The rewards and frustrations of home winemaking

Time for another syrah harvest at Live Oak Vineyard in Fallbrook!  I was the first to arrive, just as the sun broke over the mountains to the East.  The weather this year was perfect so far.  I did smell a nearby wildfire as I drove up to the vineyard, but nothing threatening to interfere with […]

Today I took a group of people in my Hands-on Winemaking class at Curds and Wine up to Fallbrook for a preharvest Vineyard Visit. We picked a perfect day (read as sarcasm), as a heat wave recently hit and it was sweltering. But, it’s always a lovely, if not hot, day at the vineyard. Mike […]

I pulled out another bottle of my ‘La Jolla Caves’ Winexpert Crushendo “Montagnac Vieux Chateau d’Oc” red rhone blend to see if it is doing anything useful in the cellar. So far, this is one wine kit that has disappointed me all along, and I just don’t think this wine is going to come around. […]

Got an email from Mike Hoffman yesterday.  He took several random samples from his upper vineyard “Cima Sur” and the lower vineyard “Este”.  As usual, the upper vineyard has a slightly higher brix reading average of 19 brix, and the lower vineyard is currently at average 17.6 brix.  We are shooting for around 23-24 brix […]

It is finally time to bottle the oak trials today!  I am also bottling the 2009 Petite Sirah that I did egg white fining on, so I can compare it to the unfined wine side-by-side.  The chardonnays all cleared out really nicely, which is great so I can bottle directly from the individual jugs — […]

I realized I haven’t really done a head-to-head tasting of my 2008 Merlot lots A and B yet. After being so disappointed with the barrel batch of merlot from that vintage, I’ve been holding out to wait 2 years to pop the smaller batch of lot A. Happily, the time has come! Tasting notes: Merlot […]

We went to visit Live Oak Vineyard today to see how the syrah is coming along this year.  Veraison is already starting in the syrah, so harvest might be a little early this year! Here is the second year growth of the Deaver clone Zinfandel, not yet starting veraison.  Check out the giant clusters: And, […]

The oak trials continue!  All wines were stabilized and cleared about a week ago.  Today I’m racking them all, and the unoaked wine kit will be split into 1-gallon batches.  I had just under 6 full gallons after racking, so I used the little bit left over to top the pre-fermentation oak batches.  I realize […]

We finally set a date and bottled the 2009 Merlot and Petite Sirah from Van Alyea Ranch in Dry Creek Valley, Sonoma.  The wines are tasting great, and we could have bottled before now but I realized I didn’t have a spigot to attach a hose to clean out the barrels after they were empty. […]

I was inspired by Tim Vandergrift’s Hands-On oak trials at the Winemaker Magazine Conference in Santa Barbara to set up my own set of oak trials.  I decided to just get a basic chardonnay kit, the Winexpert Vintners’ Reserve Chardonnay.  This kit does come with a small pack of oak, but I pulled it out.  […]