I checked in with Paul, and he agreed it was a loss.  Down the sink it all went!

There were about 13 liter water bottles full of the flawed wine.  I splash-poured them into two 5-gallon Better Bottles and checked the free SO2 levels with my handy Vinmetrica SC-100.  Paul confirmed what the SC-100 told me, this wine had NO sulfite in it.  So, I dosed it up with some Kmeta, which sometimes will help get rid of flaws like acetylaldehyde, which seemed to be the main problem.  I’ll let it sit for a while then recheck the free SO2 levels and give it a smell and taste.

My tasting notes for this wine:  Lovely nose of hay, roses, and spice. Flavors have already come together nicely. Crisp, minerally taste of crunchy apples, persimmon, and toasted spice. Really nice!

The judging notes included: “Enjoyable, unique combination of flavors.” “Nice complex balanced flavors.” “Oak, fruit, dry” — this last comment is very interesting;  several other winemakers at the award ceremony commented on the good oak character in this wine, but there was no oak in this wine!  This wine does have a very nice, creamy smoothness and hints of vanilla reminiscent of oak character.  Either way, it is a lovely, tasty wine, and I’m very glad it was recognized for its excellence.

As for the ‘Bahia Belle’ Blend, my average score was pretty decent, and so I think this wine almost got a bronze.  Personally, I think this wine it too young, but we thought it would be interesting to enter several versions of our first fresh grape wines.  I think this one will fare much better next year, or maybe even the year after that.

Our May SDAWS meeting was held at Milagro Farm today.  Jim Hart hosted us and gave us a tour of the vineyards and told us about his recent wine releases.  He is winemaker for Milagro Farm Vineyard & Winery and also at Hart Winery in Temecula.  Milagro Farm Vineyard & Winery is in the Ramona Valley AVA.

Old Vine Chardonnay

Old Vine Cabernet Sauvignon

The oldest vines on the property are Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon.  They started putting in more varietals in the past few years including Sauvignon Blanc, Petite Verdot, Barbera and Pinot Grigio, to name a few.  One of the biggests (almost literally) pests at the vineyard are the wild turkeys — they will eat any wine grapes at eye level, and one year they ate a substantial portion of the grapes before they were harvested!

The Farm itself is a lovely property.  There is a cellar cave build into the hillside next to the winery building, and a pond just down the path from that.  There are also peacocks roaming around the property, as well as the wild turkeys.  They are beginning to build a wine tasting room at the entrance to the property as well.

We tasted a few wines, including the 2009 Sauvignon Blanc, 2008 Chardonnay, and 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon while Jim told us about his winemaking process for each.  We also tasted the 2009 Chardonnay from the tank, it was lovely — loads of tropical fruits, especially guava and pineapple.  My hubby and I liked all of the wines, they were all very well balanced and really showed great varietal character.  All in all, another great day out at a lovely vineyard in San Diego county.

After picking on one of my fellow winemakers endlessly about drinking his wine too early, I’m opening a “Cabernet Nouveau” for Thanksgiving.  It is too early to be opening it, but my husband’s parents are here, so it seemed to call for a very special wine.  I opened the wine and decanted it about 2 hours before pouring.  It is a very dense ruby-garnet in color, but clear, not cloudy.   A ton of fruit on the nose, with raspberry, cherry, sage and earth.  Very tangy-tart, fruit-forward flavors of blackberry, plum, raspberry with oak, eucalyptus, and dust.  Lots of tannins sticking to the tongue.  Definitely very young, but nicely integrated with big, bold flavors.  Will be exceptional in 2-5 years!

I did at least put together all of the blends.  ‘Fiesta Islad Cab’ will be mainly cabernet sauvignon blended with “merlot A” in a 5:1 ratio, which I mixed together in my medium primary fermentor (i.e., small trash can):

I also made up ‘Miramar Merlot’ with a 3:1 blend of “merlot A” with cab sauv, then a 50/50 blend of cab and the barrel batch merlot (‘Bahia Belle’ Bordeaux Blend) for 6 gallons total.  I decided to leave “merlot B” as a 100% varietal.

Cab:  nose of mint;  “smells cabby”; very clear, nice ruby-raspberry color; good tannins, good oak;  not too young;  “nice fresh fruit taste on first sip”;  definitely alcoholic;  bitter note on finish.  On second tasting, after snacking on some homemade cheese and sausage my friend brought over, the cab seemed fruitier than the initial tasting.  This wine was full of tannins – everyone’s teeth and tongue turned blackish purple immediately!

Barrel merlot:  nose of tobacco leaf and leather; sweet compared to cab;  cola taste;  no tartness; acetone GONE!!!; very mellow, well melded;  not as tannic as cab

Merlot A:  maple or fruit syrup on the nose; also sweet; not as acidic at all, but more acid than barrel merlot;  smells like BBQ sauce;  condensed sweetness;  smells like port.  When tasted again after having sausage and cheese, tasted very toasty.

Merlot B:  really sweet nose and taste; more fruit in nose; less condensed, fresher;  more spice, more fruit than merlot A.

Things quickly degenerated into chaos as we started playing with blends.  I tried to keep up  — after already drinking a lot of wine – to write down all the combos and notes.  I also opened a bottle of a kit cab-merlot to see how it blended with the grape wines.  We tested about 14 combinations, and came to the conclusion that everyone seemed to like the cab the most.  Both of the barrel wines (cab and merlot) were great alone, but cab with a little of any of the merlots seemed to be an improvement.

It was a lot of fun, and definitely a big mess.  Now I have a lot to consider before I can get this wine bottled.

We would be bottling all of the cabernet, so I took my portions from the top and bottom of the barrel, since we knew there would be a lot of muck in the bottom.  We bottled Dave’s 100% cab sauv straight from the barrel, the enolmatic bottling pump was a champ!  We took out portions of the merlot from the top, but did not bottle the entire barrel.  Instead, we put all of the unoaked merlot that was in various containers (steel keg, better bottle) back into the barrel to get some oakiness into it.  It didn’t really take us tooooo long, most of the time was spent cleaning up, especially washing out the empty cabernet barrel and setting it up for storage until next harvest.

It tasted good, though – the cab is still very fruit-forward, with nose of oak, spice, and dark fruits.  The merlot was surprisingly fruity as well, with flavors of toasted oak, blackberry, and spice.  Both are quite yummy!