Cabernet Sauvignon: a home winemaker's guide

Cabernet Sauvignon arrives at Bay Wine Brokers in lugs picked the same morning, and the first decision you make happens before the fruit is even on your crush pad: what you want the finished wine to be. This variety is defined by small berries and thick skins, and every choice downstream either respects that or fights it.

Aim to receive Cabernet Sauvignon at 24.5-26.5 Brix with 3.45-3.65 pH. Below that range the wine reads green and thin; above it you are fermenting a fortified wine you did not plan for. Measure yourself rather than trusting the paperwork — a refractometer reading on arrival takes ninety seconds and can change your whole plan.

Classic Cabernet Sauvignon shows cassis, graphite and cedar. Extraction is your dial: 28-32 days on skins is the usual home-cellar target. Taste the must daily. When the tannin stops getting rounder and starts getting drying, you are done, regardless of what the calendar says.

Ferment on the cool side of the useful range for aroma and the warm side for extraction. Most home lots do best peaking between 82 and 86 degrees for reds, with the cap punched down two to three times a day. Keep a log — temperature, Brix, and a one-line tasting note. Next vintage's decisions are made from this vintage's notes.

Nutrient timing matters more than nutrient quantity. Split additions at pitch, one-third sugar depletion, and two-thirds depletion keep the yeast healthy through the hardest part of the ferment and prevent the rotten-egg sulfides that ruin an otherwise good lot.

Press when you have the flavor you want, settle overnight, and get the wine into a topped vessel quickly. Cabernet Sauvignon rewards patience in barrel and punishes headspace. Check free SO2 monthly, top religiously, and resist the urge to bottle early.

Bay Wine Brokers allocates Cabernet Sauvignon by block, so ordering early means you get the exact fruit you tasted last year rather than whatever is left in week three of the pick. If you are unsure about quantity, remember the rough rule: a ton of red grapes yields roughly 60 cases; 100 pounds yields about 6 gallons of finished wine.