Friends of the family who own a vineyard recently had such a poor harvest they couldn’t even sell it, so kindly gave us around 30kg of Riesling grapes. We spent a night (8ish till midnight) whizzing and squeezing the grapes, then pouring the juice, litre at a time, into a borrowed glass carboy.
The colour of the juice has lightened a lot over the last 10 days. Presumably the juicing process allowed a lot of oxidation, and the subsequent anaerobic fermentation has re-reduced it. Yay CO2, our fizzy friend.
The smell at the airlock is amazing – smells like the freshly popped cork of a nice, yeasty champagne.