The rewards and frustrations of home winemaking

Sunday
26
Aug 2012

Syrah Harvest 2012

It’s that time again — harvest day!  We had a recent heat wave in San Diego that pushed up our syrah harvest date from previous years.  Luckily the heat wave broke for harvest day, though it was still pretty hot after the sun came up! Once again the Curds and Wine Grapes to Glass Hands-on […]

Sunday
19
Aug 2012

Bad News for Sober Wife’s Primitivo!

The heat wave is continuing, and I got an email today that the Primitivo at Sober Wife Vineyard is almost all raisined — there is no way it will last for our planned August 26th harvest. As it is, they don’t think there will be much to harvest at all! This is very sad news, […]

Tuesday
14
Aug 2012

Heat Wave Brings Harvest Early for 2012

We have had some unusually hot weather in San Diego county for about a week now, and it has been making all the grapes in the area ripen one to two weeks earlier than expected. I was not surprised when Mike Hoffman from Live Oak Vineyard and Steve Baum from Sober Wife Vineyard called to […]

Monday
23
Jul 2012

Visit to Live Oak and Sober Wife Vineyards

It’s time to start thinking about harvest season again, so my hubby and I headed up to Fallbrook to visit Live Oak Vineyard and Sober Wife Vineyard, where we’ll be harvesting this year. We started up at Live Oak Vineyard in the “Cima Sur” Vineyard at the upper part of the vineyard. The Hoffmans have […]

Monday
16
Jul 2012

2012 San Diego County Homemade Wine Awards

It’s that time again for the San Diego County Fair Homemade Wine contest Awards! I submitted 3 wines this year: 2009 “Cabrillo Bridge” Petite Sirah, which won a silver medal (should have been a gold!), 2008 Winexpert Limited Edition Carmenere/Cabernet blend, which won a bronze medal, and 2011 Winexpert Symphony, which won a silver medal. […]

Tuesday
19
Jun 2012

Blending Trials for Three Pelicans Blend

I’ve been planning to make a blend similar to Duckhorn’s “Paraduxx” for a while; their blend is a combination of Zinfandel, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Merlot.  I was planning to substitute my 2009 Primitivo for the zinfandel, but in a previous blending trial the primitivo just overwhelmed all of the other varietals and any blend was […]

Sunday
3
Jun 2012

2012 Winemaker Magazine Award

We had a great time at the Winemaker Magazine conference in Santa Barbara last year in 2011, I was sorry to miss it this year.  But, the Finger Lakes are not exactly driving distance from San Diego!  I did get some great news today — I won a Gold Medal for my 2011 Cellar Craft […]

Monday
23
Apr 2012

2011 Syrah Tasting Party #2

My 2011 Hands-on Harvest class met again last night to check out the progress on our 2011 Live Oak Vineyard Fallbrook syrahs. Details on fermentation and previous tasting notes are in prior blog posts.  Here are our tasting notes: Batch #1 — No additional oak was added after the first racking. Peppery aromas and very peppery, […]

Saturday
31
Mar 2012

Syrah Stink Update

Last weekend the barrel of 2010 syrah had NO free SO2 detectable with the Vinmetrica SC-100. I added another 1 1/2 tsp of Kmeta, and tested the free SO2 again yesterday. I noted that the odor of acetone had already subsided, and happily the free SO2 is up to 20 ppm. I added another teaspoon […]

Friday
23
Mar 2012

“One Little Drop”

I was given some samples of a new product called “One Little Drop,” touted to “improve wines.” We opened a bottle of my 2009 Merlot, which is a bit on the tannic side, so decided it was a good opportunity to test it out. Basically, you put one drop of the solution into your wine […]