The rewards and frustrations of home winemaking

Tag archive: chamblaise

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 […]

Chamblaise 2009 vs. 2010 Tasting Notes

I saved one bottle of 2009 Chamblaise to compare to the newly-bottled 2010 vintage.  Part of the comparison was to see how much this wine changes with some aging, if at all. We tasted the 2010 Chamblaise first.  It has rich aromas of fresh-picked pear and green apple with hint of freshly-mowed grass. Very clear, […]

Bottling Binge

Seems to be time to restock the cellar!  Having just bottled my 2009 Primitivo, today I bottled another batch of Winexpert Chamblaise. This will be the fourth time to make this kit, it’s such a great easy-drinker. This batch cleared very nicely and I did not have to filter as I did with previous batches. […]

Early Tastings: Aussie Chard, Chamblaise, Cab-Merlot, Burgundy

A few notes on the latest wines.  It is a little early for most of them, but you don’t know how they’re developing without tasting! Australian Chardonnay: A little soon after bottling to taste, but I couldn’t help myself.  Still too young, but nice. Buttery nose, lots of heavy oak in the attack and flavors […]

Filtering Wine Continued

The vinbrite gravity filtering unit is a little intimidating.  It’s easy to put together, then I ran some water through the siphon plus filter unit, then set it up to filter the wine.  It doesn’t sit in the top of the carboy very stably, so I did hold on to it for most of the […]

The Key Word is Clearing

I’m a bit annoyed at the chamblaise, there’s all sorts of *stuff* stuck to the side of the carboy, and it’s getting carried over when I rack the wine.  It sat long enough, I’ll look into problems with clearing and try to figure out what to do about it.  No bottling today!

First Racking of Chamblaise

The Chamblaise is at SG 0.996 today, ready to rack out of the primary fermentation bucket and into a carboy for secondary fermentation.  The wine won’t get topped up yet, I’ll leave some space on top so that I can stir in the stabilizing and clearing agents in about 2 weeks.