My pal Ray also submitted his 2009 Primitivo and won a Silver medal.  Paul entered the 2009 merlot and petite sirah that we recently bottled, and won a Gold medal for the petite sirah and Bronze medal for the merlot. Mike and Tricia Hoffman won several medals as well, Mike got a Gold medal for his sangiovese and a Silver for his primitivo (from a different source than mine and Ray’s), and Tricia won a Silver medal and Best of Class for an Amarone wine kit! Several other people won awards for wine kits at the fair, too. Congratulations to everyone!

Susanne Hunter won Silver medal and Best of Class with her Pinot Grigio wine kit

Beth Roseman and Gesa Cowell (not shown) won Gold medals for their Riesling wine kits

Tricia won a Silver Medal and Best of Class for her Amarone wine kit

A few more Limited Edition wine kits have come in.  I posted previously about starting the Cellar Craft Chateau du Pays; I’m going to bulk age this wine for while, but I did do an extra racking about a month after stabilizing and clearing to take out the second addition of Hungarian oak cubes, so it wouldn’t overoak.  The Cellar Craft rhone white blend of Marsanne-Viognier-Roussane and Winexpert’s Austrian Gruner Veltliner arrived and will be bottled in a few weeks.

The limited edition I’m most excited about right now is Winexpert’s Spanish Rose, “a blend of red and white varietals, including popular Spanish Tempranillo.”  It has a super-cool bright magenta color and yummy fruit-laden aromas.

In the meantime, we’re thoroughly enjoying the Pacific White Limited Edition from Winexpert.  It’s too bad I only made one of these kits, and now they’re sold out!

On the topic of Cellar Craft wines, I also recently started the February Limited Edition “Chateau du Pays” red rhone blend. This kit is really amazing, a blend of Syrah, Grenache and Mourvedre juices from France, with California Syrah and Spanish Garnacha in the mix. The really amazing part of this year’s limited releases, though, is the crushed grape “Super Pack”, 2.6 Liters of Crushed Red Mountain Syrah grapes, made from over 17 lbs of whole grapes. The Red Mountain Syrah is a clone sourced from Chateauneuf du Pape, and this blend is basically a clone of that famous wine. I am just a few weeks into this wine kit and will likely bulk age it before bottling. Again, this red will want about 2 years of bottle aging.

I also have some great white kits going. Besides starting another Chamblaise kit from Winexpert and bottling my first French Chardonnay wine kit, I also have their January Limited Edition “Pacifica White” blend getting close to bottling. This blend is very similar to the “Pacific Quartet” released in 2008, which I loved — in fact I made 2 kits, and was still very sorry to see the last one go! I’m sure I’ll be making at least 2 batches of this kit this year, in spite of all of the other winemaking, just because this wine is so very nice.

Those are the wines I’ve started, and I’m looking forward to the upcoming Winexpert Limited Releases of Austrian Gruner Veltliner and Portuguese Douro Tinto, plus the white rhone blend of Marsanne, Roussanne, and Viognier from Cellar Craft.  Time to stock up on whites for the summer!

It was time to rack off the cabernet sauvignon kit into a carboy.  I noticed a distinct aroma of bananas, just like we smelled when the cabernet sauvignon grapes were fermenting.  The color is great, this is going to be a pretty decent wine for the money.

Next I set up to start the Alsatian rielsing reserve kit from Winexpert.  This rielsing should be quite a contrast to the “old vines” Canadian Riesling from last year, as this style of Riesling does not have an added “sweetness pack”, but instead should give a very light, dry, crisp Riesling.  As I was pouring the juice out of the bag, though, I noticed a dark brown precipitate at the bottom of the bag.

I debated what to do, and opted to not pour out the last bit of dregs that included this dark substance.  It was maybe about a cup of juice left in the bag, so I figured it would not make a substantial impact if it didn’t go in.  The starting SG was at 1.088, the low end of the recommended SG range, but still in range.

The SG on the Yakima Synergy is at 0.994, although it’s still bubbling away in there.  After racking, it’s not very pretty!  But, it’s early in the game, there’s still plenty of stirring ahead before it’s expected to clear.

In the meantime, Dave bought a cabernet sauvignon kit last year, at the same time that we started making wine from grapes.  I remembered he still has it sitting at the back of his closet, and offered to make it for him.  I checked everything out, and it seemed fine – it wasn’t quite at its expiration date yet, and the color and aromas were fine.  The starting SG was 1.075, exactly where it should be.  No problems!