The rewards and frustrations of home winemaking

Tag archive: barolo

Barolo 8-month Tasting

It is really too early to be opening this wine, but I was dying to try it.  Definitely has that “kit nose”, that weird “soapy” scent that most red kits have (but do lose over time).  I used a Riedle balloon glass for this tasting, no decanting.  The nose is dominated by “kit scent”.  Very […]

Hanoi Towers of Wine

Today was a game of wine shuffling.  My hubby commented I’m playing Towers of Hanoi with the wines.  Here’s what I have to do:  I have 2 carboys of the syrah, and Paul needs those carboys back, so I need to move them into 5-gallon better bottles.  The only 5-gallon better bottles I have are […]

Lots o’ Bottling

It’s finally time to bottle the barolo that has been bulk aging since March.  I wanted to avoid bottling any of the goop that has settled out at the bottom, so I racked off the clear wine into a bucket.  I noticed a white film at the top similar to what I saw a few […]

Racking the Muller-Thurgau and Barolo

Time to rack the Muller-thurgau and barolo.  Unfortunately, I got a little overzealous with the stirring of the elderflower tea bags in the MT, and punctured most of them.  Now there are cute little flowers floating all over the wine.  This became a problem as I was racking, the flowers were small enough to be […]

First Racking of Barolo

The instructions say to rack the Barolo when the SG reaches 1.040-1.050, and the SG today is 1.038.  I guess I didn’t expect it to go so fast, although after racking, it’s obviously still in vigorous fermentation.  The oak chips get added at this point, they can been seen floating in the foam at the […]

Adding Raisins to Barolo

Time to stir in the raisins.  They’re kinda cool, big and fat.  I’ll need to stir the grapes around in the bucket every day until the primary fermentation is done.  It smells great already, I’m excited about this kit. Too bad I probably won’t drink it for at least 2 years, I want to give […]

Adding MLB to Merlots for Second Go and Starting Barolo

I started my second reserve wine kit today, a barolo.  This is my first kit from Mosti Mondiale.  It’s “all juice” (read as:  even heavier than the muller-thurgau yesterday), and has all sorts of fancy stuff, including “select oak” a bag of “red raisins.” Bentonite was stirred into the juice, and no water was added.  […]

Try MLF on Merlot Again and First Reserve Kit for 2009

Time to rack and check the home merlot.  I splash racked again, and tested/tasted it.  The Free SO2 seemed to be below 20 ppm, so I’m going to try to restart MLF with the dried bacteria I got in December.  I’m not optimistic, because I’m pretty sure the bacteria is no good after this long, […]