Wine in the Shower » sauvignon blanc

Visit to Milagro Farm

gisela — Sun, 16 May 2010 04:43:23 +0000

Our May SDAWS meeting was held at Milagro Farm today. Jim Hart hosted us and gave us a tour of the vineyards and told us about his recent wine releases. He is winemaker for Milagro Farm Vineyard & Winery and also at Hart Winery in Temecula. Milagro Farm Vineyard & Winery is in the Ramona Valley AVA.

Old Vine Chardonnay

Old Vine Cabernet Sauvignon

The oldest vines on the property are Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon. They started putting in more varietals in the past few years including Sauvignon Blanc, Petite Verdot, Barbera and Pinot Grigio, to name a few. One of the biggests (almost literally) pests at the vineyard are the wild turkeys — they will eat any wine grapes at eye level, and one year they ate a substantial portion of the grapes before they were harvested!

The Farm itself is a lovely property. There is a cellar cave build into the hillside next to the winery building, and a pond just down the path from that. There are also peacocks roaming around the property, as well as the wild turkeys. They are beginning to build a wine tasting room at the entrance to the property as well.

We tasted a few wines, including the 2009 Sauvignon Blanc, 2008 Chardonnay, and 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon while Jim told us about his winemaking process for each. We also tasted the 2009 Chardonnay from the tank, it was lovely — loads of tropical fruits, especially guava and pineapple. My hubby and I liked all of the wines, they were all very well balanced and really showed great varietal character. All in all, another great day out at a lovely vineyard in San Diego county.

Bottling Sauv Blanc

gisela — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 09:53:18 +0000

Time to bottle the sauvignon blanc that had the battonage treatment. That added another 6 weeks of waiting to the kit, I’m very curious how this wine will compare to the “untreated” kit. I will let these bottles wait for about 3 months before doing a side-by-side, to give it as much of a fair chance as possible. Tasting notes from day of bottling: Very vegetal, sharp nose. Did filter, so very clear, pale gold in color. Very mellow on the tongue, difficult to pinpoint specific flavors today. A more creamy mouthfeel than with the previous kit. This one will probably need a few months in the bottle to really develop.

Battonage on Sauv Blanc Kit

gisela — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 01:36:13 +0000

I’ve been wanting to try some battonage on a wine kit for a while, since I first read about the technique. Battonage basically involves leaving the wine on the fine lees for an extended period of time, and stirring the lees up every few days to extract additional amino acids and mannoproteins from the yeast. The result is a “creamy” mouthfeel, which I like on occasion. I decided to try this on a sauvignon blanc kit, since we really liked the basic sauv blanc kit from winexpert that I made last year. Tim Vandergrift, the technical services manager for Winexpert, gave instructions for doing battonage on wine kits. The kit is made up as instructed, up to the first racking step. The fining and stabilizing step is delayed, and instead a quarter teaspoon of Kmeta is added to the wine. The wine is then stirred up with a spoon so that all of the yeast sediment is put into suspension and the wine becomes cloudy. The wine is stirred every 3 or 4 days for a total of 4 weeks. Then the wine is allowed to settle for another 2 weeks, and racked off to a clean carboy. Then the instructions are followed again, starting with stabilizing and clearing for my kit. It will be very interesting to see if/how this treatment affects the wine.

Bottling Sauvignon Blanc and Italian Brunello

gisela — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 17:11:19 +0000

To keep the cellar fully stocked, we *really* some sauvignon blanc. This kit was touted as a quick-drinker, and I’ve been really happy with the lower-end white kits. I bulk aged this wine an extra month (out of laziness and lack of time to bottle). I did have to filter this one, the low-end whites just don’t like to clear. Great for a freshly-bottled wine! Nose with pear and apple up front and hint of grass. Very clear greenish-gold in color. Crisp flavors of green apple, lychee, and pear. Light spice with long finish. Really nice!

The brunello kit came with 30 grams oak dust and 30 grams of French oak chips. It was bulk aged 2 months (again, out of laziness and lack of time), but not filtered. Still pretty clear, dark garnet in color. Spicy nose with lots of dark, ripe fruit. Really rich, complex flavors of spice box, cedar, smoke, plums, black cherry, and hint of blueberry. Really good for a young red, this one is going to be great!