The rewards and frustrations of home winemaking

Monthly archive: 04 2010

Two Year Tasting of La Jolla Caves Wine

This wine has really taken its time to come together, but it is definitely improving now more and more.ย  I did decant, but tasted just after decanting.ย  Not a lot of solids thrown out or left in the bottle.ย  Kit taste and aroma is gone, with no foam at all. Velvety aromas of chocolate, brambles, […]

Pacific Sunset White Two Year Tasting

This wine is now approaching 2 years, it’s hard to believe it made it that long, it’s so good! After time the honey/flowery notes have come forward, although there is still a good spicy bite in the finish too.ย  Still a great wine, it will be hard to let this one go.ย  I hope this […]

Giving Up on Syrah Malo

Although I *said* I would give the syrah a few more weeks to finish MLF, it really doesn’t seem realistic that it would get going if malic acid levels have not dropped at all after 4 weeks.ย  I might actually be risking something bad happening in the wine in the meantime.ย  I posted this problem […]

Syrah Malo and Oak into the Barrels

It’s been about 4 weeks since I added fresh malolactic bacteria to the syrah to try to get MLF going again.ย  I’ve been stirring it once or twice a week and keeping a heat pad on it overnight and in the cool parts of the daytime to keep the temperature between 70 – 80?F.ย  I […]

More White Film on Wine

I checked in on the wines in the shower to make sure the airlocks weren’t contaminated or dried out, and saw another white layer on our 6-gallon carboy of merlot.ย  This was the first time I saw this white layer in this container, I found it previously on a smaller bottle of this merlot as […]