Sometimes I refer to our Muscat
Canelli as my liquid mid-life crisis.
For a man my age a midlife crisis invariably involves an attempt to
reclaim some aspect of their youth that has slipped away. For me the opportunity to make Muscat
Canelli was a chance to return to my first love in the world of wine. In high school and college my favorite drink
was a cold German Riesling or even better a chilled Asti Spumante. Warm beer and fiery brown spirits held no
appeal. So, in 2012 when I was asked if
I wanted to produce wine from Muscat Canelli I jumped at the opportunity.
The characteristics that distinguished the wines we
preferred were the bright fresh floral aromas of apple, pear, linalool, and
gooseberry. All the wines we selected
were sweet. That means that we were
going to have to arrest or stop the fermentation before the yeast consumed all
the grape sugar. Typically, that is done
by lowering the temperature and freezing the yeast. Unfortunately, we did not have the means to
stop the fermentation in an instant. It
was going to take us hours to chill the wine from 48 to 30 degrees; most likely
overnight. By chilling, the yeast is put
into a very stressful situation, they are basically freezing to death, and
under those conditions yeast often produce aromas we would rather not be a part
of our finished wine. Fortunately for us
McManis has the capacity to halt the fermentation in an instant, not by
chilling but by filtration. Using a
large filter, we could remove the yeast quickly and in doing so retain an
unadulterated aroma full of Muscat’s charm.
The resulting wine was a tremendous success.
