Evaluation of red wine made on a small scale utilizing frozen must

Abstract

This paper describes the use of frozen-stored red must as an alternative to fresh must to permit research fermentations outside the vintage period. Additionally, the fermentation size (20, 50, and 300 kg) was also compared. Chemical analyses of six wines showed little variation in color profiles and final ethanol and organic acid concentrations. More importantly from a winemaking point of view, a descriptive sensory analysis revealed that all wines across each treatment and fermentation scale compared very well to each other. Key differences were limited to more appealing characteristics (i.e., lower tannin hardness and burnt/smoky attributes and higher fresh/fruity and red berry attributes) in the wine made on a 300 kg scale from frozen must. This study therefore provides quantitative data on the effectiveness of freezing for fruit preservation as well as the ability of small volume fermentations (20 and 50 kg) to be representative of conditions approaching those found in industry.