Wine in the Shower » muller-thurgau

Muller-Thurgau Bottling

gisela — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 22:46:51 +0000

Time to bottle! I racked about half of carboy, then filtered the rest with my gravity filter and combined the wine before bottling – I was too impatient to wait for it to clear over an extended bulk aging. I really need to get an inline filter for the enolmatic, the gravity filter added an extra hour to bottling time!

Bottling day tasting notes: Very clear pale golden in color. Very floral nose with hints of green apple and pear. Crisp and crunchy with flavors of apple, pear, and lychee, with light sweetness and creamy mouthfeel. Tastes great already!

Looks pretty, too.

Racking the Muller-Thurgau and Barolo

gisela — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 20:54:21 +0000

Time to rack the Muller-thurgau and barolo. Unfortunately, I got a little overzealous with the stirring of the elderflower tea bags in the MT, and punctured most of them. Now there are cute little flowers floating all over the wine. This became a problem as I was racking, the flowers were small enough to be carried through the racking cane, and eventually started clogging it up. I stopped the flow and wrapped cheesecloth around the bottom of the racking cane and secured it with a sanitized rubber band. That worked! But, I still have a few flowers carried over, so I put a note on top of the carboy so I don’t transfer them over at the next racking, too. I’m getting pretty good at racking apparently, I very often end up with 6 gallons-plus in volume after the first transfer. I ended up with about 600 mL overflow, which I put into a 1 L bottle to add at the next racking.

The Barolo racking was more straightforward, nothing unusual to report. The stabilizing/clearing agents were also added and the wine was “stirred vigorously” with my drill-driven wine whip. The overflow was added in, and I actually need to top a little more, so I popped a bottle of 2006 Blackstone merlot to use to top it up. It’s a very decent under-$10 merlot that I bought just for topping up my wines this season. Now I’ll let the wine sit a little longer than the instructions say, I’ll probably do a few extra rackings before bottling in 6 months or more.

Try MLF on Merlot Again and First Reserve Kit for 2009

gisela — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 21:43:21 +0000

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, but I’m going to try. Today I add the malostart and recheck the malic acid levels: >500 mg/L for lot A, and about 300 mg/L for lot B. They both are quite tasty, but I think they both have enough oak now, so it won’t get transferred this time. Lot A has flavors of spiced fruit, and is definitely spicier and “bigger” than lot B, which is still very fruit-forward with a good nose of berries and oak. Both are very clear, so the racking has paid off.

In the meantime, the first reserve wine kits have arrived and I’m ready to start! I got both a Barolo from Mosti Mondiale and a Muller-Thurgau (moooo-ler Tur-gow) from RJ Spagnols. I’m going to start the MT first, since the cellar is sadly lacking in crisp whites! This kit had about 5 gallons of juice (read as: heavy to lift and pour!), and elderflowers – I haven’t used those before. They came in these big “infusion bags,” basically 4 giant tea bags that get soaked in hot water first, then the water and the bags get added to the juice for fermentation. I’ll start the Barolo tomorrow, too much wine-ing for today!