Then the Chardonnay grapes were transported to the winery in a steady stream, and everyone was busy, albeit fast, but they were all veterans, and the grapes were constantly picking out the moldy fruits, the small fruits that were not fully developed, and the people who took care of the machines kept patrolling the machines. Winemakers such as Bo and Cameron went to get some grape juice from time to time to taste, and the experimenters also came to sample and test from time to time, and adjusted the concentration of sulfur dioxide added at any time.

Everything is in order at the winery, and you can't tell that except for the seven winemakers or winemaking assistants who are in charge, the rest of the staff are temporary workers, and everyone follows the process meticulously.

The output of the Monterena winery cannot be compared to that of the top predators, and the entire winery only needs more manpower in several stages, one is pressing, and the other is the final bottling. If full-time workers are employed, the wage burden on the winery will be large, so temporary or seasonal workers have become the main force of the winery. Most of these temporary workers live nearby, and they haven't been working with Monterena for a year or two, and they all know what they need to do, which is why the winery is so organized.

Bo gave Xiao Yifei a piece of advice.

"Xiao, I suggest that you go to each process every year and do it yourself, so that you can understand the actual situation of the distillery back then."

That's good advice. Although Xiao Yifei yearns for management, but you have to supervise the work, you must understand whether he is doing the right thing, otherwise you will not know if everyone cooperates with you. So for the future, you have to know how to do it now.

Xiao Yifei decided to start from scratch to play a process, just when a truck transporting grapes arrived, so he also went to help carry the grape fruit boxes, this is a hard work, too simple for Xiao Yifei.

Xiao Yifei went to help trample on the fruit stalk again.

Everyone has seen the fruit stalks, and the branches and branches take up a lot of space. The fruit stems screened by the fruit stalk separator were quickly piled up in the transfer box, and someone had to trample them down, so that a transfer box could not hold many fruit stalks at all. It's easy, it's just bouncing.

Xiao Yifei found some bunches of grapes with noble rot from the transfer box. It's rubbish here, it's thrown away, but in some places, it's very valuable. Because it can make noble rot liquor, which is known as the king of wines.

There are many origins of noble rot, the earliest of which is probably in Hungary.

In 1650, Turkish troops invaded Hungary. When the Turkish army approached Tokaj, it was the grape harvest season, and a reformist Christian pastor in Tokaj called on farmers to postpone the harvest to avoid being raided by the Turkish army. It wasn't until the beginning of November that the harvest began. As the moisture shrinks, the grapes are wilting, the skin is thin and wrinkled, and a layer of mould has appeared. People have no choice but to use it to make wine. What I didn't expect was that the wine produced this year was much more mellow than that made from grapes harvested in the normal season. The occasional postponement of the harvest unexpectedly brought a new destiny to the Tokaj noble rot wine, and it has since been glorious ever since.

Tokaj is known as the "Imperial Wine" because of its quality unmatched by other countries. Even the French upper class would spare Hungarian tokaj noble rot and call it the king of wines.

The yield of this thing is lower than that of Napa and Bordeaux, which are strictly limited, and the wines of Napa and Bordeaux can basically make one bottle of wine from one vine, while that thing can only make one cup from one vine, and it usually takes 8 grapes to make a bottle, and it takes more than 10 trees to make a bottle of noble rot wine if the year is bad. With such a small production capacity, it is no wonder that the price of noble rot wine is not expensive.

Xiao Yifei came to the selection table again to help select grapes, but unfortunately his eyesight was not good, and it was easy to miss the disease, which increased the burden of the workers in the next selection position.

The pressed slag came out of the outlet of the separator, fell in the transfer box, and soon piled up a small mountain bag, Xiao Yifei took a shovel, shoveled and shoveled the slag piled up together to the rest of the transfer box, the nose was full of grape fragrance, Xiao Yifei sniffed, the taste was really good, fruity, but it looked a little dirty.

While doing it, Xiao Yifei was thinking wildly in his head.

The pomace after the grape juice is extracted still contains a certain amount of water, and these pomace can also be used to make brandy.

Speaking of brandy, Xiao Yifei had to spit out French cognac.

Some people may not know that cognac is brandy, of course, to paraphrase a domestic advertising slogan, not all milk is called that, and here not all brandy is called cognac. It's the same with champagne.

This Frenchman is very domineering, he has to have the ability to occupy the name wine, so that everyone can only call it grape fruit wine to try.

Brandy is actually the product of distillation of fruit wine. As long as you make a certain percentage of fresh grapes, or grape juice, add less than 20% of the pomace after the must, or no more than 30% of the foot, or both. Yeast is then added for fermentation and distillation. The finished wine is brandy.

And under U.S. law, it's perfectly legal to do so.

In addition, the name of the brandy should be preceded by the name of the fruit used, for example, apple brandy, cherry brandy, etc. But grape brandy can be directly called brandy.

Not only can the pomace be used for fermentation, but also those grape seeds that cannot be fermented, and they can be used to make grapeseed oil.

The main components of grape seed oil are linoleic acid and proanthocyanidins (OPC), and the linoleic acid content is more than 70%. At the same time, grape seed oil can also prevent and treat cardiovascular system diseases, reduce human serum cholesterol and blood pressure, and its nutritional value and medical effects have been fully affirmed and highly recognized by medical circles and nutritionists at home and abroad. The biggest use of grape seed oil is skin care and beauty, the proanthocyanidins in it have super antioxidant capacity, and the phenol anthocyanins have a whitening effect.

Unfortunately, at the winery, these things were sent to Davy and them for composting in a transfer box. This is not the case with Monterena, but with the whole of Napa.

Therefore, the deep processing work of Napa is not in place, and it is used for composting at every turn, and Xiao Yifei wants to open a factory to purchase skin residue for further deep processing.

Later, Xiao Yifei did the work of pouring sulfur dioxide solution and connecting pipelines. He also went to the lab and chatted with Casey in the lab for a while to learn how she tested acidity and sugariness.

Casey rarely met the opportunity of the boss to run to the laboratory in person, and enthusiastically demonstrated the whole process to Xiao Yifei.

After a day, I was able to put the first half of the white wine making process into practice.

On the third day, the general and pressed juices were sent to the fermentation tanks on the first floor of the castle, where Bo and the winemakers flocked to get busy.

A plastic bag was opened, the flour-like contents were poured into a stainless steel vat, and a certain amount of grape juice was released from the fermenter, Cameron took a stick and stirred it, and in a few moments a bunch of fine little foam appeared.

Xiao Yifei asked curiously, "What is this?" ”

Beau stared at Cameron's movements, and answered him with his mouth: "Yeast." ”

"Didn't you say that there is yeast on the grapes, and you have to add yeast artificially?"

"White wine is fermented with juice and contains too little natural yeast and must be artificially added. In addition, artificial yeast is also cultivated through natural yeast. ”

Natural yeast is usually on the grape skin, and the juice produced by pressing contains too little yeast.

Cameron took a pump and pumped the yeast into the fermenter, and with the rest he carried it directly onto the iron rack, poured them into the fermenter, then closed the lid of the fermenter and opened a valve.

Without Xiao Yifei asking, Bo took the initiative to answer:

"Wine fermentation produces carbon dioxide gas, and if the air pressure inside is too high, it explodes."

Xiao Yifei knows that when he made his own wine, he said that when someone brewed his own wine, the fried bottle was because he forgot to open a vent, and the lid was closed to prevent the outside air from entering the fermentation tank, which would destroy the fermentation, and in case the acetic acid bacteria entered, it would become grape vinegar.

Bo pointed to the thermometer on the fermenter and said:

"The most important thing in fermentation is temperature. Because we all use temperature-controlled stainless steel fermenters."

It is no wonder that the fermenter has a two-layer structure, and it is estimated that the middle is a temperature control device for heating and cooling.

"The fermentation time is up to 1 to 3 months. When the sugar content is more than 2 degrees, the temperature is controlled at 12 to 14 degrees, which can easily damage the fruity aroma of the sake and cause bacterial diseases. The temperature is low and the fermentation slows down, which is also not good. When the sugar content is lower than 2 degrees, it is necessary to increase the sugar content by 1 to 2 degrees to increase the activity of yeast and digest the remaining sugar. ”

"They all know these things Cameron and Martin, and they all know the follow-up operations. Remember, the Chardonnay wines of Château Monterena are never fermented by peel-lactic acid, but only on lees. In addition, only 10% of the wine is aged in new oak barrels each year, so our Chardonnay does not have the same oak flavor as the white wines of other wineries, but the variety of flavors is very rich and beautiful, exactly like the wines of Burgundy, France. I hope you will continue to adopt this taste. ”

Xiao Yifei nodded, since Monterena's Chardonnay is selling well now, he will definitely not easily change the taste of the wine.

In the following days, everyone basically opened their eyes and stayed next to the machine. No wonder some people say that making wine is like hatching a chick, and you can't leave it when you start.

After the Chardonnay is picked and pressed, everyone starts to get busy. All the machinery, including destemming, crushing, pressing, etc., had to be cleaned, rinsed, and dried again, because the next thing they had to do was to produce the wine. In addition, grape juice is rich in sugar, which can easily cause a large number of molds, which will cause a fatal blow to the subsequent wine production, so unless it is produced continuously, the equipment must be cleaned on the same day.

At the end of the 70-acre Chardonnay, three large jars of grape juice were filled, and the time when the juice entered fermentation was marked with a pen was pasted on the fermentation tank.