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NEW EARTH CELLARS |
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WINE CELLAR DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION |
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Reaping The Autumn Harvest |
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We have a large Bartlett pear tree. Every fall, the pears begin falling and each night, animals of all kinds come out of the forest to gather in our yard and feast on the fruit. Rabbits, squirrels, opossum, deer and the occasional skunk show up for the event. It is amazing to watch. After all, the pears are really tasty and we couldn't eat them fast enough, so the animals would come over and finish the job. Last year, we had a huge crop. The tree was full of pears and we were trying to figure out what to do with them. We thought of canning but the problem was they weren't all ripening at the same time. Then we thought of the ultimate solution: Let's make Pear Wine! Winemaking is a lot of fun and is rewarding in ways that only a winemaker can know (all you winemakers know what I mean). I had a lot of experience making wine from grapes, but I never made pear wine before. After spending a week of research and talking to a few winemaking friends, I finally came up with a recipe and we began gathering the fruit. The fruit was cut into coarse pieces with the cores removed. It was then suspended in a nylon sack inside of a plastic fermentation container. Although the fruit was very juicy, pears do not contain the same quantity of juice as grapes or other fruits. For that reason, filtered water was added. We wanted to keep the wine "Organic", so we only used organic ingredients. Natural organic sugar was added to the fruit to obtain the proper sugar level for fermentation. We also added organic golden raisins to create another layer of flavor to the wine. Once everything was right, we added a champagne yeast starter and off it went. The fermentation had begun! The following steps of the winemaking process were similar to those of grapes and other fruits. After primary fermentation, the wine remained in glass for secondary fermentation. The wine at this stage was extremely dry and golden in color . I wanted to add some sweetness to the wine so I added my "Secret Ingredient". When we initially picked the fruit for the wine, we kept some for canning. We also kept some for juicing. We juiced several pears until we had enough raw juice to fill a couple of large canning jars. This juice was then heated and canned in the jars to be used later. When the wine had totally finished fermentation, the juice was filtered and added to the pear wine, adding its fresh pear flavor. After months in glass, the wine was then finally bottled. The end result is a slightly sweet, complex pear wine that actually tastes quite good if I do say so myself!
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