I got an email today from Mike Hoffman that the syrah started veraison and harvest should be around the first week of September. Hopefully there won’t be a last-minute heat wave like last year, which raisined a lot of the grapes before we could pick them for wine. I’ll need to start thinking about what [...]
Tag archive: home winemaking
We are planning to bottle the syrah soon, and I will also probably bottle the primitivo as well. The merlot and petite sirah in the barrels have not picked up enough oak for our tastes, so we’re going to leave them for another year. I realized I haven’t cleaned out the airlocks on my carboys [...]
I entered two wines into the San Diego County Fair Homemade wine competition: ‘Bahia Belle’ Bordeaux Blend, a 50/50 blend of cabernet sauvignon and merlot made from fresh grapes, and ‘Sail Bay Sundown’ RJ Spagnols Argentinian Trio Limited Release white blend. One of my fellow winemakers also entered the same cabernet sauvignon and merlot as [...]
I discovered that one of the 4-liter bottles of merlot has a funky white layer similar to the one I found on the rescued petite sirah. I hope I can remedy this one better, since the infection came back in the petite sirah after racking. Before racking I dipped cotton swabs in a Kmeta solution [...]
I got an email from Dave today, he and Paul checked out the merlot and petite sirah on Friday. Since this is our second year in the barrel, neither wine is very oaky yet. By this time last year the wine in the barrels had much more oak. The petite sirah is a little more [...]
Another full day of wine racking and shuffling! Dave sent me an email that the merlot barrel needed to be topped, so first I racked off the smaller bottles of merlot and took 2 cleared bottles to the office winery to top off the barrel. I thought I had enough to top off and leave [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
With four different varietals in various stages of progress, as well as the last of the 2008 merlot to bottle, every weekend is going to be quite busy for a few more weeks. Since I was out of malic acid tests last weekend when the primitivo was racked, sulfited, and oaked, I took a sample [...]
Lots to do this weekend! Of course, there were 2 trips to the office winery to punch down the newly pitched Petite Sirah. By the evening, the temp was up to 78 degrees (in an air conditioned room) and there were serious caps on all of the buckets. Then I had to deal with trying [...]