I noticed that quite a bit of sediment fell out of the home merlots, so I decided it was time to rack them off again and test them for pH and acid levels. I also figured the Free SO2 levels had dropped (I give up on the test strips) and added ¼ tsp Kmeta to […]
Tag archive: merlot
Since Dave has already drunk half of his bottled wine, I asked if he had any acetone problems, and he said no. So, I checked one of the small bottles of extra merlot, and was very happy that there was no acetone odor or taste there. OK, then something happened to the carboy. I checked […]
With all of the carboys from the barrel wine plus the kit wines I have bulk aging, the wine has now overflowed out of the shower and into the guest room. Reservations are now required! The shower is also quite busy. We busted out a little sample of the merlot from the carboy, expecting it […]
We’ve been trying to get organized to bottle this wine for a while now, and we finally set a day and got it done. I brought my portion of the wine home in carboys and a few miscellaneous bottles. Dave and Josh wanted theirs bottled, so that’s what we did. Dave did a few blending […]
I’m pretty sure the MLB is not viable anyway, but I don’t want to risk exploding wine bottles, either. What we needed to do was treat our merlot with lysozyme. Lysozyme is an enzyme that will lyse the bacterial walls, which definitely completely destroys any bacteria that might still be hanging around. Chris Van Alyea […]
I finally joined San Diego Amateur Wine Society (SDAWS) and went to an actual meeting. It was very interesting, I met a lot of home winemakers and several people also have small home vineyards (yep, totally jealous). I decided to ask around for advice about my merlot-no-go MLF problem. Everyone steered me to the same […]
I started my second reserve wine kit today, a barolo. This is my first kit from Mosti Mondiale. It’s “all juice” (read as: even heavier than the muller-thurgau yesterday), and has all sorts of fancy stuff, including “select oak” a bag of “red raisins.” Bentonite was stirred into the juice, and no water was added. […]
Time to rack and check the home merlot. I splash racked again, and tested/tasted it. The Free SO2 seemed to be below 20 ppm, so I’m going to try to restart MLF with the dried bacteria I got in December. I’m not optimistic, because I’m pretty sure the bacteria is no good after this long, […]
The merlot has been on my mind. I’m bothered that the MLF didn’t finish, although the MLF in the barrel batch did not complete either. But, since the Cab MLF went great, I feel like there should be something proactive I can and should do to try to make it work. I’m worried that it […]
Paul sent in a sample of his merlot to Vinquiry for a full panel analysis. The merlot Dave, Josh, and I made should be similar, although our MLF definitely did not complete like Paul’s did. Here’s his analysis results: Alcohol: 16.4% pH: 3.56 TA: .765 Free SO2 : 0 (He hadn’t added any yet) Total […]