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: wine kit
We opened the 2007 “Overlook Heights” Cabernet-merlot tonight, the first wine I made. Two and a half years later, this wine has come together really nicely. Very smooth, no more foam! Yummy aromas of dark fruit and cocoa, with juicy flavors of plum, black cherry, and blueberry with hints of spice and milk chocolate. Unfortunately, [...]
Since we are four tonight, I decided it was finally time to do a head-to-head comparison of 2008 Mosti Mondiale Chianti with the 2009 WE Chianti. Overall, both tasted very similar; very basic, clean, nice table wines. We tasted alone and with a spinach salad with blue cheese, toasted walnuts, and balsamic vinaigrette. Both wines [...]
Today was a game of wine shuffling. My hubby commented I’m playing Towers of Hanoi with the wines. Here’s what I have to do: I have 2 carboys of the syrah, and Paul needs those carboys back, so I need to move them into 5-gallon better bottles. The only 5-gallon better bottles I have are [...]
It’s finally time to bottle the barolo that has been bulk aging since March. I wanted to avoid bottling any of the goop that has settled out at the bottom, so I racked off the clear wine into a bucket. I noticed a white film at the top similar to what I saw a few [...]
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!
Today I bottled 30 bottles each of a cabernet sauvignon kit (for Dave) and chianti (for me). As I was putting labels on the chianti, I noticed one cork with wine seeping out of the top. I’ve never had this happen before. I yanked that one out, and wine spewed out – we had overfilled [...]
I was racking off my Cellar Craft 5-week Old Vines Zinfandel kit today and noticed this yucky-looking white residue at the top of the wine, sticking to the side of the carboy as it was racked off. There was a lot of lees at the bottom, too. I have an extra liter or so of [...]
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 [...]
I finished bottling the “Bahia Belle” blend and Merlot B (“Embarcadero” merlot) today. Then I finally started another “easy drinker” red kit that I’ve been excited about, a Cellar Craft Lodi Old Zinfandel. I wanted a good, easy house zin to have around for grilling and whatnot, so I did a lot of research on [...]