The rewards and frustrations of home winemaking

Tag archive: RJ Spagnols

“Sail Bay Sundown” 2-year Tasting Note

We finally opened the last bottle of our RJ Spagnols Limited Release Argentinian Trio white blend.  This wine was bottled about 2 years ago now, and it was a good thing we were drinking the last bottle.  We really loved this wine, in fact it won a silver medal and “Best of Class” at the […]

Best of Class Award and Silver Medal at SD County Fair!

I entered two wines into the San Diego County Fair Homemade wine competition: ‘Bahia Belle’ Bordeaux Blend, a 50/50 blend of cabernet sauvignon and merlot made from fresh grapes, and ‘Sail Bay Sundown’ RJ Spagnols Argentinian Trio Limited Release white blend.  One of my fellow winemakers also entered the same cabernet sauvignon and merlot as […]

Starting Argentinian Trio Reserve Kit

Time for another reserve kit!  This one is also from RJ Spagnols, and is an unoaked blend of Viognier, Riesling, and Chardonnay.  The starting SG is at 1.10, so I should get a final alcohol of about 14%.  It smells yummy already, I can’t wait to sip this one over the summer!

Try MLF on Merlot Again and First Reserve Kit for 2009

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, […]

Bottling Limited Edition Riesling

After the foam mess, I skipped the optional second racking of this wine, since I already lost so much volume in that debaucle.  As a result filtering was definitely necessary.  But, it all seems OK after everything that went wrong. Very nice at bottling, should need about 2-3 months to be more drinkable. Nose of […]

Foaming Riesling!

This is the first Spagnols kit I’ve done, and the instructions are a little different from Winexpert. They said to stabilize and clear at the first racking; but mine was still fermenting. It foamed up and over the top very quickly! Of course, the one time I have the wine out in the kitchen and […]

Time for Limited Editions!

I have discovered that the wine kit companies make special limited edition wines every year that are supposed to be “exceptional quality.”  I’ve been pretty impressed with the quality so far, so these should be really exciting!  Here’s what I got: Pacific Quartet:  A blend of very cool whites from the Pacific, including Vidal from […]