I knew my mistake after bottling the wine. Actually I knew it before bottling and just ignored it. Kathy and I bottled her 2010 Muscat. The wine was fermented dry and last weekend she added potassium sorbate and potassium metabisulphite. This weekend we backed sweetened the Muscat wine with Muscat concentrate. Our error, we [...]
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I began fermenting the Petite Sirah on October 1st 2010 from a six-gallon container of juice sourced from Lodi, California. At only 19 brix, I did add two and a half pounds of sugar to raise the brix level to 22.5. Fermentation was completed in a couple of weeks. The wine was racked and [...] The small amount of wine (less than a gallon) we made from our few Niagara vines was ready to bottle. It had been in the refrigerator for three months and we needed the space for the extra food that the Holidays require. During that time the wine cleared. Since I fermented the juice to [...] It was time to rack Kathy’s Muscat. She had it settling in two three-gallon carboys and the sediment was piling up. She decided to rack the wine before our New Zealand wineries trip. The wine was already beginning to clear a little and the gook on the bottom was notieable. Realizing that we wouldn’t [...] While racking the Muscat and Petite Sirah from the fermentation bins into carboys, I decided to rack the Niagara. Since I have less than a gallon of Niagara, I racked it into a ½ gallon and 1 quart jugs. While racking I tasted the wine. It is golden in color and has a very [...] Perhaps it was because the Petite Sirah juice was beginning to ferment or some other reason, however, when I added just the beginning of the 2.5 pounds of sugar to the Petite Sirah juice there was an immediate reaction. The juice was filled to almost the top of the six-gallon container. As soon as [...] Two years ago I made my first wine from a kit. I religiously followed the directions often reading them several times before following. If I knew then what I know now, I wouldn’t follow the wine kit’s directions. Last week this started me thinking that since I had empty carboys perhaps I should fill [...] This post is rather late. We didn’t get much juice out of feet pressing the grapes. It looks like I’ll need to purchase a small wine press for future harvests. We ended up with about three quarts of juice. I add some Lalvin D47 yeast. The yeast is suppose to be low foaming, however [...] I recalled that Bob Biale of the Robert Biale Vineyards in Napa said I was crazy to consider blending Cabernet Sauvignon with Tannat. Other California winemakers had raised eyes when I mentioned my plans a year ago. There were also those who said unenthusiastically to “go for it.” So I recently bottled my experimental [...] After blending the California Cabernet Sauvignon with Virginia Tannat, I wanted to run a couple of tests on the wine. At home I measured the pH. My meter measured a pH of 3.8, which I thought was higher than I expected. Since Kathy and I were going to go to Vint Hill Craft Winery [...] |
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