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Hello! Everybody now I want to talk about yeast and what is yeast’s purpose in wine making. For anybody who is not familiar with yeast, it is actually a little single-celled organism that converts sugar into alcohol and it is naturally present in the grapes, in fact, one option that winemaker’s have when they are making wine here at CRUSHPAD is to go with the native selection which is the yeast that comes from the vineyard.
The other option that the winemaker’s and clients have at CRUSHPAD is to go over that cultured selection and that really will be dictated as to the kind of wine you are making, whether is it a Cero, a Chardonnay or a Cabernet. There are various different yeasts that are specifically designed for that variety.
To give you an example, very popular yeast to use for Cabernet is BDX or Bordeaux red. In fact, there is a whole list of yeast that you are going to find in the yeast companion on www.crushnet.com and you will be able to see the differences that each of those different yeast selections have for that particular variety. A yeast that I would like to use for Chardonnay is CY3079, so I do not want to go into too much detail with what each of the different varieties can benefit with the kind of yeast, but that kind of gives you an idea that there different yeast to design for wine making of different varieties.
Now, the schools of thought, whether they go native versus cultured; the nice thing about native is that it is theoretically the yeast that comes from vineyard, but it does take a little bit longer for the fermentation to start because it does need time for that weaker yeast to acclimate to its new environment. Plus it is competing with a lot of other yeast because there are hundreds if not thousand of different styles or different species of yeast in each of those berries that comes out from each vineyard that are competing with each other to consume that sugar and produce alcohol versus the culture yeast which one strong yeast that takes over the ferment and basically takes care off everything else that is trying to compete with it in terms of converting the sugar into alcohol.
So this is much stronger yeast, it is a much more steady fermentation, starts out when you want it to when you are going with cultured yeast. It gets the fermentation started and there is a steady rate of fermentation. With native, you do get some settle a new ounces developing with the going with native which a lot of times is due to the fact that it takes longer for the fermentation to get started, but what you have to consider is that a lot of time the native ferments actually run out of juice, maybe half way to fermentation because they are competing with each other and they are not strong enough to handle higher alcohol levels. And that is where what we call the winery yeast comes in to the picture and actually takes care of fermentation.
We do have some clients actually that start up with a native ferment and then inoculate with the cultured yeast halfway to fermentation, so they can ensure a proper finish to the fermentation.
So, as far as the style of wine you are making what do you want to go with native versus cultured, it can be dictated by the variety also. I think varieties like Pinot and some Cero’s can actually benefit from native ferment because they do have a lot of subtle piece that can be expressed both aromatically and in the flavors versus a hardy cab from Napa that really you just want to focus on the side itself, as well as their actual food intensity. And why not get the fermentation started fairly quickly and have a nice steady rate of fermentation going through.
So, I hope that will help you a lot in terms of what you want to do with native versus cultured and we will meet again at another installment of a Winemaker Minute. Thanks!
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