It is really too early to be opening this wine, but I was dying to try it. Definitely has that “kit nose”, that weird “soapy” scent that most red kits have (but do lose over time). I used a Riedle balloon glass for this tasting, no decanting. The nose is dominated by “kit scent”. Very […]
Tag archive: barolo
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 […]
Time to rack the Muller-thurgau and barolo. Unfortunately, I got a little overzealous with the stirring of the elderflower tea bags in the MT, and punctured most of them. Now there are cute little flowers floating all over the wine. This became a problem as I was racking, the flowers were small enough to be […]
The instructions say to rack the Barolo when the SG reaches 1.040-1.050, and the SG today is 1.038. I guess I didn’t expect it to go so fast, although after racking, it’s obviously still in vigorous fermentation. The oak chips get added at this point, they can been seen floating in the foam at the […]
Time to stir in the raisins. They’re kinda cool, big and fat. I’ll need to stir the grapes around in the bucket every day until the primary fermentation is done. It smells great already, I’m excited about this kit. Too bad I probably won’t drink it for at least 2 years, I want to give […]
I started my second reserve wine kit today, a barolo. This is my first kit from Mosti Mondiale. It’s “all juice” (read as: even heavier than the muller-thurgau yesterday), and has all sorts of fancy stuff, including “select oak” a bag of “red raisins.” Bentonite was stirred into the juice, and no water was added. […]
Time to rack and check the home merlot. I splash racked again, and tested/tasted it. The Free SO2 seemed to be below 20 ppm, so I’m going to try to restart MLF with the dried bacteria I got in December. I’m not optimistic, because I’m pretty sure the bacteria is no good after this long, […]