The rewards and frustrations of home winemaking

It is kinda cool to look up and see jets flying in formations overhead while you’re bottling your wine.  We all got together to bottle the rest of the merlot hanging out in the barrel, and it happened to be the day of the Miramar Air Show.  We got our bottling line set up outside […]

Yep, harvest season is in full swing.  Our merlot from Dry Creek Valley in Sonoma arrived Tuesday.  The plan was to do a 4-5 day cold soak, then pitch the yeast on Sunday — except it started spontaneously fermenting on Friday!  Paul ran out and got the yeasts to pitch, ICV-D21 and BM4x4.  Chris recommended […]

It’s only been about one month since bottling, but I couldn’t wait to try this wine. Very faint nose of berries and plums. Only faintly “soapy” (kit taste), very surprising for wine this young. Nice, round mouthfeel with fruit-forward flavors of blueberry, plum, and blackberry with light spice. Really nice for such a young wine!

Although this blend is still very young — only about 2 months in the bottle! — I really wanted to try it out.  Decanted very briefly. Very sharp, acidic nose. Hint of raspberry and blackberry with spice. Very clear, garnet-purple in color. Very vegetal flavors of green pepper, raspberry, plum, and oak. After about an […]

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!

Paul pressed out the syrah this week, and then racked the juice off of the gross lees into carboys to start the MLF.  It looks like we only got about 10 gallons of juice, and he also kept a bucket of “sludge” that looked like it might settle out and yield a little more volume.  […]

I checked on the primitivo this morning, and saw that the bottles had warped again.  This happened before, the ongoing fermentation creates a negative pressure that causes the bottles to kind of “suck in” and get warped.  It’s an easy fix, I just pulled off the bungs to release the pressure and they went back […]

It was time to pump off the cleared wine into a clean trash can for inoculation of the MLB.  My hubby was nice enough to help me, since wrangling the wine pump could get a little hairy;  both hoses need to be held under the wine, while plugging in the pump and sucking air through […]

I got everything set up and started pressing the primitivo after retesting the brix, which were at 0 for both cans.  It took about 4 hours total, it’s quite tedious with the basket press – the must gets poured in until the basket is about full, then the lid gets screwed down to press.  The […]

This is unexpected, both the syrah and the primitivo are ready to press this weekend.  It would not normally be a problem, except we are going to our friends’ wedding today in Fallbrook (an hour away, but oh so pretty there!).  That makes pressing today with the basket press not an option, leaving only one […]