Some experience · 23.0 litres · Petillant naturel
Chenin Petillant Naturel
Bottled before the first fermentation finishes, so the sugar left in the wine carbonates it. All the pleasure of a sparkling wine with a fraction of the equipment, and the pressure calculation matters just as much.
Starting sugar
19.1 Brix
4.73 kg of fermentable sugar
Original gravity
1.079
from the ingredients, not asserted
Finishing gravity
0.997
off-dry
Alcohol
10.7%
Brix alone predicts 10.5 to 11.4%
Residual sugar
5 g/L
approximate, from gravity
Ready after
3 months
best around 2 years
Made to Petillant naturel, and every computed figure lands inside the published range for it.
ABV inTA inpH inRS inWhat decides this wine
The gravity at bottling. Every gravity point left in the wine becomes pressure. Bottle at about 1.006 above the finishing gravity, which gives roughly four atmospheres, and use crown caps on proper bottles. Bottling at 1.020 because it tasted nice makes grenades.
What goes in
| Ingredient | Weight | Sugar | Volume | Share of sugar |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chenin Blanc19.5 Brix (picked off the midpoint) Picked early. A petnat is meant to be light, and the alcohol has nowhere to go but up once the bottle ferment finishes. | 34.00 kg | 4.73 kg | 22.44 L | 100% |
The ingredients contribute 22.4 litres and the water makes up the rest to 23 litres. Those figures are checked against each other when the site is built, because a recipe whose volumes do not add up produces a wine weaker or stronger than every number above.
Acid and sulphite
Acidity of the must
8.0 g/L
at pH 3.15
No malolactic
8.0 g/L
the acidity you measure is the acidity you keep
Potassium bicarbonate
13 g
to reach 7.5 g/L. Bench trial before treating the batch
Sulphite at bottling
0.6 g
potassium metabisulphite, for 15 mg/L free SO2 at pH 3.20
The batch
- Must volume
- 23 L
- Ferment at
- 14-18 C
- Molecular SO2 target
- 0.6 mg/L
- Malolactic
- No
- Yeast
- Cote des Blancsto 14%, medium N
The sulphite figure is worked out against the pH of the finished wine, not of the must. Malolactic and deacidification both raise pH, and dosing a finished red to its must pH under-protects it by roughly a third. Recompute for your own reading.
Method
- 01Press, settle briefly and ferment at 14 to 18C without sulphiting: this style needs the yeast healthy right through.
- 02Take gravity readings twice a day once it drops below 1.020.
- 03At about 1.003 above your expected finish, bottle straight into sparkling bottles and crown cap.
- 04Leave upright at 15C for a month. It will finish fermenting in the bottle and throw a sediment.
- 05Chill hard before opening, and either pour carefully off the sediment or disgorge.
The two instruments this recipe needs
Every number on this page came from a hydrometer reading and a pH reading. Without those two you are following a recipe rather than making a wine, and the sulphite figure in particular is meaningless without a pH you have actually measured.
Measuring
Hydrometer and trial jar
SOLIGT Triple Scale Hydrometer and Glass Test Jar for Wine, Beer, Mead & Cider - ABV, Brix and Gravity Test Kit
$18.98
Tracks the ferment from must to dry. The gap between your starting and finishing gravity is the only reliable way to know the alcohol you actually made.
Measuring
pH meter
Apera Instruments AI1113 pH Calibration Buffer Solution Kit (7.00, 4.00), 8 oz. Each
$18.00
The most important instrument on this page. pH decides how much of your sulphite is actually protecting the wine, and dosing without knowing it is guesswork.