18 Degrees Brix

The zin is roaring along. Almost too hot. We are punching down 3-times a day to keep the juice cooler and to extract as much color and flavor as possible from the fruit. The grapes started at 25° Brix and now were down to 18 in just 24 hours.

What are Brix? No, we are not talking about those things they used as a model to style Volvo automobiles. It's a system used to measure the sugar content of grapes and wine. On labels, wineries sometimes list the Brix at the time of harvest to express the degree of ripeness of the grapes (normally in the range of 20° to 25°). After fermentation, Brix can indicate how sweet a wine is as a measurement of residual sugar (2 degrees Brix would be slightly sweet; 10 degrees Brix residual sugar would be very sweet). Essentially, 1° Brix = 1% sugar.

We want all of our red wines to be under 0.5° Brix. That is generally considered to be the threshold of "dry." Most people cannot detect sugar on their tongue below this point.

More trivia: the concept of Brix was introduced by a 19th century German chemist, A.F.W. Brix. Somebody must have thought it sweet to name the scale after him (stop groaning).

New Volvos are a little sweeter now too.

I'll explain "Punch Downs" later. Hint it has nothing to do with boxing and is only occasionally violent.