Wine and seeds? Wine making qestion.

[Partagas]

Was at Margaret river recently (not enough vineyard visits to talk about so don’t ask ) and was lucky enough to visit Moss Wood. Part of the tour included tasting the raw cabernet grape that goes into the Amy’s blend. It was a fantastic flavour of the best sweet cabernet good enough to eat as table grapes. Now the question I have revolves around the seeds and tannins in wine.

I also visited a friend who owns a small boutique winery there and amongst a few cleansing ales decided to walk through the vines that were just about reading for harvest. They too were cabernet and also tasted sweet and yummy, but they were full of seeds compared to the Amy’s grapes. The result was obviously more of a mouth coating almost slightly bitter tannin effect. So to compare the two, I would say the Amy’s had a more full fruit flavour and my mates was almost overshadowed by the seeds in the grape. Now I realise the effect that stems and seeds have on wine are an increase in tannins, but does too many seeds have a negative affect on the taste of the wine in general? Secondly do growers try and avoid too many seeds?

Sam

[griff]

Was at Margaret river recently (not enough vineyard visits to talk about so don’t ask ) and was lucky enough to visit Moss Wood. Part of the tour included tasting the raw cabernet grape that goes into the Amy’s blend. It was a fantastic flavour of the best sweet cabernet good enough to eat as table grapes. Now the question I have revolves around the seeds and tannins in wine.

I also visited a friend who owns a small boutique winery there and amongst a few cleansing ales decided to walk through the vines that were just about reading for harvest. They too were cabernet and also tasted sweet and yummy, but they were full of seeds compared to the Amy’s grapes. The result was obviously more of a mouth coating almost slightly bitter tannin effect. So to compare the two, I would say the Amy’s had a more full fruit flavour and my mates was almost overshadowed by the seeds in the grape. Now I realise the effect that stems and seeds have on wine are an increase in tannins, but does too many seeds have a negative affect on the taste of the wine in general? Secondly do growers try and avoid too many seeds?

Sam

Perhaps also posting in the viticulture forum may get a response?

cheers

Carl

[Mark G]

An interesting question Sam, but you may have the wrong end of the stick when it comes to the resultant wine.

The number of seeds within a wine grape varies with the flowering conditions - windy and uneven conditions you may only get 1-2 seeds per berry, but if everything is clear and easy every berry has the capacity to have 4 seeds. Tannins predominantly come from two main sources, the skins and the seeds - with the skins having the most tannins extracted through the fermenting process for reds - the seeds if fully ripe tend to add lesser tannins and they tend to be "harder" and tend to be used as the final additions off the press (when the wine from the final stages of the pressing off gets too tannic and coarse, often that stops the recovery of wine from the fermented grapes).

Stems can also be added to a ferment to gain tannins as you have stated, but this tends to be in controlled amounts and with a wary eye on the wine and the extractive components of the wine. Fully ripened grapes on the vines tend to have reduced tannic extract from the seeds and stems, and the extract that is there is more mute and fine grained. Unripe seeds and stems add a "oily" tannic note and makes the wine coarser.

It is not a case of too many seeds, it is a case of how ripe the seeds were at the point of picking, if stems were added what was the percentage, and at the pressing off of the wine how much of the final pressings is added to the resultant wine. A good winemaker has a handle on all of these aspects from the point of the grapes arrival to the placing in barrels for storage. There is no point in making a super tannic wine by pressing the nuts out of a early picked, stem infested ferment if the wine taste like bitters ... its all to do with the resultant wine and the balance sought.

Not sure if that helps but it gives you our perspective anyway.

Cheers

Mark G

[smithy]

Seeds are an interesting thing.
At lower maturities seeds are very hard and phenolic with "Green" herbaceous charachters/
These soften and become more woody as they go brown, which is why some red wines can look "oaky"{ even with limited oak.
Basically you don't want seed tannin, from overpressing or overmaceration.There is a seed charachter on the nose, with an acrid seedsy charachter ( as per grapeseed oil).
I have seen in the early 80's seed traps to remove seeds from red ferments at 2-4 days (they sink to the bottom of the fermenter).
As for no of seeds per berry, keep in mind that the seeds are the source of red wine colour and many of the tannins in wine...good as well as bad.
So many of the very highly coloured varieties have a large no of seeds.
I've seen Durif with 5/berry.
And thats not all bad.
Cheers
Smithy

[Partagas]

Thanks heaps for that Mark and Smithy. It answers my question and gives me a very interesting insight to winemaking. Unfortunately have never bothered thinking too much about the art of viticulture until now, but that is fascinating hearing about how the seeds are used (not as obvious as first thought). In fact it sounds as if it is quite a huge part in the final result.

So I can also assume that being an earlier style wine, the Amy’s grapes didn’t need as much seed to start with anyway.

Think I will read up a bit more.

Cheers