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, very pale greenish-gold in color (and this vintage was not filtered). Herbal flavors of melon rind, white peach, and pear, very crisp and clean. Dry and crisp, amazingly great just 3 days after bottling!

Then we popped open the last of the 2009 Chamblaise, which was bottled in April of 2009.  In comparison, the nose is more fruit-forward, though still has edge of grass; the flavors are more mature, less crisp and “green” than the 2010 vintage.  However, the wines were surprisingly very similar, the new one just tasted, well, newer.  Overall this wine ages gracefully and is a perfect go-to white for almost any dish.  I love this wine, it’s so perfect and so easy to drink!

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.

I bottled this batch at Curds and Wine instead of at home.  I bottled, corked, and labeled the whole batch in about 20 minutes.  It was very nice to have a nice big space to work at, and a big sink for cleaning up.

Next on the agenda is the 2009 Fallbrook syrah.  Can’t wait to get that one bottled, although it will be a very small batch — about 11 gallons total to split between 3 people.  Oh well, at least there will be plenty of 2010 vintage!

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 fall a little short after that. Quite crisp. Lingering finish. Drinkable now, but will be very nice in a few months. Probably not giftable at this point.

Also popped a bottle of Chamblaise, from the first set.  A very nice drinking wine. Definitely changed a lot over time, a lot more vegetal especially in the nose. Very crisp and clean. Worth the work, this one gave me trouble both bottlings this year.

Cab merlot tasting: 6 month tasting (close enough). Very fruity nose, smells and tastes very young still. Flavors rounding out but still not quite balanced, but falling into place. Hopefully will mellow out in a few more months. Slightly sour. No soapiness, no fizz. Definitely improving with age.

Bourgeron Rouge: 6 week tasting! Still very young, but shaping up nicely. Sourness is tamed but still present. Tastes not unlike a Beaujolais Nouveau. Sour cherry in the nose with a little soapiness. Bright fruity flavors of cherry and plums, maybe a little overripe strawberry. A little spice.

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 filtering.  It started out at a good pace, but then quickly slowed to a dribble.  After about 45 minutes it was just trickling, so I decided that the filter was clogged and needed to be changed.  That was fun.  What a mess.  But, the end result was worth it.

Here’s the wine before filtering:

And then after:

Much better!  It looked great, and tasted good, too.

Chamblaise is a blend of Chenin Blanc and colombard. Tasting notes from today: this wine is actually very drinkable already and probably will not last long! Nice fruity/floral nose, crisp and semi-dry but with a little bit of butter. Flavors of peach and honeydew melon with a little bit of honeysuckle. Really quite surprisingly nice! We are very happy with this kit from Winexpert, yet again! Final alcohol 11.7%.