The oak trials were bottled about 2 months ago now, and I’m ready to do a tasting of the panel. My husband has agreed to help me out, since there are 7 different wines to taste. First is the unoaked Winexpert Vintner’s Reserve Chardonnay: dry, but not crisp, with subtle hints of apple and pear. […]
Tag archive: oak trials
It is finally time to bottle the oak trials today! I am also bottling the 2009 Petite Sirah that I did egg white fining on, so I can compare it to the unfined wine side-by-side. The chardonnays all cleared out really nicely, which is great so I can bottle directly from the individual jugs — […]
The oak trials continue! All wines were stabilized and cleared about a week ago. Today I’m racking them all, and the unoaked wine kit will be split into 1-gallon batches. I had just under 6 full gallons after racking, so I used the little bit left over to top the pre-fermentation oak batches. I realize […]
I was inspired by Tim Vandergrift’s Hands-On oak trials at the Winemaker Magazine Conference in Santa Barbara to set up my own set of oak trials. I decided to just get a basic chardonnay kit, the Winexpert Vintners’ Reserve Chardonnay. This kit does come with a small pack of oak, but I pulled it out. […]