I realized I haven’t really done a head-to-head tasting of my 2008 Merlot lots A and B yet. After being so disappointed with the barrel batch of merlot from that vintage, I’ve been holding out to wait 2 years to pop the smaller batch of lot A. Happily, the time has come!

Tasting notes:
Merlot lot “A”, first tasting (2 years in the bottle), comparing directly to Merlot lot “B” from same vintage. This lot A (RC212 yeast, fast ferment; blended with some Cabernet Sauvignon) is a little more cherry red than lot B (Pasteur Red yeast, slower ferment; 100% merlot), which is more garnet in color. First tasted without aeration. Cedar and spice box on the nose with blackberries and brambles. Lots of pronounced oak, very hot, but good fruit flavors up front followed with lingering spice in long finish. A little more fruit on the nose in lot B, also more fruit and less spice and oak in lot B, smoother and more balanced; still quite hot.

With aeration fruit aromas much more pronounced in both wines. Flavors smoother in lot A but still hot; lot B became sweeter and more mellow.

Overall, I prefer lot B when tasted side-by-side, though both wines are very nice. However, I do wish I had watered back both musts to 25 or even 24 brix prior to fermentation, they are both so alcoholic it throws them out of balance. This is how we learn!

Things went pretty smoothly and quickly, though at one point Dave got a little ahead of himself while corking and double corked a bottle:

We got a little over 9 cases of each before we started hitting the sludgy part of the bottom.  I kept about 10 gallons of Petite Sirah in carboys and fined them with egg whites to smooth out the tannins.  Dave didn’t want to fine any, but he was very happy to take his portion of wine home complete with labels and shrink wraps.  Try not to drink it all before the end of the year!

We drove up to Fallbrook yesterday to meet up with Paul and a bunch of his neighbors to bottle his 2009 Merlot and Petite Sirah from Lambert Bridge Vineyard in Sonoma (the same grapes we made wine from that need to be bottled soon).  It was a very nice day, sunny and warm but not too warm.

50 cases of empty bottles were ready and waiting.  We set up the bottling line in the winery, after having some barrel samples and snacks.  Both wines were tasting great!  It actually took a while to get going.

Once we did get set up it went pretty fast.  Everyone picked their roles — bringing in cases of bottles, filling bottles, corking, and putting filled bottles in finished cases.  We stopped for a lunch break about half way through, Paul grilled up some chicken and steelhead trout and it went great with the red wines.

Paul flippin' the chicken... not what he's usually flippin'

Everyone had a great time, and we pretty much emptied the barrels.  Now Paul has quite a nice stash — inspiring me to bottle our barrels, too!

Debbie and Cory enjoying their "Tom Sawyer" experience

Brian and Paul are big Journey fans!

While discussing the oak levels of the wines we talked a little about our first batch of 2008 merlot from the same vineyard. My last tasting I was quite disappointed with it, I really thought it tasted like sherry. Dave commented that his batch had the same flavor, and he thinks perhaps this wine is past its prime. I think Dave is trying to justify drinking his entire batch already, as a merlot such as this should be in the bottle for at least 2 years. The wine might be going through an “awkward phase”, where everything is just out of balance right now, but only time will tell.

In the meantime, we decided both wines are ready to be bottled. The problem is finding time to do it; things are busy at Curds and Wine in January, and Dave is expecting the birth of his first child the first week of February (congrats, Dave!). He is under the impression that he will have plenty of time a week after his kid is born — yah, we’ll see about that!

One thing I forgot was how much preparation it takes before the actual bottling process.  I do my winemaking in the kitchen, which means cleaning up the surfaces before starting anything.  That’s one benefit to having a dedicated space for bottling, or making your wine at a home winemakers’ center like Curds and Wine, where the proprietor prepares everything and cleans up for you (a little shameless self-promotion).

I racked the 4 carboys together into a 30-gallon “primary fermentor,” AKA food-grade plastic trash can.  It then took about 20 minutes to fill all of the bottles, another 10 minutes to put on shrink capsules with a thermocapsuler, and 10 minutes to slap on labels and put the bottles into boxes.  The final count was 76 filled bottles and one partial bottle.  We had the partial bottle with dinner.  Although it is young and freshly bottled, it is showing great promise.  The wine was very clear, probably due to a year bulk aging.  Light aromas of black currant and blackberries with hint of black cherry.  Good oak, though definitely needs some time to settle in with the chewy, dusty flavors of dark ripe fruit and tea with smoky finish.  The wine is definitely quite closed right now, but hopefully in just a few months it will open up and be ready for late summer cookouts.

In my excitement to get the wine bottled, I completely forgot to test the free SO2 or add an extra dose of Kmeta before bottling.  I guess this will be a test wine to show how important proper SO2 levels are for aging — worse case, we’ll have to drink it all sooner than later!

Our 2010 Fallbrook syrah is hanging out in the flextank, which did pop out into a perfect sealed cylinder once the wine was pumped in.  Paul came by to get a pound of “house toast” French oak to toss in, we’ll taste it in a few months to see what we think.

He also brought a sample of wine for me to test free SO, so I checked that as well as the merlot and petite sirah in the barrels.  I used my new favorite toy, the SC-100 analyzer from Vinmetrica (which I happen to carry at Curds and Wine).  This instrument is so easy and fast, I love it!  It turned out everything needed a dose of metabisulfite, which didn’t really surprise me. The merlot and petite sirah also need more oak, Dave and Josh will visit soon to taste and discuss oak options.  I’m considering a mix of American and Hungarian oak, any suggestions are welcomed!

The barrels needed a new home, so we decided it was a good time to rack out the wine and clean out the barrels.  Both the merlot and petite sirah need more oak, so we’re going to leave them in the barrels for another year with some extra oak cubes added in.  We pumped the merlot out of the barrel into a secondary container (yes, that’s a trash can, but it has only been used for primary fermentations), then cleaned out that barrel.  After a good rinse, we pumped the petite sirah into that barrel, then washed out the now empty barrel.  To complete the wine shuffling, the merlot was pumped back into the clean barrel.  Then it was time to load them into the truck to move to their new home.

The barrels’ new home is at my new home winemaking and cheesemaking supply shop in San Diego, Curds and Wine.  I decided I wanted to help other people discover first-hand how fun and easy it is to make your own wine and cheese.  I’m just getting everything set up, and hope to be open the first or second weekend of November!

My in-laws are visiting from Germany, and that seemed like a good reason to check the progress of all of the vintage 2009 wines in the shower.  I pulled 100 mL samples from various carboys for a taste.

We started with the Fallbrook syrah. This wine already has great aromas with big fruit and good spice. The wine is very clear and a nice dark garnet in color. Very fruit-forward on the palate with good oak, fruit, and spice balance. This wine turned out to be our favorite for the night, too bad it’s the smallest lot of wine for 2009.

Next we sampled the primitivo from Amador county. I put both American and French oak in this wine but have kept them separate to see how they each impact the final product. We started with the French oak sample. The wine had great cherry fruit aromas and great color. Good acidity, very dry with good tannins and fruit. In comparison, the wine with American oak had more caramel flavors and was slightly sweeter tasting. Both were great, but my father-in-law said I should keep the American-oaked primitivo separate to bottle on its own. A quick 50/50 blend of the two oaks was also very nice, so it will be tough to decide how to divvy this wine up; I am also planning to make a Paraduxx-like blend with merlot and cabernet sauvignon.

We moved on to the merlot from Lambert Bridge vineyard in Sonoma county. It is a little different from the 2008 vintage, although that year the merlot did not finish MLF. The 2009 vintage has aromas of bell pepper with vanilla, and flavors of dark fruit with good spice. Big tannins and good acid in this wine as well. This sample was just from the “overflow” carboy, though, which got French oak added to it. The rest of that merlot is in our American oak barrel that needed extra oak added, so that might taste a little different.

Finally we tasted the petite sirah (again, just the “overflow” carboy). Aromas on this wine were faint, and a little “off”. The wine is a deep, inky black-purple in color, but very clear. Happily there were no weird off flavors, the wine has good tannins but not as much acid as I expected. It has a very green, young flavor, with bell pepper, black currant, and light spice. But, there’s plenty of time for the petite sirah and merlot to develop more, as we all decided at our last tasting to leave both of these in the barrels for another year.

Even though we only had 5 samples of wine, they were all very “big” and quite alcoholic.  So, we wound down the evening with a nice, refreshing parmesan flan with fresh home-grown heirloom tomatoes and basil on top.