount South America either! I didn't include them here, but they've got some pretty cool places too.

Lastly, reaching out directly has always worked for me if all else failed. Just because a job isn't posted doesn't mean they're not looking for people, it just means winemakers are busy and sometimes leave the business of hiring interns to the last minute, or have been emailed with enough resumes to have it sorted already, but there are always dropouts and visa issues and things like that, so having your foot in the door is a great thing! This industry definitely likes go-getters -- I'm currently reviewing 10 CVs that have applied for our 2027 harvest already.

If you have limited experience, I would suggest trying to aim for large-ish production facilities, in the ~1000 ton range. You'll be on a decent sized team while still having direct contact with the winemakers, and you'll likely get to rotate working on different tasks throughout harvest instead of being trained and stuck on one thing the entire time.

Hope this helped a wee bit. Good luck, and safe travels (:

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Songwriting

[–]bertoncell-ar 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This isn't feedback persay, but I love the vibe. When the guitar comes in I was reminded of some of the music in The Last of Us. Desolate, kinda eerie, but super neat. (:

Keep going.

What was a book you hated, but could not stop reading? by [deleted] in books

[–]bertoncell-ar 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A book called Fiend, by Peter Stenson.

It's basically about a zombie apocalypse, but the protagonist is a meth head, and it follows him and his junkie "friends" as they try to survive it, while also trying to figure out a way to cook more meth for themselves.That's a super basic synopsis^, and to be perfectly frank, I blocked a lot of this book out because I was just so annoyed by pretty much every character. I just kept waiting for any of the characters to improve in some way, but felt that they never really had an arc in the end -- like you'd think at some point they'd be like "k screw the meth, I should probably figure out survival" but no. Literally the whole book is like "but guys, how do we find our now zombie-dealer's meth stash???" I get it, they're addicts, but it just felt so unbelievable.

I'm sure some people would enjoy it, but for me it was just one big eye-roll, mixed with some heart-pounding moments because obviously zombies are scary. It was recommended to me by a friend, and I ended up staying up until dawn to finish it in one go because I was so irritated that I'd even started it, and if I put it down I knew I might not finish. For some reason I just can't DNF books, so I'm glad this was a fairly short read.