The rewards and frustrations of home winemaking

Monthly archive: 01 2011

Bottling Chilean Carmenere on TV

I had the opportunity to show off my new shop on Fox morning news today. It was really fun, except for the 5 am starting time. In the first segment I demonstrated how to start a wine kit, then in this second segment I bottled my Winexpert Chilean Carmenere. The camera guy got a little […]

“Fiesta Island” Cabernet Sauvignon 1 1/2 Year Tasting

It seems to be time to catch up on wines I haven’t visited for a while. Tonight I opened our Lambert Bridge Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon, which I bottled as 83% cab sauv and 17% of a Lambert Bridge Vineyard merlot that I fermented as a small batch. In lieu of decanting, I aerated with Vinturi […]

Barrel Tastings of Merlot and Petite Sirah

Josh and Dave came by to taste the progress of the 2009 merlot and petite sirah. Last time we tasted them, they seemed to really lack any oak flavor, so we thought we might need to add more cubes to the barrels. We tasted the merlot first, and it is surprisingly good — not overly […]

Chamblaise Bottle Shock

We opened yet another Chamblaise for dinner tonight, a mere 2 1/2 weeks after bottling, and I was reminded that wines undergo bottle shock within the first month after bottling. This bottle was definitely suffering from it, though it wasn’t awful — it just tastes “off” when it has bottle shock. I’m sure if we […]

First Wine, 3 1/2 Years Later

Our stock of my first wine kit, a Winexpert Cabernet-Merlot, is slowly dwindling. It is developing bell pepper notes, in both nose and on the tongue. Definitely entering a stage of maturity now, but only 6 more bottles left anyway.

Primitivo Tasting Note

Although this wine is pretty newly bottled, I couldn’t wait to give it a taste. We recently got a Vinturi wine aerator, so we’ve been tasting every wine with and without the vinturi treatment. This wine definitely benefited from the treatment. Without aearation, the primi has faint aroma of burnt rubber with roasted red fruits […]

Bottling 2009 Fallbrook Syrah

The bottling binge continues!ย  I finally bottled the 2009 Fallbrook Syrah, our first harvest from Live Oak Vineyard.ย  We unfortunately came in short due to a heat wave just before harvest, so we have a total of 11 gallons of wine to split between the three of us.ย  We will each get 18 bottles, which […]