The rewards and frustrations of home winemaking

Tag archive: white blend

2011 San Diego County Fair Homemade Wine Competition Awards

The awards ceremony for the San Diego County Fair Homemade Wine Competition was yesterday.  I couldn’t make it because I had to run the shop, but my hubby went to enjoy the fun and bring home my awards. I submitted 3 wines, and they all won medals: the 2010 Winexpert limited edition Pacifica White won […]

More Limited Edition Wine Kits in Progress

A few more Limited Edition wine kits have come in.  I posted previously about starting the Cellar Craft Chateau du Pays; I’m going to bulk age this wine for while, but I did do an extra racking about a month after stabilizing and clearing to take out the second addition of Hungarian oak cubes, so […]

“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 […]

Pacifica White Post-Bottling Tasting Note

I just bottled the Winexpert 2010 Limited Edition “Pacifica White” blend this past Thursday. As usual, there was one partial bottle left, but I’m just now getting around to tasting it. This wine has amazing, mouthwatering aromas of peaches, apricots, and honeysuckle. The wine is clear, very pale yellow in color; huge, ripe, juicy flavors […]

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 […]

Pacific Sunset White Two Year Tasting

This wine is now approaching 2 years, it’s hard to believe it made it that long, it’s so good! After time the honey/flowery notes have come forward, although there is still a good spicy bite in the finish too.  Still a great wine, it will be hard to let this one go.  I hope this […]

Yakima Synergy 3 Month Tasting

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!

Yakima Synergy and Alsatian Riesling Bottling

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 […]

Bottling Argentinian Trio

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 […]

First Racking of Yakima Synergy and Starting Year-Old Kit

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 […]