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 [...]
Tag archive: white blend
Nose of crisp apples with hint of vanilla. Very clear, pale yellow-green in color. Crisp flavors of green apple and peach with hint of bell pepper and vanilla. Wow, really came together VERY nicely, and sooner than I expected!
The Yakima Synergy is clear enough that I’m not going to filter it for bottling. It came out great! I did leave about 700 mL at the bottom of the carboy that had some sediment and poured it off into a separate bottle to clear a little more. Tasting notes: Very faint nose of apricots [...]
I used a 5 micron inline filter to bottle the Argentinian Trio today, and I noticed that the last 2 bottles had paper floating in them! Total bummer. I’m not sure if I didn’t set something up right, or what. Oh well, I’ll mark the corks on these and keep them for home consumption. The [...]
The SG on the Yakima Synergy is at 0.994, although it’s still bubbling away in there. After racking, it’s not very pretty! But, it’s early in the game, there’s still plenty of stirring ahead before it’s expected to clear. In the meantime, Dave bought a cabernet sauvignon kit last year, at the same time that [...]
This is my first Cellar Craft kit. I’m looking forward to this one for several reasons. I’ve read a lot of good things about Cellar Craft on winepress.us. Also, the description of this white blend sounds beyond yummy; it’s a blend of Marsanne and Roussanne from Yakima valley in Washington state, two lovely rhone whites. [...]
The Argentinian Trio was a bit full after racking, so I took out about 550 mL before degassing. I’m glad I did, there was a LOT of foam! It was foamy for the first and second set of stirring, then I waited about half an hour an stirred again to try to really degas the [...]
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!
I rationalized that I needed a bottling pump, since we would have SO much wine to bottle from the barrels, and also then I could bottle solo and not pester my hubby. This is one of those investments that I really hope pays off, because I have high hopes for it. I did a lot [...]
We’re really plowing through the Pac quartet, it’s such a great summer wine, so refreshing. I saw it marked down online, so it was a no-brainer to get another kit. I wonder how long the second batch will last …..