RJ Cole Winery

Cole in '09! Last Second Push

2009-06-19T16:29:00.003-04:00

Okay everyone! It's down to this evening for voting! Please go check out all the videos of the other great candidates, and then choose mine. Don't forget to check out the Murphy-Goode Winery website to learn all a MG, winemaker David Ready, Jr., their great wine list, and some great games like Liar's Dice!

Good luck to all the other contestants!

Bringing the Wine Home, or Out Out Damn Spot!

2009-06-10T22:38:00.004-04:00

Over at Andy's Goode Life Blog, Andy has challenged Murphy-Goode Campaigners and other assorted wine enthusiasts to talk more about wine by answering one of three questions.

1. When I drink red wine, I often get the dreaded “red wine teeth,” which is an embarrassing condition to have at a party when I intend on talking, smiling, or otherwise showing my newly wine-stained chompers. And is there any way to reduce this affliction without hampering my enjoyment of reds?

2. What are your tips to avoid “palate fatigue” when tasting so many wines in a session?

3. Why smell the cork?

Being the overachiever I am, I will now answer all 3 questions (pretty easy answers for all of them to tell you the truth.)

1. First of all, it's not an affliction, it's a badge of honor, as if to say, "I have wine and you don't!" However, I do empathize with your predicament. There are multiple solutions, most of which are simple:
A) Chew a Campden Tablet. A little known fact is that red wine stains are simple to remove if you have enough sulfite. Chewing a sulfite tablet which is strong enough to sterilize 5 gallons of homemade wine is sure to keep those pearlies even pearlier. One drawback is that this is probably hazardous to your health.
B) Make sure everyone around has had more to drink than you. Unfortunately for this one, it relies on what other people do.
C)Dim the lights. This way, no one can see your teeth well anyway. This is the recommended method.

2. Vodka

3. Because you're interested in what the bark of a cork tree smells like. There's no wine-related reason though.

I hope my answers have helped everyone learn something about how to enjoy wine today!

Salud!

Cole in '09!

2009-06-10T21:40:00.004-04:00

Hi everyone! I am now officially running a campaign for the Murphy-Goode Wine Country Lifestyle Correspondent. Please vote for me!

COLE in '09!!

Pumpkin Wine is Still Rockin'!

2009-06-05T11:03:00.003-04:00

My wife, Kat, and I have been doing a great job of eating at home lately, and we've been doing a really good job of being creative while saving some dough on the food. Kat's creativity has been outstanding! One dinner we had this week was a Mojo Pork Loin. For a side, we were just going to have some saffron rice, as well as some sauteed veggies, including yellow bell pepper, tomatoes, onions, and zucchini. Well, Kat had the great idea to pour the cooked rice into the sauteed veggies, thereby creating a kind of veggie paella. It was delicious! We had this two nights in a row!

As this was a cuban-hybrid-fusion type dinner, I started thinking that in the Caribbean, gourds, especially pumpkins are used in lots of dishes. Therefore, what could be better to go with this dish than Pumpkin Wine?

Boy, was that a good choice! The wine is still going strong - nice crisp refreshing wine. There is a good noticble pumpkin flavor. The spices (ginger and cinnamon) have mellowed extremely and are very faint. Good round mouthfeel (for a white fruit wine), excellent clarity, perfect acid for spice filled dishes.

This is still by far the best wine I have made! And I need to check my inventory, but I think I still have quite a bit left!

Hello Again!

2009-06-04T14:13:00.003-04:00

They say winemaking is all about patience and time. Well, sometimes it’s tough to decide how long is long enough. You can see from my post below that Cabernet Franc was the next wine up. Well, I picked 100 pounds of grapes from Medley Meadow Vineyards in King, NC, on October 2nd 2006. I bottled the wine in November of 2008! And I tasted a bottle in May of 2009. So far, two and a half years for this one!

How was it? I think it needs more time! The initial pour had a SHARP bite to it, so it needed to breathe for a while. The appearance was actually beautiful – deep dark ruby and garnet, clear as can be! The nose had notes of anise, mint, black licorice and tobacco. Once it breathed (for a very long time!) I tasted again, and it was a very herbaceous, vegetal wine. Mint, green peppers, pine, vanilla, tobacco, earth, and leather – with just the slightest hint of young cherries. It was still a little hot too, strange because the ABV should be around 11.8%.

Honestly, I went to winepress, and got some advice from Twitter folks about what to do with this. At this moment, I would not serve this. Two options continuously came up as I asked around about this:

1) Let it continue to age for another 6 months or longer, then taste again. Consensus seemed to indicate it would only improve.
2) Make a Merlot and/or Cab Sauv and blend. Cab Franc is a grape that is most often used in blending with these softer, more fruit forward wines.

Cab Franc is known for its herbaceous, vegetal, green taste. The ones I tasted before I made it had some of that, but still had quite a bit of fruit. But now that I think back on it, I’m not sure how many of those were 100% Cab Franc.

Regardless, my choice for now is to wait a while longer, let it age a few more months, and try again. Hopefully, it will have mellowed a good bit. At that point, maybe I’ll have something to blend it with if necessary.

Notes:
Fruit was picked on October 2, 2006, at Medley Meadows Vineyards in King, NC (owners are Randy and Vivian Fulk.)
The numbers for the fruit once I got it back to Charlotte: 21.5 Brix, 3.55 pH, and .47 TA (so I had to add a bit of Tartaric acid.)
Grapes were destemmed by hand, and crushed by very thoroughly washed feet! I may have left too many stems in, which would add to the vegetal taste. Pitched yeast on 10/3, pressed a week later. I used medium toast American Oak cubes, adding and replacing them at rackings. I racked just a few times throughout the process. I never fined or filtered. It aged for the last year in bulk in a basement with constant 65 degree temps.

Special note:

I think my ’06 Blackberry may be done already. It oxidized a bit in bulk, so it has a brownish hue to the color. It still has a strong blackberry flavor, though, so it might last a while longer. Now that I think about it, even though this one was made in a red wine style, it may be a good idea to chill it first…

Grape Photos!

2006-09-17T21:45:00.000-04:00

Finally! Here are the long awaited photos of the Cab Franc grapes (in middle of veraison) and the vines of the grapes.

What's been going on?

2006-09-14T11:18:00.000-04:00

Not much!

After my last post, I did make it up to see my grapes and meet the grower. Randy is a great guy. He showed me the vineyard and answered a lot of questions. The grapes were already looking good, and the Cab Franc were in the middle of veraison.

I just emailed him yesterday asking him how the grapes were coming along. He said that he would be picking his Chardonnay this weekend, but the Cab Franc were at least 2 weeks away. That's a hopeful estimate, actually, based on the weather. All the rain we've received in the state lately has been pushing harvest back. Yesterday, we got a single day record for rainfall in Charlotte! But Randy said that if it dried up and we had good, warm, dry weather after that, they should be ready in about 2 weeks. Any more rain could push the harvest back well into October.

The forecast as of today? Drying up and warm for the rest of the week, followed by cooler dry air next week. Keep your fingers crossed!

The Sunday of Labor Day weekedn, I did a lot of work on my current wines. First, I racked my blackberry wines for the first time sine putting them in the secondary. I was able to get them off a lot of sediment, and used about half of my half gallon to top up the 5 gallon carboy of Blackberry. I topped up the half gallon with some merlot, so that will be a good 50/50 blend of the two. I tasted this Blackberry, and boy was it ever tart! It tasted like I had way too much acid in there. I decided not to adjust at this time, hoping that in time the acid would back away some. If that doesn't work, I may have to figure a way out to cut the acid.

The second run blackberry wine was racked as well. This one didn't lose too much sediment, but I still had to top up a bit with some Pinot Noir that I had opened (you can't do any work with wine without drinking a bit of it after all!) I tasted this (before adding the Pinot Noir) and it was very tasty! Perfect amount of acid right now, and it seemed like there was just a bit of sweeteness still. It reminded me of when you have a glass of Kool-Aid where the mix hasn't been dissolved quite completely. It was sharp and refreshing - a light wine like it should be.

I really need to do some analysis on these blackberry wines and check the pH, TA, and SG. Even though the 2nd run blackberry was good, I'm worried that the kool-aid taste means that it didn't finish fermenting. If it didn't, and it tastes good anyway as it ages, I'll just stabilize it and age it with residual sugar.

Next I racked my Carm/Cab. It has cleared, but there were minimum lees still in there. The bottom of the carboy was coated with sediment, but it wasn't really enough to lose much of the wine. As it was, I used about a quarter of the bottle of Pinot to top up. This one really surprised me! The last time I tasted it, I detected what home winemakers call Kit Taste. There's no good description really to explain what kit taste really is. Some people say it's a candy-like flavor. Anyway, this had it, much like my Merlot does. But when I racked it this time and tasted it, there was absolutely no kit taste! (Although, that could be a result of a couple of glasses of Pinot in addition to some tastings of the blackberry wine...) But I thought it tasted wonderful, and I'm really excited about this one.

I wanted to bottle the Carm/Cab, but 2 things got in my way. I've collected enough empty bottled to do this, but most of them still have their labels on them. I went out and bought some steel scouring sponges. But I ran out of time to actually scrub the bottles, so that's still on my list of things to do. Also, when I checked my cork supply, I found I only have 7 corks left. This wine will give me about 30 bottles, so I've just got to wait until the corks I ordered come in. (More on that in a moment.)

Tuesday of this week, I finally picked a bottle of Pumpkin Wine to send to the NC State Fair Wine Competition. The labels got behind schedule, so I had to print my rough draft of the label ona black and white printer and tape it on. No mind though - they say on the entry form that the judges don't see the bottle. One thing they will see however, is the sediment that has formed in the bottle. It's not really so much sediment as it is "floaties" that are suspended in the wine. I believe these are strings of proteins that have bound themselves together and formed visible strings. It's nothing that will harm the wine, or the flavor, but it's going to cost me points for the clarity portion of the judging. Oh well, I'll find out. Maybe the taste will blow them away so much that I'll still win big!

To get ready for my grapes, I ordered online a bunch of stuff. As I mentioned before, I ordered new corks - these are the Nomacork brand, a synthetic cork that should allow longer aging and better ability at cellaring. I also ordered a special yeast called BM45 that's generally only available to commercial wineries. It is supposed to improve the mouthfeel of the wine, and evidently is really en vogue for winemakers right now. In addition to this, I'm getting some Malolactic Bacteria and nutrient for them in order to convert the malic acid in wine into smoother, less sharp lactic acid. Finally, I order some American Oak Cubes to simulate the flavor produced from barrel aging. This should all be here by Monday at the latest!

Other things on the horizon are the 10 pounds of blueberries I have in the freezer, and looking ahead to making another batch of Pumpkin wine in October.

That's all that's been going on lately. I did take a couple of photos of my vineyard trip, but my home computer is pretty much completely dead now. So I'm going to have to upload those to a different computer. I'll post them when that happens.

I'll report back with more news later!

Nothin' Much Happenin'

2006-08-08T14:53:00.000-04:00

So it's been a while since my last post. That's because, mainly, there hasn't been much new news for the winemaking. The blackberry wines are still in secondary, the Carm/Cab and Strawberry wines are still in aging.

I've got a pH Meter and a Refractometer on they way to me, and I need to order a fermenter, some BM45 Yeast, some MLF, and some Stavin Oak Cubes for the Cab Franc grapes.

Speaking of those, this weekend, I will be up at my parents in Kernersville, and I plan to stop by Medley Meadows Vineyard in King, where I've sourced my grapes from. Randy Fulk, the owner, will be there to show me around the vineyard, and we'll probably talk grapes and wines for a while.

I can't wait to meet my little berries! I'll check on them and see how far along they are in Veraison, and see what Randy approximates as harvest time. There's a cold front moving through the area today and tomorrow, and it's carrying some rain with it, so that could push back harvest a few days, as rainfall will almost immediately affect the Brix and acid levels in grapes.

Personally, I'm sick and tired of this hot weather, but evidently, the grapes generally like it. They ripen better and get sweeter in the dry, hot weather. It might actually have been a little bit too hot as one winegrower recently told me. He said hot days and cool nights are best, but it hasn't even been anywhere close to cool around here lately!

So, we'll see. I'll report back on the condition of the grapes once I've met them!

2nd Run in 2ndary!

2006-07-29T21:08:00.000-04:00

3 days is all it took! Friday, after work, I checked the SG of the 2nd run Blackberry again and it was all the way down to 1.008. So I rinsed out and sanitized my brand new 3 gallon carboy and transfered the wine over. I scooped out some of the lees that were still floating with a strainer and washed them and what was left in the bag down the garbage disposal. I then rinsed out the bag really well, and I'm going to throw it in the washer by itself.

As I was finishing up siphoning, the carboy was about half way between the bottom of the enck and the shoulder of the carboy. I was getting mostly sediment through the siphon by then. As I looked at the bottom of the primary, there was still a good bit of wine left, but it was completely full of sediment. I guess that since this wine fermented so quickly, the gross lees didn't have time to compact at all. So I pulled out the strainer again, tilted the bucket so everything was on one side, snd started scooping again. It took a little while, but I got to where I was confident that it would be okay to start the siphon again. In the end, I had to add about 2 cups of water to the carboy to top it off properly. But my alcohol level was probably a little high, so that should be fine.

So now, my storage closet is filled with full carboys: 6 gallons of Carm/Cab, 5 gallons of Strawberry, 5.5 gallons of 1st run Blackberry and 3 gallons of 2nd run Blackberry. Now I'm just waiting on the Cab Franc grapes and enough blueberries to make some more!

Speaking of the grapes, I've purchased a refractometer which will help me determine the Brix of the grapes while in the field, Brix is another measurement of dissolved sugars in water, like SG, and is primarily used for making wine and spirits. It's a neat little tool! Next up will be a pH Meter to determine the "acidity" of the grapes. I also found out that Alternative Beverage does rent Crushers/Destemmers and Presses! So I'm almost all set to venture into the next area of winemaking - grapes!

2nd Run Blackberry

2006-07-27T16:20:00.000-04:00

Sometimes people like to use the skins and pulp of fruit that has already gone through fermentation a second time to make more wine. When you do this, it is called a Second Wine or a Second Run Wine. The leftover pulp (called pomace) still has a lot of live and active yeast cells in it, along with a good bit of tannin (assuming it was a tannic fruit) and sugar. If you add some sugar water to it, along with some acid (as most of the acid will be gone from the fruit) then the yeast once again have food in a low-alcohol environment. The resulting wine should only be half as large as the original batch, and it will still have less body, color, and other characteristics found in the first run wine off the fruit. It should reach maturity quicker as it will have less of all of this, and since it should be made to a lower alcohol level. Thus, starting one now could provide a nice light wine to quaff by next summer (if not before then!)

I started my 2nd run Blackberry Tuesday night – 7/25/06. I went ahead and hand pressed the pomace, at least what was still in the straining bag - there was a good bit of it that had seeped out during primery ferm of the 1st run. I left all of that in the bucket (after I got 5 and a half gallons of 1st run, which was as much as wine as I could out of it during transfer.)

I made this to 3 gallons on the pomace of the 28.5 lbs of blackberries. I only used about 4 pounds of sugar, which I added to about 1 gallon of boiled water, then added another gallon of cool water to try to bring down the temperature quickly. I added this to the pomace while it was still a little warm. If I had added it any warmer, I could have killed the yeast. I also added in a can of Welch's Concord Concentrate. I stirred everything up really well. Checking SG might have been a problem, though. The must was still warm (not hot) from the syrop I added. I still didn't have a thermometer (until yesterday), so I didn't know the exact temp, but SG came out to 1.048. I guesstimated the temp of the must at around 90-95, so adjusting for temp (according to my possibly misguided calculations) PA was going to be right around 12%. Of course, I did learn that the calculations were misguided, and the actual SG would have been about 1.052 – not enough, around 7%. So I would have to add more sugar.

I adjusted TA to about .60. While I was testing the TA, the must started fermenting like crazy! Once I determined how much Acid to add, I turned around and there was a cap already! I went to bed a couple hours later and I could hear the airlock bubbling from inside the closet!

Yesterday after work, I added about 3 and a half more pounds of sugar - in a half gallon of water, to the must. The SG had already dropped to 1.024, and seemed to be slowing down. I figured that was due to a lack of sugar. So I stirred the sugar in really well, and made my first goof with this one - I forgot to measure the SG again! If I would have measured it immediately, I could add the .028 that it had fallen and had a pretty accurate measurement of the correct SG. Oh well. I still hope I ended up around 10 - 12% for the PA, but we'll never know.

I'm interested to see what the Concord Concentrate will add to the wine, whether it be just body or flavor or what exactly. I'm considering blending with some of my Merlot once this is ready, but I'll just have to wait and see on that.

Fresh Grapes Update:
I have made initial arrangements to purchase 100 pounds of Cabernet Franc grapes from Medley Meadow Vineyards in King, NC. Randy Fulk, the owner, invited me to come up and take a look around, then come up sometime in late August or early September to test the grapes, and help make a decision on when to pick them. Harvest last year was September 10th, he told me. This year he expects it to be later because of the rains they've gotten up there. I'll keep you posted on this!

Blackberry Fermenting

2006-07-19T11:42:00.000-04:00

Just a quick update on the Blackberry Wine:

I stirred my must after I got home from work yesterday. It was bubbling away, and had formed a thick cap even on top of the fruit bag. I stirred to get this back down in the wine.

I grabbed my handy wine thief and took an SG reading, down to 1.091. Not bad for a first day. I put the lid back on, and went about my other business. Later, I went back and opened the closet door, and the airlock was bubbling like crazy, so I think it's safe to say that this wine is doing well.

Carm/Cab Update:

Tomorrow is the day that this wine should be finished clearing. I've checked shining a flashlight through it, and I can see it. It looks pretty clear. However, I've still been pumping my Mity-Vac, and I'm still getting lots of little bubbles. I may rack soon, to get it off the sediment that has fallen out, and try pumping some more. I always wonder if the sediment may trap CO2 underneath it, and that's why it never completely comes out.

On the Horizon
Nothing definite has come up as of now, but there are 2 huge possibilities for the near future.

1. Kat's giant blueberry bush has been covered in tons of ripe berries daily for the past week. Already we've picked about 5 cups of berries off this bush. Unfortunately, Kat made it clear that I can't use all the berries that we pick for my wine. Fortunately, she is going to use the ones that she doesn't give me to make yummy stuff! She made some Blueberry Pancakes a few days ago that were amazing! Once I see how many berries she'll give to me for the winemaking, I'll determine how much wine I can make out of them. Even if it's only one gallon, it will be worth it!

2. I have a couple of contacts for small lots of Vitis vinifera grapes (i.e. wine grapes) - Cabernet Franc or Syrah. I'll have to decide which one I would like to do and see if I can afford it. I'd like to make 10-12 gallons of wine from whichever one I choose, so I'll need around 150 - 200 pounds of grapes! Other issues arise with this as well - can I find a crusher/destemmer and a press to use for these, or will I have to do everything manually? Can I find a primary fermenter large enough to handle this amount of wine?

I'm leaning towards the Cab Franc as the grapes I'll choose, but I'll need to make a decision soon, to make sure I can get some. Sangiovese and Chardonnay were also available, but as I'm not a big fan of wine from those grapes, I think I'll choose between the others.

Blackberry - more info

2006-07-17T15:14:00.000-04:00

I went home and did some more tests on the must and pitched the yeast. The SG turned out to be the average from last night - 1.098. I added another pound of sugar, which brought it up to about 1.100 exactly. I may try to stop the fermentation early in order to preserve some residual sugar, but that's usually pretty tough to do. I should probably just backsweeten after fermentation is complete.

The TA was just slightly low for what I wanted, so I added about 3 more teaspoons of acid blend. That should make it around .60.

I did use a minimal amount of water to dissolve the sugar in, and that got the volume maybe slightly higher than 6 gallons. Of course, the displacement caused by the fruit bag is included in that volume.

I rehydrated the yeast per the instructions on the packet and pitched it, then remembered I hadn't added any yeast nutrient yet! I quickly added 6 teaspoons of that (which was all I had!) and did a couple of quick stirs of the must - I didn't want to stir too much, because the yeast usually start off better when near the oxygen on top of the must.

Here is the recipe:

28.5 lbs Super Fresh Blackberries
11 3/4 lbs sugar (to 1.100)
Acid Blend to .60
1 1/4 tsp Liquid Pectic Enzyme
6 tsp yeast nutrient
Water to 6 gallons
RC-212 Yeast

1. Freeze the blackberries in freezer bags.
2. Thaw berries in mesh straining bag in primary fermenter with the pectic enzyme.
3. Tie the top of the bag, then crush the berries to get out as much juice as possible.
4. Check SG of the pure juice to determine how much sugar to add.
5. Check volume of juice in fermenter to determine how much water to add.
6. Take about half the volume of water needed and boil on stove, add enough sugar to reach 1.100 SG. Dissolve.
7. Cool Sugar Syrop and stir into primary. Once must has cooled, check SG.
8. If more sugar is needed repeat step 6 - keep in mind that the dilution by water will lower the actual SG, so you may need to add a bit more sugar. Continue until desired SG is reached.
9. Use titrets to test for TA. Normal range for fruit wines is .55 to .65. Add acid blend to reach desired TA. Once acid blend is added, test again to confirm TA.
10. Stir must well.
11. Stir in yeast nutrient.
12. Make yeast starter by adding packet of yeast to 50mL of warm water. Wait 15 minutes, then stir starter, and pitch into must.
13. Cover and sit back and wait for wine to happen!

Be sure to stir the must and check SG daily. Once SG is down to about 1.010 - 1.020, transfer to secondary vessel.

Blackberry '06

2006-07-17T11:48:00.000-04:00

As I sit here with stained hands, I'm pleased to announce the start of Blackberry Wine 2006!

Yesterday, I took the 28.5 pounds of blackberries out of the freezer in order to start the wine. I put my large mesh straining bag in my primary bucket, and dumped the frozen berries all in. Then I put slightly more than 1/4 teaspoon of liquid pecitc enzyme on top.

I was going to fill up the sink with hot water and put the bucket in there to thaw the berries out, but that wasn't going to get much coverage, and it was blazingly hot outside. So I snapped the lid on the primary, stuck a sulfited piece of a paper towel in the grommet hole, and put the bucket outside.

After a couple of hours, it was starting to thaw very well, but still hadn't thawed all the way. I thought I could speed it up a little by going ahead and crush what berries I could.

Let me ask a question: how long can you hold you hands in ice water? The juice was COLD!!! I could only squeeze and crush for a couple of mintues at a time before my hands were hurting badly. Finally, I decided to do what I originally set out to and filled the sink up with hot water and put the bucket in that. I had to switch out the water about 4 times in about 30 minute intervals, because the ice cold berries and juice in the bucket were cooling off the scalding water quickly.

Finally, the juice was no longer Ice Cold, so I was able to crush the berries with my hands. When I picked up the bag and held it over the bucket, it looked to be about 2 gallons of juice in the bucket, plus a bunch still in the bag. With the bag in the juice, displacement put the volume at about 4 gallons.

I checked the SG of the pure juice, and it was at 1.040. I would like to leave a bit of residual sugar for sweetness, so I chose Lalvin Bourgavin RC-212 yeast (which has an alcohol tolerance of at most 14%). Therefore, I was wanting to get my starting PA to about 15%. [note: due to some discrepancies on SG to PA conversions, I'm using PA scale here. I will adjust once I find more information.] That way, the yeast should top off at 14% abv, leaving the wine sweetened with the remaining "Residual Sugar."

After doing some calculations, I put a gallon of water on the stove to boil, and added in 10 pounds of white sugar. Once this was dissolved, I let it cool for a few minutes, then dumped this into the must.

I stirred good, and checked SG again - the reading was 1.100, a little lower than I wanted. After more calculations, I set about a quart of water on to boil and added 12 ounces of sugar to that. I dumped that in the must and checked SG again - 1.096, definitely too low. I thought, though, that the temperature might be a little too high to get an accurate reading, so I decided to let the must sit overnight and I will check the SG again today. If it needs more sugar, I'll have to add it this time without water, as the volume now (with the fruit bag dislacing the must) is right at 6 gallons.

Next, I decided to go ahead and check TA. A good range for acidity is .55 - .65 PPT. My test showed around .45 PPT. I added 6 teaspoons of acid blend to the must and stirred it again. I didn't re-check the TA after that, so I will check again today.

Finally, I snapped the lid back on, plugged up the grommet hole, and went to bed.

More on this will follow soon!

Carm/Cab Update

2006-07-09T13:01:00.000-04:00

This past Thursday night, July 6th, I racked my Carm/Cab to the primary bucket and back to the 6 gallon Carboy. I first cleaned and resanitized my carboy, once I had racked to the primary bucket. Then I racked it back, topped up to within 2 inches of the bung with a bottle and a half of my VR Merlot, and put it back in to wait 14 days to see if it clears.

One trick to checking for clarity in dark red wine is to take a flashlight and shine it through the carboy from the side opposite you. I did this, and could not see the light! I thought perhaps this was because the volume of the wine in the carboy was so great that it kept the light from making it through, so I put a bit of wine in a glass and held that up to the light. Still, total darkness. This was a black hole, letting no light escape through the wine.

I wasn't sure if this meant that it still had sediment in it which was oscuring the wine, or if it this particular wine was supposed to be this dark. So naturally, I went to Winepress with a question. I learned that the Carmenere is a dark grape, but that I should be able to see at least a little light through the wine. I was told that if I continue following the directions, which now say to wait 14 days, that more sediment should fall out and I'll be able to see through the wine then. So I'll wait and see what happens!

I did take a taste of the wine as I was racking it. My goodness, this is going to be a great wine! It was already complex, full-bodied, round, and smooth. I noted oak, earth, tobacco, pepper, vanilla, plums, and berries in both the nose and the palate. It had a long tannic finish, which was perfect! And since this is supposed to be a "big kit", it should only get better aging for a year, a year and a half, 2 years... of course, I'll have to see if I can wait that long for it!

Blackberry
Just a note that I plan to start the blackberry wine next Sunday, the 16th. I read on Winepress about some folks doing "2nd run" wines off of blueberries. A 2nd run wine is when you used the pulp from the used berries to make another wine on. This wine would be lighter bodied, but still have flavors of the fruit. Since I have so manky blackberries, I thought that I could make a good one this way. We'll see how that goes!

Pumpkin Bottled!

2006-06-30T12:20:00.000-04:00

Last night I got my Pumpkin Wine all bottled finally! That's right, the wine that got this blog started is nearing completion! 9 months almost to the day after I started the wine, all that is left to do is wait for it to mature in the bottle.

I bottled 20 total 750 mL bottles - 18 were the Cobalt Blue Hock Style bottles and 2 were clear Bordeaux bottles - so I could see the wine to show it off, it was too pretty to hide! I also bottled 6 375 mL bottles with a 7th bottle about 3/4 of the way full. I went ahead and put this in the fridge to chill for early sampling - that will also give me an idea of whether this wine will be better chilled or room temperature. All my samplings so far have only been at room temp. The 375 mL bottles were all Cobalt Blue Hock bottles.

I don't have any photos yet of these bottles of wine, but I will get some and post them. I still need to get labels made and buy some shrink wrap capsules for the tops. So once I get those, I'll take more photos and post them as well.

Since I won't have any more updates on the Pumpkin Wine (except for photos) until it's finally time to open the first bottle, I will add links to this post to all of my posts that have mentions of working with the pumpkin wine. This post will become "Pumpkin Central".

Recipe for Pumpkin Wine
Shopping and Prep
Pumpkin Must - no yeast yet
Primary Fermentation Day 1
Day 4
Day 6
Into the Secondary
Day 12
Day 14
End of Fermentation
First Rack
2nd Rack
Pumpkin Pictures 1
Pumpkin Pictures 2
Pumpkin Pictures 3
Pumpkin Update 2/14
Pumpkin Update 5/26
Sparkolloid Fining
Still not clear
Ideas for clearing
June 11th
Pumpkin Wine Filtering

That's it for now!

Working with the Longest Named Wine in the World

2006-06-28T21:09:00.000-04:00

That is to say, the Winexpert Selection Limited Edition Chilean Maipo Valley Carmenere/Cabernet Sauvignon. Phew! I'm outta breath! And tired from working on it tonight!

SG had dropped down to 0.994 and was staying stable there. This is within the range suggested by the kit instructions, so I was ready to stabilize and fine the wine. First, though, I attached my Mity-Vac Vacuum Pump to start vacuum degassing of the wine. I pumped like crazy last night, walked away and did some other stuff, came back and pumped like crazy, and on and on throughout the night. When I woke up this morning, I had the worst pain in my left forearm from squeezing that pump so much.

But after some biofreeze, I was back at it after work today. Pump, watch TV, pump, play playstation, pump, fix dinner, pump...

Finally, I felt it was pretty well degassed for what I needed at the moment. I went ahead and added in a half cup metabisulfite/sorbate solution, and used my Mix-Stir to mix that in well (and hopefully, knock some CO2 loose while stirring!) Then I added the Chitosan, and hit the wine again for a few minutes with the Mix-Stir. I believe that it did get rid of some more of the CO2. Next I topped up with some red wine I had around the apartment, and a little bit of water. Finally, I popped back in the bung, and attached the Mity-Vac once more. I've been pumping off and on for a little over an hour, and I believe I have gotten it just about as good as it's going to be. Some bubbles were still rising to the top, so I left the Mity-Vac in vacuum and attached to the carboy. I'll leave it that way over night, and tomorrow remove the Mity-Vac and pop on an airlock. It should clear in about 8 days, at which time, I'll rack to another carboy.

At quarter after nine tonight, that's where I'm at so far. I need to go check on some bottle for my Pumpkin Wine, and if they're ready, I'll try to bottle them tonight. If not, then I'll have to wait a bit longer.

I'll post a follow up tonight or tomorrow depending on what happens with the pumpkin wine tonight.

Blackberries!

2006-06-26T12:39:00.000-04:00

After thoroughly enjoying my last couple of tastes of my original Blackberry Wine, and after receiving great feed back on it from family and friends, I decided I need to make a new Blackberry Wine. Unfortunately, if you'll notice from my first posts, I took no notes while making the original batch, so it will not be duplicated. But I will try to come as close as possible. I got the recipe for that one from Jack Keller's Winemaking Home Page. He has about 5 different recipes though, and I think I'm going to try a different one.

I went to the Farmer's Market on Saturday and bought about 28.5 pounds of fresh blackberries at a good price. I used between 14 and 16 pounds for the original, so I'm thinking about making a more full bodied wine this time. Of course, I could make 2 batches of something similar to what I did last time. Sorry, I'm kind of thinking out loud here.

I'm trying to decide which kind of yeast to use. I'm leaning towards a Lalvin RC-212 or a Red Star Pasteur Red yeast, both of which are said to give a bit more of the fruit's flavor to the wine. The alchohol tolerance for both yeasts is around 12 to 14% abv, which should be fine.

The berries are in the freezer in freezer bags. I'll have to wait to start this until I can free up some room in my 6 gallon carboy. It's full of the Carm/Cab right now. Although, I could put the blackberry wine into a 5 gallon carboy once it's ready, and put the rest into a half gallon or gallon jug. I could try to add oak chips to this gallon, or use it for blending, or find some other type of experiment to do with it.

Anyway, In about a year, I should have a fresh new batch of Blackberry wine. I want this one to be my best one ever. It's got a lot to live up to though! I'll have to make a lot of decisions with it - dry, off-dry, or sweet; sur lie; oak; etc...

Carm/Cab Update:
I need to check the SG on this wine. If it's down to 0.992 or so, I'll go ahead and add the stabilizer and fining agents. Then it'll be time to wait for another 8 days before racking!

Merlot Bottled! (Again...)

2006-06-16T13:47:00.000-04:00

Last night I felt that my Merlot was properly degassed, so I decided to bottle it once more. After some calculations to determine how many bottles I needed, I used 20 750mL bottles and 4 375mL bottles, with a couple of glasses left over for me. The wine tastes better since degassing, but will need to age a bit more to become even better.

One thing that impressed me about my process last night is that with everything I did, it took a relatively small amount of time and created virtually no mess! I washed the bottles, then sanitized them, racked the merlot into the bottles, and corked them. When all was said and done, it took probably about 3 hours. And like I said, mess free! I told my roommate, Lonzo, that maybe this was a sign of getting better at making wine...

Carm/Cab Update:

I measured SG of the Carm/Cab kit, and it had fallen down to 1.005. I was supposed to transfer to the secondary at 1.010, but I missed it. And as I measured the 1.005 late last night, I still didn't make the transfer. I will do that today. Late update: I did.

A couple of things...

2006-06-13T23:49:00.000-04:00

Tonight I did a couple of quick things with my wine. I stirred my Carm/Cab that's in the primary right now (as I did acouple fo times yesterday) and checked the SG. It's down to 1.052 on the second day of fermentation.

I also did some work with my Merlot. Yes I bottled it already, but After tasting, I've been really unhappy with the wine. One major reason I've been unhappy is that the wine has still been fizzy. Evidently, I did not degas the wine as well as I should have. Since I have the Mity-Vac now, I decided I would open all the bottles and pour them back in the carboy, thenapply the Mity-Vac Vacuum to the carboy. I believe I got most of the CO2 out as I poured each bottle back in, but to be sure, I pumped the Mity-Vac, and got almost no extra bubbles. Just to make sure, I'm leaving a vacuum on the carboy overnight. I will have to re-bottle and recork tomorrow or Thursday night. It almsot hurt physically to have to undo a couple of days' worth of work to open the bottles, but if it makes the wine better in the long run, then it will have been worth it.

I have to say... I don't want to be one of the people who talks bad about Wine Kits, but the Merlot is so disappointing right now that I'm tempted. If the Carm/Cab, which would have cost an arma nd a leg if it wasn't for a handy gift card from work, turns out badly, then I'm eschewing kit wine forever. I'll have to find a way to start buying Vitis vinifera grapes and crushing them myself if I want to make grape wines after that. But I'm going to work hard as hell to make sure I do everything right with this kit - so I'll know it's not my fault if things turn out badly.

And to finish, scroll down for photos of the Pumpkin Wine after it has been filtered. You won't believe your eyes!

Pumpkin Wine Filtering

2006-06-13T23:13:00.000-04:00

I wanted to show how amazing the Mini-Jet filter worked on my pumpkin wine! Here are some before and after photos:

Starting to filter the wine.

In the process of filtering with the mini-jet pump.

Beautiful Wine!

Yes, that is an Ernest Hemingway book behind the carboy...

I told you you could read a book through the wine now!

June 11th, 2006 - The Day of The Winemaking Work

2006-06-11T22:52:00.000-04:00

Good grief! I worked my tail off yesterday on various wine projects! I don't know if there's enough space in this blog to hold all the info of what I did!

Okay, I exaggerate. But there was a lot of wine work going on. It actually all started on Saturday when I made a trip to Alternative Beverage to pick up some new supplies. I grabbed a new auto-siphon (the one I used for transferring the strawberry wine somehow didn't get cleaned quickly enough and had dried pulp on the inside, which I could not get out. So I decided it was time to invest in a new one, along with a length of siphon tubing for racking. I also picked up a glass Wine Thief (which is kind of like a really big pipette - a tube that you stick in the wine and cover the top with your thumb to draw out a sample for testing), a new 5 gallon carboy and a case of 750 mL Cobalt Blue Hock Style Bottles and a case of 375 mL Cobalt Blue Hock Style Bottles. I also rented a Buon Vino Mini-Jet Filter in order to try to help clarify my Pumpkin Wine.

When I got home, FedEx had come and delivered my Mity-Vac.

The Mini-jet filter pumps the wine automatically through it's filters, which are pads of different levels of Microns to allow pass through of the wine and to stop the particles in the wine. On Saturday, I ran the Pumpkin Wine through the #1 filter pads, which are the coarse pads and trap the bigger particles, allowing smaller ones to pass through. This made an amazing difference in the clarity and appearance of the wine. I was very very pleased!

Then on Sunday, I started the Day of The Winemaking Work by using the pump on the mini-jet to rack my Strawberry Wine off the fine lees. I started by crushing 5 Campden Tablets and dissolving them in a bit of water and pouring this solution into the carboy, and finished by topping up the new 5 gallon carboy of racked Strawberry Wine with some extra I had been storing in a gallon jug. The only problem with using the mini-jet to rack this was it seemed like a lot of air got into the wine. But remember that I received my handy new Mity-Vac! I attached that to the carboy and started pumping, pulling a lot of bubbles out. I think this wine is almost completely degassed.

Next, I cleaned and sanitized the carboy which had previously held the Strawberry Wine. I added in a solution of 5 crushed Campden Tablets to this, as well. Then I used a #3, or .5 micron, filter pad on the mini-jet to filter the Pumpkin Wine again. The #3 pads are called "Sterile" and allow on the finest, tiniest particles through. This polished the wine so brilliantly that you could read a book through it!

The instructions for the mini-jet are to wait 2 to 4 days between filtering, but since I was renting the machine, I didn't have that kind of time.

I next put an airlock on the new carboy of this wine, then cleaned and sanitized the carboy which had held the Pumpkin Wine, and cleaned the mini-jet and its hoses.

Then I decided to go ahead and start my new kit - the Chilean Carmenere/Cabernet Sauvignon blend. I started by sanitizing my primary bucket and a long handled spoon. I put in about a half gallon of warm water, then sprinkled in package number 1 from the kit, which is Bentonite (a clay powder which aides in clearing the wine). Following this, I poured in the contents of the juice bag, added cool water to the bag to rinse it out, and poured that into the bucket. Then I added just a bit of water to get the must to 6 gallons. I measured the SG which was at 1.096 - right where it should be (I believe that's around 12.75% abv.) I opened the 4 packets of oak that came with the kit (2 packets of French Oak Chips and 2 packets of toasted oak dust) and sprinkled them into themust, and stirred them under as best as I could. The dust kept floating back to the surface, so I checked Winepress for advice (since the instructions said to stir the oak under the surface) and learned that it was alright for the dust to float. Then I sprinkled the yeast on top of the must, put a lid on loosely, set the whole bucket in a trash bag which I tied over the top (in order to prevent any messy spills which could come with fermentation) and set it in the closet.

Whew! After cleaning my Hydrometer and Wine Thief, I was finally done. I sat back and enjoyed a nice glass of La Conreria de Scalia Dei Priorat wine to admire my day's handiwork. I'll have to stir the Carm/Cab daily for the next few days and check the SG.

It was a wonderful day of working with the wine. I really enjoy having my hands busy with this hobby!

Pumpkin filtered with #1 and #3 filters - buon vino mini-jet
Strawberry Racked and degassed with mity-vac
Carm/Cab started - problems!!! 1.096 starting SG. (Pablo Neruda)

Side by Side Tasting

2006-06-09T14:10:00.000-04:00

Last night I was over at Kat's house and we decided to have a glass of wine. I had an open bottle of my VR Merlot, and she wanted some of her Fat Bastard Merlot. I decided this was a perfect opportunity to compare mmy wine to commercial wine. I knew the commercial wine would be better, but I wanted to take the chance to see where mine was lacking so perhaps it could be improved.

The Fat Bastard was dry, had a decent body with some heft to it, very smooth, not terribly astringent, and finished clean. There actually wasn't a whole lot of flavor in it. To me it was definitely lacking in fruit flavor and tannins. But all in all, it was a good merlot.

Mine was fruit forward yet dry, had almost zero body to it, bit back a little bit - especially with mouth-puckering astringency, and finished with a bite. Overall, it needs some work. I really liked the fruit forward flavor without it being too sweet and the tannins, but it lacked in everything else... a lot.

The one thing that impressed me was that the 2 things I thought were missing from the commercial wine were precisely the 2 things I liked about mine. Bias? Quite possibly. But as I'm still learning how to taste wine properly, I can't be sure.

Will my merlot improve with age? I hope so. It is very young still. The kit it came from is marketed as a 4 to 6 week wine kit, meaning 4 to six weeks from the box to the glass. Of course, they do say that it will be even better if it ages. I started this wine a few months ago, but I didn't degas it properly, and it's only been bottled for a few weeks. (The bottle from which I tasted had been degassed thoroughly.) It's my strong hope that this one, as it ages, will mellow out, with the tannins, fruit, and alcohol bonding together to produce more body and less bite. If that happens, I will try another side by side comparison and see how it compares then.

Oh, as far as the other aspects of how wine is judged, my merlot was crystal clear with a beautiful ruby red color, while the Fat Bastard Merlot was a black hole, letting no light escape from it. And as I have been having some allergy problems lately, I couldn't smell a thing from either of the wines.

What to do about the Pumpkin?

2006-06-08T14:03:00.000-04:00

With some ideas about Strawberry Wine

I got in touch with the Member of Winepress (Terry) who created the recipe I adapted for my Pumpkin Wine about how best to clear it. Terry suggested that perhaps I hadn't properly degassed the wine and that held the Sparkolloid mixture up. So as soon as I get my Mityvac, I'm going to try degassing some more. He also suggested I check with Alternative Beverage to see if they would rent me a Mini-Jet Filter. If I ran the wine through this filter with coarse filter pads and it started to clear up some, then I should run it again with sterile pads. If it doesn't clear up through coarse filter pads, then the issue might be a pectin haze - in which case I'll try adding some pectic enzyme and see if that clears it up.

Terry told me that he had never had any prolems with Sparkolloid, so he didn't believe the issue was with the agent. I'm going to try these suggestions he gave me, and rack again to another carboy and try to wait it out. Hopefully it will become clear pretty soon.

The silver lining is that I'm probably going to need to buy another carboy so I can keep the Pumpkin going, along with the Strawberry, and get ready to start my other kit, some new blackberry wine, and have room for blueberry wine in a couple of months. I might have to pick up some muscadines this year as well and try my hand at making wine with them.

If I can get a carboy this weekend, I should probably go ahead and rack my Strawberry Wine again as it has thrown out a lot more sediment. This wine is looking really good! I can't wait for it to be ready either! I'm really thinking about adding some white grape concentrate or possibly even some oak chips. Vanilla Beans have even crossed my mind. I'll be sure to report back what I decide to do.

Until then, have a glass of wine and relax!

Pumpkin Not Clear

2006-06-07T09:53:00.000-04:00

I promised you a report on the clarity of the Pumpkin Wine after checking it on Tuesday. So here's the report: it's not clear.

Actually, as the Sparkolloid settled down, it got back to around the same clarity it had before I added the Sparkolloid. When I put my hand on the other side of the carboy from me, I can see the faint, blurred shape of my hand through the wine. So it's very close, but not quite there.

Of course, my Strawberry Wine, which is only a couple of months old, is almost clear enough to read a book through, but I'm not talking about the stupid Strawberry Wine.

Sorry for that moment of frustration. I'm actually extremely happy with how the Strawberry Wine is looking. I'll have to taste it again soon and report back on that.

As for the Pumpkin Wine, well, I'm not sure what to do now. I doubt that it's clear enough to filter, and of course I don't have a filter anyway, so that's out. I guess I'll go back to the drawing board and check at Winepress.

I'm just ready to get the Pumpkin Wine into bottles and clear up some carboy space. After all, summer is here and fresh fruits are all over the place! I've got to make some more wine!

Breaking News!!!!!!!!!

2006-06-05T15:02:00.000-04:00

Pete Townshend has a blog!

eBay!

2006-06-05T12:47:00.000-04:00

So last night I won a Mity-Vac on eBay which only cost me $12.50 plus $16.95 for shipping. These normally retail for around $60. So I saved a great deal! The Mity-Vac is a tool used by mechanics for bleeding brake lines. It's is a hand-held vacuum pump that will attach to a carboy cap and pull a vacuum on the carboy, thereby aiding a ton in degassing. One of the things that messes up most homemade wines is they are not properly degassed (meaning they still have too much CO2 dissolved in the liquid.) The merlot I just bottled is this way, so I picked up a Wine Saver Vacuum Pump for that. This is the Mity-vac I bought.

But today, as I was perusing eBay for other winemaking equipment and the such, I came across this offer. It's one of the most well written things I've ever seen anywhere. I thank heaven that we have people as erudite as this one in the great State of NC.

My only question is Where does one find 100% natural panty hose?

Maintenance

2006-06-02T16:17:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I think that maintenance is one of the hardest words in the world to remember how to spell. I mean, from knowing it's root, you would think it should be spelled maintainance, but that just looks silly.

Anyways, in case you haven't noticed, I updated the top of the blog to let people know what this here blog's all about. I received a visit from a fine gentleman named Mike Duffy who advises commercial wineries on how to make their websites the most effective, and I hoped I didn't waste his time. So I wanted to make it easier for people to know that I'm just a lowly home-winemaker-who-will-one-day-rule-the-world-of-commercial-wine-but-not-commercial-yet. Hopefully anyone who comes here by mistake will still look around!

I also discovered that there are many many more Wine Blogs than just mine and Jack Keller's. Who'da thunk it, in a world that has almost as many blogs as people, I wasn't completely unique! Well, after looking through some, I added a few links to my blogroll on your left to the ones that I liked the most. Be sure to check out Home Winery to read the experiences of another Home Winemaker.

That's it for now.

PS- I'm thinking about starting my next kit very soon. It's the Winexpert Selection Estate Limited Edition Chilean Maipo Valley Cabernet Sauvignon/ Carmenere. Hopefully I'll be able to get a Mity-vac soon to help with degassing that one!

"Hey Rob, how's the pumpkin doing?"

2006-06-01T15:54:00.001-04:00

Well, I'm glad you asked! I checked in on it the other day, and boy. It was messed up badly. It looked like all the Sparkolloid mixture got air bubbles in it and it was floating at the top. It looked horrible, the wine wasn't any clearer, and it was just a bunch of sludge up there.

So I decided to take my Mix-stir and just kind of stir things up by hand with it. I broke up the sparkolloid mixture, as it had kind of formed back together at the top. Then I stirred a little bit trying to get everything mixed in well.

That was all on Tuesday. I started the Sparkolloid on Thursday, May 25th. It was supposed to take a week. So I'll look at it today and see how it is. If it's still not looking great, I'll give it until next Tuesday, and then I'm looking for help!!

Update: I checked it last night. It looks like it may be beginning to clear slighty at the top, but it's still pretty cloudy. There is some sediment collecting at the bottom of the carboy, although this may just be the Sparkolloid mixture falling out and not taking anything with it. WORK, SPARKOLLOID!!!

I guess we'll see how it is on Tuesday!

Did you know...

2006-06-01T11:48:00.000-04:00

...that winemakers in California Wineries last year earned an average of $92,435? That's an increase of about 10% since 2001 according to a poll published by Winebusiness.com. Lots of interesting Wine Industry salary averages and ranges there. The Range for Winemakers' salaries was dependant on the size of the winery. The midsize wineries, which produce 50,000 to 99,999 cases of wine a year, had the highest numbers in the range - from a low of $61,774 to the highest of $183,550.

Now this does seem to be based on Wineries in California, but I would imagine that the salaries would be similar with the differences in the cost of living between the different areas.

Just some food for thought for what I might want to do sometime in the future...

A Big Hit!

2006-05-30T12:23:00.000-04:00

I hope everyone had a good long weekend! I had a good one, but just about ran myself ragged! On Saturday, Kat was having some people over in the evening for a little party, so we worked our tails off all day getting everything ready for everyone. We had a lot of great food, and evrybody brought sides of hors d'ouevres to munch on in addition to all the food Kat prepared.

We tried to make a pretty ice block for serving shrimp on. We had gotten the idea from Southern Living magazine. What you're supposed to do is fill a cake pan with water and cover it with Saran Wrap. Then you put a few baby carrots in through the Saran Wrap all the way to the bottom so that they stand up. After this freezes, you can remove the carrots, turn the pan upside down to remove the ice block, and you'll have a few holes where you can put small flowers in. It sounds really cool, huh? Well, the theory is great, but we couldn't get the carrots out, and the ice block was too big for anything except a cutting board, and, it being ice, slid all over the place and the shrimp tried to slide off too! What a mess.

I decided that I would also pop open a bottle of my Blackberry wine and let everyone have a taste. Most people were a little nervous about trying their first sip of homemade wine. But after the taste, everybody said they loved it! They all thought it was delicious and gave me huge compliments.

So my wine was a big hit at the party! I was very happy and I'm still so proud of myself I could pop.

The Blackberry Wine is now almost 2 years old, and you can still tell it's improving. I wish I had made more of it, or at least I wish I had taken notes on the production process so I could replicate this one. Blackberry Wine is definitely on my list again this summer.

Now all I need is about 10 to 20 thousand dollars to become a legal commercial winery so I can start selling my wines!

Pumpkin Update

2006-05-26T12:51:00.000-04:00

Well, it's getting close to Pumpkin Bottling time, so here's an update on the latest.

Last night, I added the Sparkolloid to my Pumpkin Wine. The directions on the bottle were to dissolve 1 teaspoon per gallon in a cup of water in the top part of a double boiler and let simmer for 30 minutes, then add to the wine and agitate, and let it sit for a week.

I don't have a double boiler! So after a quick call to mom to get some advice, I used a regualr pot and a glass Pyrex bowl to a makeshift double boiler. I used the tip of a spoon between the bowl and the pot to allow venting (I didn't want anything blowing up from too much pressure!) This worked great. I actually only let it cook for 20 minutes, as it looked like it wasn't going to do anything more.

Before I added it to the carboy, I had to remove some of the wine from the carboy so everything wouldn't overflow. More on that in a minute. I poured the bowl of the Sparkolloid mixture back into a measuring cup so it would pour more easily into the carboy. Then I poured it in, attached my Mix-Stir to a drill, and stirred for a little bit to agitate the wine. I put the airlock back on and put the carboy back in the closet to wait for a week.

The wine I removed was about a glass worth of wine, and I decided I would just go ahead and taste it to see how it was coming a long. It was great! First of all, the color in the glass was like a normal white wine - kind of like a mix between a Chardonnay and a Grigio color. The aroma was very nice too. I sipped a bit. Very fruit forward with a start of pumpkin. Good and dry. Nice mouthfeel - almost perfect body and tannins. Not "heat" from the alcohol at all. Finished with the perfect amount of acidity and maybe a little too much ginger. Lots of complexity with flavors of spices, pumpkin, grass, and more that I can't remember right now.

Overall, it was a good crisp clean wine with great flavor and nice roundness. And that wasn't even chilled! I'm excited about this one! I think I've decided that I would like to bottle it in some cobalt blue bottles, maybe Riesling style, but any style would work. This is what I would like:

But we'll see. I should probably go ahead and order them so I can bottle next week.

Other Things:

Last night I also did a couple of other things - I layed all my bottles of Merlot on their side, now that I'm pretty confident there will be no cork mishaps. I took 6 of them out of the closet and put them on my wine rack going down in a column. As soon as I get the Pumpkin bottled, it will be in a column beside that. I'm thinking that it may be time to go buy some more of those racks. The rack is a stackable set of single 4 bottle wine racks. I have 6 of them, therefore I have 24 bottles worth. I'm about to have over 100 bottles of wine, so it need to get on that!

I took a look at the Strawberry Wine. It's looking great! Clearing very nicely. If luck goes my way, I won't have to add any agents at all!

That's it for now! Happy Memorial Day Weekend everyone!

Howdy

2006-05-22T20:57:00.000-04:00

So, some people from work got the Winery's Blog URL and have been stopping by to take a look. Well, welcome, all y'all! I know a lot of what you've been looking at has been outdated or provided without explanation. Please look thru the site, maybe check out the archives for some older posts to see what's been going on with the wines, and check out my introductory post to learn more about the blog.

To any passers-by looking for information on how to clear cloudy pumpkin wine, check out some posts from November!

Actually, I've been meaning to talk about that. My pumpkin wine has cleared really well with letting it sit in the carboy and the occasional racking (I believe I've racked it 4 times since secondary fermentation.) However, I believe it has cleared about as much as it's going to on its own. I got in touch with Winethief (the member of Winepress who provided the original recipe which I adapted.) Terry (Winethief's real name) suggested I use a fining agent called Sparkolloid. This should use its electric charge to bond with oppositely charged particles in the wine which are making it hazy. The result is larger particles, which, by the magic of gravity, are pulled down to the bottom easier. This will get everything to settle to the bottom of the carboy, leaving me with a crystal clear (yet still amber-colored) wine.

And if that doesn't work well, I'm bidding on a wine filter on eBay. Right now, if I have the winning bid, it will cost me a total of $51, including shipping. This type of filter normally sales for around $150. Everybody cross your fingers for me!

So that's where I stand with the pumpkin wine. The merlot got bottled (as you could see from the photos) and is resting in the bottles to overcome "bottle sickness". This happens when the wine is disturbed, and goes into shock, usually hiding some of the bouquet and flavor. I hope the Merlot is good in the long run, as I've realized I didn't degas it very well. I'll just have to decant it when I open a bottle to let some of the CO2 escape.

The strawberry, as you could also see, has been racked to a 5 gallon carboy. There it will sit for a while to clear further. I did take a taste of it, and it tasted good, but a little tart - actually, just like a strawberry that was picked a little too early! I'll probably end up adding some Welch's White Grape Concentrate to add body and sweeten that wine. I'm really impressed with how strong the strawberry flavor is! I let it sit on the lees for a little longer than I normally do - a few weeks longer - so I wonder if that might have helped the flavor out. If you leave the wine on the lees too long, all the macerated fruit and yeast cells eventually break down and impart "off" flavors to the wine. This one didn't have any!

Anyway, that's it for now. Enjoy the magic of winemaking, all newcomers, and thanks for continuing to stop by, all family members! Be sure to check out the links at the left of your screen for more Wine Goodness!

Merlot/Strawberry Updates

2006-05-17T00:10:00.000-04:00

Just a quick post to show some updates on the newly bottled Merlot and the newly racked Strawberry Wine. Enjoy!

These are my many many bottles of the Vintner's Reserve Merlot after filling the bottles.
And here they are after being corked!
More Merlot.
This is the strawberry wine before I racked it to a 5 gallon carboy. Notice the bulk lees compacted at the bottom. That's all macerated strawberries and dead yeast!
And here's the strawberry after racking. Strangely enough, it's much much lighter in a glass!

Strawberry Day 2

2006-03-17T12:32:00.000-05:00

I couldn't wait to get home from work yesterday to check my Strawberry wine and see if it was started! So, I got in the apartment and set my stuff down, opened the closet door, turned on the light, untied the top of the trash bag (I set the primary in a trash bag and pull the top up and tie it just in case there are any violent foaming mishaps), and looked to see if the airlock was bubbling away like crazy.

Not so much. But... there were some bubbles, and it smelled slightly of fermenting wine. So I know it's working. It was early in the process - not every wine starts fermenting like mad at the beginning. Maybe today it will be going pretty strongly.

I wanted to note that the yeast I used on this was Lalvin K1-V1116, which they say is the "original killer yeast." This means, it's a very dominant organism which usually overwhelms any other organisms that might be in competiton for the tasty yeast foods - usually wild yeasts. It's supposed to be very strong and hearty, and can ferment under stressful conditions. K1 will usually leave a lot of the distinctive qualities of the fruit used as the base, so hopefully this wine will be very strawberry-y.

As I was punching down the cap, and stirring the must, it seemed to be a bit thinner than the smoothie consistencies of before. So I decided to try to take an SG reading again. This time is read 1.086. The wine had already started fermenting, so that's down from whatever the startign SG was, but now my guess for starting SG is around 1.090, which is stronger than I expected. But Hopefully, it won't affect the wine too negatively.

Anyway, we'll see how it's progressing tonight, and I'll report back when I can.

More Strawberry

2006-03-16T09:25:00.000-05:00

I worked on my new strawberry wine some more last night. I strained and strained and strained to get a good sample for testing the SG. I saw that I needed to add more sugar, so I made a syrup using 3.75 pounds more sugar (and half as much water brought to a boil, then stir in the sugar until dissolved.) I Stirred this syrup into the must and checked the SG again. The hydrometer read 1.068, which is almost exactly 9% alcohol by volume. That's just slightly too low. But then I remembered that the temperature of the must can alter the SG reading. After trying to adjust for temperature based on guesstimation of the tempm of the must, I believe that the Starting SG is around 1.075 to 1.080 - somewhere around 10 - 10.5% abv. That is a good abv. So I decided to stick with it.

I went ahead and added the rest of the additives to the must - 5/8 tsp tannin, 5 tsp Yeast Nutrient, and 1/8 tsp Pectic Enzyme. I stirred this all in well. Then I created a "mini-starter" with the yeast. I just used the directions on the back of the yeast packet, which said to dissolve the yeast in 50ml water and let stand for 15 minutes, then add to the must. I closed the primary with the lid and airlock on, and set it in the closet.

Hopefully everything will work out right with this. The must was still thick, but not quite a smoothie consistency any longer.

So now I have 5 gallons of Strawberry wine in the primary, 5 gallons of Pumpkin wine clearing, and just under 6 gallons of Vinter's Reserve Merlot bulk aging.

One kit is still on deck.

Strawberry Wine

2006-03-15T11:50:00.000-05:00

Well, I decided that the space in my freezer would be better suited to storing food (remind me to go to the grocery store!), so it seemed like it was time to start the strawberry wine. That seems like a good enough excuse, although I could just say I was too excited about the Strawberry Wine to wait any longer...

Anyhoo, I decided to get started on Monday night, March 13th. I had frozen 24 pounds of strawberries in order to get the cell walls to breakdown a little bit (this happens when frozen fruit thaws. I can't explain it exactly, but in my mind, when the water present in the cells freezes, it ruptures the cell walls. Then when the fruit thaws, the liquid comes pouring out.)

I sanitized my equipment and pulled the berries out of the freezer to thaw. Thawing took quite some time. To make the job of chopping up the berries easier, I decided to use my handy blender! I would fill it about 3/4 full of berries, then add some water to make it chop them easier. Note that before freezing, I had chopped all the caps off of the berries. The blender pureed most of the berries into a strawberry smoothie-like substance. It smelled wonderful!!

As I would blend, I would pour what I had just blended into my primary bucket. After a while, my primary was getting extremely full - it was up to 4 and a half gallons, and I still had a few pounds of strawberries, plus water to add! This was supposed to be a 5 gallon batch! I even still had to add sugar, which would cause displacement to up the total gallonage. I decided that instead of blending up the last ~2 pounds, I would squeeze them and only use the juice. This, also, took a while.

Looking at the primary, it looked like an extremely chunky smoothie. I thought there would be no way to test for TA and SG. To try to overcome this, I tried straining through my mesh bag a few times - just enough to get juice. The TA worked out perfectly, and came out to .35. I added 50mL of Acid blend, which should get the TA up to .65 - a good number for fruit wines. The SG, however, still had problems. The juice was still so thick that the hydrometer sank very very very slowly, but it did stop and float at 1.040. I'm wanting to get this to around 1.075 - 1.080. I checked the must, and the sugar I had put in, wasn't mixed in well at all, so I stirred that back up vigorously. I'll have to go back and check on it again to see how that adjusted it (I had put in about 7 pounds of sugar. I may need to add up to 10 pounds total in my guesstimations.)

I did crush and put in some Campden tablets Monday night when I realized that I had this problem on my hands and I wasn't going to be able to start fermenting right away. This should preserve the juice for another day or 2.

One option I have now is to get another primary bucket and pour the juice I have through the straining bags into it. This should get the pulp into a more managable mess, and make it easier to test and ferment everything. The primary will end up with 6 gallons, which I figure will give me about 5 gallons of wine once fermentation is done and I rack off the lees.

Next time, I'm chopping the strawberries by hand - or squeezing them!

Merlot Update

2006-03-07T16:40:00.000-05:00

I racked the VR Merlot today. I split it between a full 5 gallon carboy and most of a 1 gallon jug. The jug didn't get full because a lot of sediment started passing through the racking tube. So I stopped that one and racked the remainder of the sediment to a half-gallon jug. Hopefully the sediment in there will compact more and I'll be able to get more of the wine out to fill up the gallong jug. I'm going to let this sit for a short while and then it should be bottling time!

I'll need to check to make sure it's been thoroughly degassed though. I must not have degassed properly the first time I tried, and ever since then, I always got bubbles to come up when I would shake the carboy. I decided to finally go ahead and rack to see if that might aid in get the rest of the CO2 out.

2 things still on the horizon - my LE Chilean Maipo Valley Cabernet Sauvignon/Carmenere, and now, Strawberry Wine! Harris Teeter had a great sale on Strawberries, so I bouoght 24 pounds. I've chopped the caps off of the berries, and put them in the freezer, where they will stay until it's time to start that wine! I'll post more on why I chose to freeze them later. That's all for now!

Salud!

Pumpkin Update!

2006-02-14T09:18:00.000-05:00

I racked my pumpkin wine again on Sunday night (2/12). I had a taste of it while doing so, and all I can say is wow! This is going to be a good wine! It has a nice light body, with a taste of pumpkin already. It finishes with a bit of a gingery bite. It is definitely not too acidy, and the ginger has backed off, although it's still a little too strong. But now I'm confident that will mellow with time. This is a good dry wine. I'm actually starting to rethink whether I will sweeten this or not!

This is part of what makes winemaking so great. I was simply enjoying the processes of working on the wine, and had forgotten a little bit about how good the finished product can be. This was a great wonderful surprise for me!

The wine is clearing nicely, and has a beautiful golden-amber color in the carboy, and is almost as clear as water with little color in the glass.

That's it for now. We'll see how it progresses!

Salute!

Updates

2006-02-10T08:39:00.000-05:00

VR Merlot:
This past Monday, February 6th, I moved on to the next step on my VR Merlot. Checking the SG on Sunday and Monday, it was already down to .990.

I added packets #2 and #3 (K-metabisulfite and K-sorbate*). Following the instructions carefully, I added these packets to a half cup of warm water and disolved them the best I could, then added directly to the carboy. I then stirred for 2 minutes using my Mix-Stir.

Next I added packet #4 - Chitosan. This is a fining agent, which attaches to small tiny floaties, thereby increasing their mass and falling to the bottom of the carboy clearing the wine.

Finally, I topped up the Carboy with about a cup and a half of cool water to around 2 inches below the bottom of the bung. Now I have to wait 2 weeks from all this activity, which will be February 27th, to bottle. If I prefer, I could rack first to a sanitized carboy to make sure I don't suck up any of the sediment. I'll let you know how that goes!

Pumpkin Wine:
Just looking at my Pumpkin wine. I may try to rack again at the end of the month, but for now, it's starting to clear nicely. The top of the carboy is getting clear enough that I can see my hand through the wine (not extremely clearly yet, but getting there.) As I guessed, this wine has a beautiful golden amber color.

That's it for now. Salud!

*The letter K is the chemical symbol for potassium. Who thought I would ever need chemistry after high school?

Pumpkin Wine Photos

2006-01-31T15:38:00.000-05:00

Finally! Here they are:

Here's what the wine is primarily made of.

And here's the beginning and the ending stages!

Here's all the ingredients that need to go into this to make it work!

"Mmmm... Pumpkin Wine!"

Rehydrating the yeast!

Pumpkin Wine Photos 2

2006-01-31T15:36:00.000-05:00

continued...

Primary Fermentation in the closet!

Another photo of the primary fermentation.

Ready for transfer! SG is down to 1.010 and it's time to move things over!

Transferring...

Transferring. Notice the autosiphon. Makes things easy!

Pumpkin Wine Photos 3

2006-01-31T15:35:00.000-05:00

Last ones for now!

Transfer Complete!

This is what 22.5 pounds of pumpkin meat looks like after fermentation! Notice the size compared to the 2 cup measuring cup!

The Pumpkin wine is in the Secondary and ready to go!

Working with Wine

2006-01-27T09:25:00.000-05:00

Last night I deicded to do some new work with my wines. This was an easy decision since it's still early in the process for my Merlot, and I'm having to check on that on a daily basis. Here's what I did:

PUMPKIN WINE:
1)Sanitized new 5 gallon carboy, autosiphon, and racking tube.
2)Nearly broke back carrying 5 gallon carboy of Pumpkin Wine to counter and lifting it to set on top of counter.
3)Racked Pumpkin Wine into new 5 gal. carboy.
a)I left a little bit of wine in the old carboy to try to keep from transferring too much sediment.
b)I added 5 crushed Campden Tablets, 1 1/4 tsp ascorbic acid, and 1 1/4 tsp Stabilizer.
c)I topped up with some Pumpkin Wine I had left over from the previous racking which had been stored in the fridge.
4)Put in a fresh bung and airlock.
5)Tasted.

VR MERLOT:
1)Sanitized 6 gallon carboy, autosiphon, and racking tube.
2)Nearly broke back carrying 6 gallon primary bucket of Merlot to counter and lifting it to set on top of counter (while catching my jeans pocket on a cabinet door knob.)
3)Racked Merlot into 6 gallon carboy.
a)Instructions indicated to leave most of the sediment behind, so I left a little bit of wine.
b)Per instructions, no additives added at this time.
4)Put in fresh and sanitized bung and airlock.
5)Tasted

Notes:
-It might take quite a while for that Pumpkin Wine to be any good. I took a taste of it and I think I may have used too much ginger. It was very gingery tasting, and still quite "hot". One of the suggestions I've read on Winepress is to add a can of Welch's White Grape concentrate before the final racking, so I'll ty that and see if it mellows the wine out any. I hope it will!

-The Pumpkin Wine is starting to clear very nicely. After racking, it was almost possible to see through it. I also shook the carboy to make sure the additives got mixed in well, and to see if any bubbles arose, indicating CO2 and showing a need to degass. Only a very minimal amount of bubbles showed, and that may have been from oxygen getting into the wine during the racking and the shaking. Without any extra CO2 in there, more sediment should start falling out easily. This will further help to clear the wine, getting me that much closer to bottling.

-The Merlot tasted delicious! I had to check the SG to make sure it was time to rack it. The instructions on the kit say to wait 5-7 days and check the SG to make sure it's down to no higher than 1.010. The SG I measured was only slightly above 1.000, which meant it was time to rack! This lowered SG (down from OG of 1.070) meant that most of the sugar had converted to Alcohol (thanks, yeasties!), which as young as it is, imparts a differnt taste than it did just a couple of days ago. It didn't taste nearly as good, but that's just because the wine hasn't had time to "live together" (as Kat likes to say) and have it's separate components begin to complement each other to become a well-balanced wine. It'll get there soon enough.

-I discovered that my 6 gallon carboy is more likely a 6.5 gallon carboy. The instructions said to leave most of the sediment behind, so I left a little bit of wine, but not very much at all. If I had used all of the wine, the level in the carboy would still not be near the neck of the carboy. My primary bucket is clearly marked where 6 gallons of wine should be. That's where I started off. The carboy, being previously 6 gallons, should have only had a minimal amount of head space left. This means I'll have to go to Alternative Beverage again sometime and get a 6 gal carboy to make sure future wine turn out alright (since I'm adding ingredients for this to measure a certain level.) This shouldn't be a problem for now, as the wine is still fermenting and thus producing CO2 to push the oxygen off the wine. I'll be transferring this to a 5 gallon Carboy in about a week anyway.

So that's about it for today! I'm really excited about both of these, and I'm ready to start thinking about the next wine. What should I do this time? I'm thinking about maybe finding a Rioja kit if that's within my budget. I'll keep you posted.

Salud!

Merlotted!

2006-01-23T15:51:00.000-05:00

This past weekend I finally got started on my Merlot Kit that Kat got me for my Birthday. It was extremely easy. All I had to do was clean all the equipment, then start off with a half gallon of hot water to which I added Bentonite. I stirred that up really well, then poured in the bag of juice. After that, I added another half gallon of water to the juice bag to rinse it out and make sure I got all the grape-y goodness out of the bag and I poured that into the Primary bucket. Next, I filled the bucket up to the 6 gallon mark with cool water, sprinkled the yeast on (the instructions did not say anything about making a yeast starter) and then Put on the lid and the airlock.

That took about a half hour on Saturday afternoon. By yesterday afternoon, the airlock was bubbling a lot, letting me know the yeasties are having a big party in there! Have fun, little yeasts! Do what you do best!

Starting SG was 1.070 which is about 10% abv. That was the only measurement I took, since the kit-makers have been doing this for a long time and have all kinds of labs and procedures to make sure they sell a good product.

This is a 4-6 week kit, meaning that the wine will be ready by then, although they suggest letting it age - the instructions say at least one month, but it will be even better after 3 months. All the folks at Winepress say that, like fresh fruit wine, it will continue to get better the longer it goes. So I may have to taste it at 3 months, 6 months, and a year to decide which is the best! This should give me about 30 750 mL bottles.

I'm excited about this one, but it did seem a little too easy. I guess the hard work at the beginning of the fresh fruit wines is actually rather enjoyable. But then, that's pretty normal for anything that you put time and effort into. Once the finished product is ready, and it turns out good, you can take pride in all your energy producing something great. I'm sure this merlot will taste good, but the Pumpkin and the Blackberry may taste a little sweeter for my work.

Cheers!

I'm back!

2006-01-09T16:34:00.000-05:00

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I've been busy with a lot of things, and lazy when not busy!

The holidays were great! I got to spend time with mom and dad, and Andy, Jen and Emery over Christmas. I think I might get to be the "cool uncle" after all!

Well, since this is a wine blog, I'll tell what happened to me wine-related over the past month or so. For my birthday on Dec. 19th, Kat got me a Merlot Kit. This has everything you need to make a batch of Merlot except the fermenters, carboys, bottles, etc. I can't wait to get started on it. I may go ahead and do that while my pumpkin wine is aging.

For Christmas, Andy got me some wooden "medallions" with "RJ Cole Winery" burned into them (he got to use his new work toy, a laser! The future is today!) these were awesome and look great. He put a burgundy ribbon through a small hole on many of them so I can put them around thenecks of my wines. I've tried it on a few already, and it looks great!

Kat got me a Portugese Floor Corker for Christmas. This will make it very easy to bottle the wine - you can do it with one hand! The other corker I had was very tough to operate, and there was always the chance of knocking the bottle over. This new corker will be great!

We opened a couple of bottles of my blackberry while I was home. I think everyone enjoyed it (although I think it might have been a little strong for Jen.) No worries though, that was my first batch ever, and I still have a lot of learning todo even now. I also left of couple of bottle at home for mom and dad to give out.

And that was the holidays for me!

Now for an update on the pumpkin wine: I haven't been doing anything with it at all. I've checked on it a few times, and it looks like it's starting to clear at the top. It's going to have a really nice color when it's cleared all the way - very amber looking.

I'm thinking about racking it again sometime soon to try to get out some more of the sediment in it. That should help it clear more quickly.

Well, that's it for now! I promise those photos are coming soon.

Cheers!

Merry Christmas!!!

2005-12-22T14:29:00.000-05:00

Hi all! I just wanted to say Merry Christmas to everyone! My birthday was great! Kat got me a Merlot Wine Kit from Winexpert, so I'll be starting that after the holidays. I should get 30 bottles of Merlot out of it, so that will be great!

Anyway, Merry Christmas! And in the spirit of the season, I give you this treat from everyone's favorite pig: click here.

Passing the time

2005-12-13T10:33:00.000-05:00

SO as I said before, there's not much left to do now but wait on the Pumpkin Wine. One of the things I have done is start thinking about what type of wine to make next. I decided to check out the new recipe book at Winepress. So I'm scrolling through there and I come upon this one. The creator is Bob Lockwood and he's from somewhere in the UK (United Kingdom, not University of Kentucky.) This was so funny I had to post it here!

Prune Juice Wine
Lockwood1956

DAY1
Place prunes in primary
add sugar citric acid and raisins
Stir and leave for 24 hours
add yeast and cover
DAY2
Stir must...feel slightly queasy
DAY3
Stir must...feel even more queasy
DAY4
Stir must...stomach cramps
DAY5
rack to secondary..........involuntary muscle spasms
DAYS 6-10
more of the same
DAY11
check S.G.
feel need to buy fresh underwear
DAY16
stabilize
feel need to avoid sneezing
DAY21
bottle
take sneak preview taste
later in day have explosive toilet episode
DAY32
re-bottle due to unsightly sediment
take sneaky taste
later in day blame unearthly smells on the dog
DAY42
again rebottle due to smell permeating through glass
take sneak taste
later in day dog points at YOU regarding smells
DAY48
buy new underwear
rehouse dog who by this time is making fun of you constantly
DAY52
cat moves out
DAY62
win gold medal in winemaker mag competition
DAY73
confuse panel of experts in blind taste test who all swear it is a Rioja
DAY102
use to clear drains and decide to use remainder as top up for future wines

Racked!

2005-11-30T13:39:00.000-05:00

So it's been a while since I posted something new. Well, I've been busy and/or away from a computer. Kat and I went up to Mom and Dad's for Thanksgiving. What a delicious meal! We opened a bottle of the Blackberry Wine, and I have to say, this was the best one yet. I think it's still getting better as it continues to age.

Anyway, there hadn't been a whole lot of new development in the Pumpkin process, so I figured there wasn't much to report. After the SG had dropped to .990, I decided to let it sit a few more days to see if the pulp would compact some more to make sure I could get enough liquid out to fill up my 5 gallon carboy. Boy, did it! I also filled up and old 1.5 L bottle of wine, and put the rest back in the primary bucket to see if it would compact any more!

The racking went smooth. I had recently purchased a new tip for my racking siphon, which keeps the sediment from going through the racking tube to the bulk aging carboy. So I put that on, and (after sanitizing the 5gal. carboy) started racking. I made sure to stay with it the whole time, as I wanted to keep the end of the siphon out of the pulp. It didn't take too long before I had finished this step. I added 5 Campden Tablets, put the airlock on, and moved it back into the closet.

Next step. Waiting!! They say patience is the key to winemaking, and I'll have to try to have some! All in all, the wine should bulk age now until time for bottling. I'll be keeping an eye on it though to see when more sediment falls out. It's my understanding that it takes a lot of work to clear pumpkin wine. That means watch, rack off new sediment, watch, rack off new sediment, lather, rinse, repeat. Basically, I'll do this until I'm satisfied with the clarity and then bottle it.

As for the extra wine, I've got the bottle in the fridge with a cork on it. I'll stop by Alternative Beverage soon and get an airlock to fit that. Let that settle some, and maybe try something fancy with it, or put it aside to use as a topper next time I make pumpkin wine. I'll see how much liquid I can get out of what's left over in the primary and maybe find something to do with that. If I get enough, maybe I'll try to make a jelly or something.

Also, I'd like to say hello to all my family members who have been stopping by to check this out. Check out the archives if you want to read about the process from the beginning. I will try to post the pictures I have from the beginning soon.

Salud!

Solidarity

2005-11-22T10:21:00.000-05:00

Someone at Winepress linked to this article about French Winemakers and the decrease in demand for their wines. One of the things they are looking into is using surplus wine to convert into bio-fuels. France already produces the 3rd most ethanol in Europe.

But it's a sad state of affairs for the French Winemakers:

"French wine growers have been in a deep crisis over the last five years when consumption in France stabilized and exports started to drop," a spokeswoman at Onivins said.

Consumption in France averages 3.5 billion liters, exports 1.5 billion liters and around 0.4 billion liters are distilled to produce brandy, she said, adding that France did not have outlets for more than 5.5 billion liters.

"And because the 2004 harvest was at 5.8 billion liters we now have a stock of 4 billion liters, which is a level we had never reached in the last 10 years.

"This year we had to distill 150 million liters, including Bordeaux and Cotes du Rhone wines to lighten the market," she added.

Bontemps said the sector had to react. "There is no reason why sales should increase so we have to find other solutions."

Courteau said the crisis was such that vintners were contemplating ripping out vines, but he did not want to see vineyards turned into wasteland.

"Also we can't exclude the possibility that young wine producers may commit acts out of total despair because of the money they have borrowed for their businesses," he added.

So, in the spirit of sharing, as the Indians and the Pilgrims did a few hundred years ago, I want to help my brothers in the winemaking industry. So to any French Winemakers who are thinking about ripping out vines, I will "dispose" of them if you send them to me. Then you don't have to worry about producing too much anymore.

It's all about helping others out.

And it has nothing to do with me getting free vines to start up my own vineyard.

Honestly.

Fermentation Complete!

2005-11-21T11:47:00.000-05:00

I finally got around to checking the SG on Saturday. It was down to 0.990 - that's as low as it goes. That means that the wine is completely dry - all the sugar has been converted to alcohol. The next big step is to rack the wine and let it settle out some more as it bulk ages. However, something I read on Winepress has made me decide to wait a few days before this. Evidently, pumpkin doesn't compact as quick as other fruits. That is to say, the sediment in the bottom of the carboy is not as dense as it could be, and if I rack the wine before it has compacted more, I could lose quite a bit of the wine as it will still be in the sediment.

So a few more days before racking!

That is, unless I decide to go ahead and do it...

Update Day 14:

2005-11-17T12:26:00.000-05:00

Two weeks into the pumpkin wine! Here's a little "taste" of how it's going!

The bubbles are starting to slow down. I've been shaking the carboy a little bit once a day - not enough to stir up the sediment, but just trying to move the wine around so that any CO2 bubbles will rise and not be absorbed into the wine. I decided after further reading on malolactic fermentation that this is not what's going on with my wine. Jack Keller's blog talks about this, and says that as long as the must was properly sulfited, you should not expect to have mlf as long as you didn't introduce any malolactic bacteriato the wine. I didn't, so I don't. Most likely, it was just some "bottom-feeder" yeast putting out CO2 - they may even be down in the sediment and the bubbles are havign a tough time making their way up to the top of the carboy.

I will check the SG tonight, and if it has fermented out, I should probably rack into the 5 gallon carboy to get the wine off the sediment, and allow more of the lees in suspension to fall out. I think I'll try racking a few times to get the wine clear, instead of adding fining agents (at least at first - if racking doesn't work well enough, I'll use the fining agents.) Maybe add some glycerine before the final racking to improve the body and sweeten a little.

That's all for now. Check back tomorrow for an update on the SG and possible racking!

Update Day 12:

2005-11-15T10:38:00.000-05:00

My trip was good. I had a lot of fun, met a lot of people, watched a lot of football and ate a lot of food! The flights were full leaving Panama City Beach on Sunday, so Kat and I rented a car and drove back. I was worn out yesterday! That's why my update is here today.

I got home and took a look at the wine, it's doing pretty well. There has been a lot of settling - I've got about an inch and a half to 2 inches of sediment on the bottom of the carboy right now. The wine is still pretty cloudy, so there's liable to be a lot more settling. There is also still a lot of gas in the wine as it's constantly bubbling. Most of the bubbles in the wine are very small, but they're coming up pretty fast. I've read a lot on Winepress about malolactic fermentation, and I'm wondering if that's what this is. The way I've seen it described on that site, it sounds like it, but then again, I haven't checked the SG since the transfer, so I need to do that. It's possible that it's still the regular fermentation going on.

Malolactic Fermentation is a process that can occur naturally when malolactic bacteria (creative name, I know) convert malic acid into lactic acid. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Some winemakers will actually introduce cultured malolactic bacteria into a wine in order to cut the acidic "bite" caused by malic acid. Lactic acid, while still an acid, has a more smooth, almost creamy feel to it, making the wine easier and feel more bodied than with malic acid. However, it can be overdone, leavign the wine tasting (or feeling) kind of "flat". Most of what I've read about this is that it comes down to personal opinion on what you prefer. So my next step is to test the SG of the wine to see if it has fermented out, and if it has with all these new bubbles, then I should probably rack the wine to get it off the lees that have formed and see where I stand then. I may need to go out and purchase a SO2 testing kit and check the sulfite levels. The sulfite can either kill or keep the malolactic bacteria from reproducing (I'm not sure which) and if needed, I will add some Campden Tablets (which I need to do anyway.)

I was reading back through my post about aging sur lie, and I came across this sentence: If finely particled gross lees form after transfer, it is best to forego sur lie with the current batch. Well, that looks like what has happened with all of the sediment, so I may have to give up on that idea. I'll check either Winepress or Jack Keller to see if there is another way to improve mouthfeel after fermentation.

That's it for now!

Update: Evidently, the trick to improve the body later in the process is th addition of glycerine. Glycerine is normally found naturally to some degree in wine, and it does nothing more than add a little sweetness and body, if used in the right amounts. It's non-toxic, but if too much is used, it can ruin the wine.

Transfer Complete

2005-11-10T14:20:00.000-05:00

I made the transfer last night from primary to secondary. I pulled out the bag of pumpkin pulp and squeezed to get some more liquid out - porbably about a gallon more came out! The 21.5 pounds of pumpkin meat were now big enough to fit into a small tupperware container. I guesstimate there was about 4 cups of pumpkin meat after the maceration.

The must (I'm not sure when to start calling it wine!) ended up being around 5 gallons. I put this into the 6 gallon carboy, so it wasn't enough and I had to top up. I used a cheap Riesling, because that's what I had read that this wine comes out like. I used a big bottle of it, but still needed to fill the bottle up again with water to complete the topping up! I left some pieces of the ginger root and 2 cinnamon sticks in to keep adding a little more flavor.

I tasted the wine again, it was a little better last night. I definitely think I'm going to like it. Measured the SG, it was down to 1.010, so that's a good sign.

Some Notes:
I made sure to thoroughly clean my carboy and siphon. On the Carboy, I used dish detergent first to get it clean (with the bottle brush) and then I used a B-Brite solution (which I also used with the siphon.)

Still attached to my siphon was the bottle filler - a tube with a little lever at the bottom so that when you're bottling, you press down and the wine flows out, and when the bottle is full enough, you just lift the tube and it stops the flow so there's no spillage. The siphon tube is very narrow, so it doesn't allow air in, and nothing falls apart. Unfortunately, it means that nothing can ever get taken off of it. So to get the bottle filler off, I ended up having to cut the tube! Hopefully everything will still work, though.

I waited for about an hour and a half after transfer to top up. I was waiting to see if the fermentation would get going violently again, because I didn't want it to overflow. After an hour and a half, the airlock was bubbling, but there was no foaming, so I went ahead and topped up. After that, it looked like it was about to start foaming, but it didn't, so things worked out well.

I'm taking my camera with me this weekend to try to finish up the roll of film that I've been using, so hopefully next week I'll have photos to post here!

See y'all next week!

Update Day 6:

2005-11-09T13:50:00.000-05:00

With a little help from my friends

Time to check in again! I checked the SG on the Pumpkin Wine again last night as I stirred. It was at 1.016 down from the original SG of 1.090. This means that my yeast friends have done a stellar job so far. In a little under a week, they've converted most of the sugar to alcohol. On the scale of Specific Gravity, or SG, 1.000 has no sugar in it. Between the natural sugars in the pumpkin and the 11 pounds of sugar I added, 6 gallons of liquid had the original SG reading of 1.090 (13% Potential Alcohol (PA).) You must check this at the beginning to know what the alcohol percentage will be, because as soon as the SG starts dropping, you can no longer be sure.

The fermenting is definitely slowing down, the airlock was not bubbling that much which means that less CO2 is being released by the yeast. But there is still some fermenting to go on (as the SG is not down to 1.000.) The wine must ferment out dry or there could be problems in the future - regular wine bottles and corks don't like a whole lot of built up pressure!

As I said in an earlier post, Kat and I are going out of town this weekend. So there will be no one to stir the must as it continues to ferment out. What to do?

The answer is obvious: go to Winepress and start a discussion topic asking for advice! I asked if I should just leave the must sitting, or if I should go ahead and transfer it to the secondary fermenter. Everyone suggested I go ahead and transfer it, saying that the SG had reached a low enough level that it should cause any problems in the big Carboy with an airlock. So that's what I'm going to do tonight.

I also tasted the wine last night just to see how it was going. It still tasted pretty good, the cinnamon and ginger were still evident, though not quite as much. It was very fruity, but still a little "orange juicy". I guess what I mean by that is it didn't have a lot of body in the mouthfeel - it tasted very young (which it is.) I think this is something that will correct itself in the aging process - whether I do sur lie or not. The color was kind of a light orange, which I imagine will clear to the normal color of a white wine - except maybe slightly golden or amber.

Someone suggested that I taste it frequently to see when the ginger flavor is enough, and then be sure to take the ginger out immediately. I didn't think the ginger was overpowering or anything last night, so it's till in there, but since there was a hint of it, I reckon I'll just take it out tonight during the transfer.

I'll let you know how the transfer went tonight or tomorrow. Later!

Sur Lie

2005-11-08T15:02:00.000-05:00

Interesting method I just read about over at Winepress today. It's called sur lie which means, literally, "on the lees." The lees are the "detritous of fermentation, consisting of dead yeast, fruit debris and schmutz." Per the Wikipedia. Sounds nasty, right? Well, Jack Keller pointed out that aging the wine on the lees, or sur lie, is actually "...an advanced winemaking technique for adding mouthfeel to a wine."

"Interesting," thought I. I posted a reply on the discussion board asking Jack more about sur lie aging. Here is his reply:

Sur lie aging is begun deliberately. You must remove all gross lees (pulp, skins, seeds) before beginning sur lie. This is best done by straining the wine well during transfer from primary to secondary. If finely particled gross lees form after transfer, it is best to forego sur lie with the current batch.

Allow fine lees (yeast lees) to form in secondary over a two-three month period as wine clears. Remove airlock, add maintenance dose of sulfite, and gently stir wine with long wooden dowel or plastic rod (sanitized, of course). Mark calendar.

Stir lees gently every 5-7 days. Mark calendar each time to get a regular interval established. Measure SO2 with SO2 test kit every 30 days. When sulfite level drops below 30 ppm, add maintenance dose and stir.

You must maintain this schedule of regular stirring and periodic maintenance doses of sulfite. If wine does not really clear, add a little pectic enzyme (1/2 tsp per gal).

Sur lie aging usually lasts at least 6 months, but 8-10 is more common. Taste the wine once a month after 4-6 months and rack when the wine tastes good. You may have to rack 2-3 times, 30 days apart, to get absolute clarity, but usually twice is enough. Always remember to check sulfites because you are removing the airlock often and exposing the wine to oxygen.

Wow. That sounds like a LOT of work! So, in the space of a couple of days, I'll have to decide if I want to try this on my Pumpkin Wine or not. I'd definitely like to try it sometime, but as busy as I've been lately, I don't know if I'll have the time to do all that. But then again, as fun as winemaking can be, the majority of the time (during aging) is spent doing practically nothing to the wine. So this might make it more interesting, and it couldn't hurt to improve the mouthfeel.

Also, Jack Keller responded to me!!! For anyone who might happen to visit here, you should check out both Jack Keller's Blog and The Winemaking Page from my links at the left. Mr. Keller is, from what I can tell, the home winemaking guru. It was the Winemaking Page where I first found the recipe for my Blackberry Wine, and read through the process to discover it wasn't so difficult.

Thanks, Jack!

Update: Day 4

2005-11-07T14:04:00.000-05:00

Same old, same old.

Well, the fermentation is going well, it appears. I've been stirring daily. It smells pretty powerful, but that's alright. I have noticed that the liquid isn't as sticky as it was at the beginning, which tells me that the yeast are doing their job and eating the sugar, lowering the SG and raising the actual alcohol levels. I'm going to have to actually use the hydrometer and measure the SG in a day or two to see if it's time to rack to a seondary fermenter. I would wait until Friday, so it would be a full week, but Kat and I are leaving Thursday night to go to her dad's wedding on Friday, so I won't be around until Sunday. So I'll have to hope that it's ready before. I'll keep you posted!

Primary Fermentation Day 1

2005-11-04T09:45:00.000-05:00

Nothing big happening. I can hear the airlock bubbling, so I know the yeast are at work, but there's no violent foaming yet. Hopefully that will come today. I stirred the must this morning to get so oxygen to the yeast and try to get them mixed in a little more so they can get at all of the sugar and nutrient and all that other delicious good yeast food! The smell definitely had a suggestion of ginger, and the taste was almost pie-like - not exactly pumpkin pie, kind of a mix between that, apple pie, and orange juice (?!). Weird stuff, but it tasted good! I could discern the cinnamon and ginger in the taste so I hope I didn't use too much as my plate isn't the best in the world (in other words, if I can taste it, then it's most definitely in there!)

Anyway, that's the update for now! Let's hope the fermentaqtion kicks it into high gear today!

Some Maintenance Points

2005-11-03T13:05:00.000-05:00

First, let me thanks my brother and sister-in-law, Andy and Jen for the book they got me for Christmas last year: The Joy of Home Winemaking by Terry Garey. It came through during a minor emergency last night.

Second, just some notes about things I want to do here, and will be trying to set up soon.

Over at Winepress I found a really nice winelog spreadsheet, which I would like to try to add here to keep track of my winemaking in simple detail. I don't know how to get that done without creating a new blog and then just adding a link to it, so I'll be trying to figure that out.

I'd also like to figure out how to add in new pages to the blog in order to separate out the recipes and processes with links from the main page. Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself, and I'll just need to start a real website for this. I'll have to ask around. I like how blogger makes things simple, though.

Anyway, that's it for now. I might add more links soon to other folks' wine websites, but not quite yet.

Cole out!

Mmmm... Must!

2005-11-03T10:31:00.000-05:00

So I finally finished cutting up the pumpkins!! Good Lord that was a lot of work. After that, I added the sugar water solution, ginger root, cinnamon sticks (I used 6), and checked the SG (specific gravity or potential alcohol) and acidity. The SG came out right at 1.090 or 13% potential alcohol. From what I've read, this should drop some after I remove the pumpkin, so I'll have to check to see if that will be alright or if I need to add more sugar. The acidity started at .001%. That's low, way low. Winethief's recipe calls for the acidity to be .60%, so I had to add some acid blend. I ended up using the whole bottle or 4 ounces. That got it to exactly the right percentage of .60. I was pretty surprised by how low in acid pumpkins were!

Next, I went ahead and added in the tannin and yeast nutrient. And now the must is completed. This morning, I added the pectic enzyme, which will prevent any jelly from forming, because although that might be nice on toast or a biscuit, I don't want to drink it. I also prepared my yeast starter. I will pitch that into the must this evening, and then, boys and girls, we've got wine. Nothing you would want to drink yet, but it is wine! The next step will be to let it ferment for a week and let my little yeastie friends do the hard work now. I'll have to stir a few times, but that's no big deal.

Some notes:
The total amount of pumpkin used came out to 21.5 pounds. That's quite a bit less than the recipe called for, so I added a little more water (about a half gallon). I don't know if that will reduce any pumpkin flavor or not, but hopefully it'll be fine.

As I said, I had to add 4 ounces of acid blend. This was my first time using an acid testing kit. Pretty cool. It brought me back to my high school chemistry days! But since I used all the acid blend I had, I didn't get to add any into my yeast starter. I don't think that'll be much of a problem though.

Stiring 6 gallons of sugar water with pumpkin in it can be tough, mainly just because the floor gets really sticky when some of that sugar water splashes out. Yes, I mopped, or rather used a Wet Swiffer (the 2nd greatest invention ever, right behind the Swiffer that actually squirts the cleaning solution onto the floor) immediately once I finished up. Hopefully, as I walk around, the stickiness will wear off of the bottoms of my shoes.

I followed all measurments indicated in the recipe unless otherwise noted above. The other exception was with the pectic enzyme, as I have a liquid concentrate of it, not the powder as I imagine Winethief used. For this, I just followed the indications on the bottle, which called for 1/4 teaspoon.

It's still fun, especially since the first hard part is over!

Slow Going

2005-11-01T16:22:00.000-05:00

Who would've thought it would take so long to gut, cut up, and scrape of 25 pounds of pumpkin meat from 3 pumpkins? Of course, there are other things that have slowed me up, such as the Panthers' game on Sunday. Well, I should finish getting all the pumpkin meat out tonight. I'll go ahead and add my sugar water and some cinnamon sticks and about 3/4 of a ginger root that I decided to add as well. I've been taking some pictures of the process, so as soon as I can get them developed, I'll try to post them up here.

Here's what I've done so far:
Shopping:
I needed a few supplies, so first thing on Saturday morning, I got up and went to Alternative Beverage to get a nylon straining bag and an acid test kit. Then I headed over to Kat's place to check on it while she was out of town (and to steal an ice cream scooper and a big pot to boil the water - thanks, hon!) Next I made a stop at Harris Teeter to get the Pumpkins, Ginger Root, Sugar, and Cinnamon Sticks.

Total cost of everything: $29. That's one nice bottle of wine, 2 decent bottles, or, a little more than 3 bottles of what I normally buy. I should end up again with 24 bottles. That's pretty good.

Preparation:
I cleaned the primary fermeter bucket with B-Brite, as well as my airlocks and bungs. The next step was to cut up the pumpkins. It took me a while and a few tries to figure out the easiest way to do this was to cut up the pumpkins into small pieces the scrape using the ice cream scooper. At first when I tried this, it wasn't working out too well, so I innovated. I love to say that those who adapt survive. I first took a smaller knife and sort of scored the pumpkin meat. Then I sliced it off, and usually had to repeat this 2-3 times per piece of pumpkin. Later I figured out that if I scored it first, then used the ice cream scooper, that worked out better. Then I was getting tired, so I figured out that I hadn't been using enough force at first, so I quit scoring the pieces and just started using the scooper again. That's where I'm at now.

I've finished with 2 pumpkins and I got around 16 pounds of meat from them - 8.5 from the first, and 7.5 from the second. I'm guessing the third will be somewhere around the same, so I'm predicting 24-25 pounds of meat total.

Well, I'm learning that it's hard work to get started on this, but I'm hoping that it will all be worth it this time next year!

Thank You, Wine Thief!

2005-10-28T11:42:00.000-04:00

Okay, I've decided on a recipe! It came from Wine Thief who is a poster in the forums at Winepress. I just recently found that website and it looks like it's going to be a great help for making wines because of all the advice you can get there! Everyone seems so nice and supportive of each other (unlike my fantasy football league where we all try to sabotage each other!) Just so everyone knows, Winethief has okay'd my stealing of the recipe. Maybe as I get more practice in making wines and learn more, I'll be able to come up with my own recipe, but I'm not quite there yet!

Okay, here's the recipe:
30 pounds pumpkin meat from 3 pumpkins
5 tsp yeast nutrient
1.25 tsp tannin
12 pounds sugar (Winetheif later suggested using brown sugar. I'll update on what I use later!)
2.5 tsp pectic enzyme
4 cinnamon stix (Winetheif suggests maybe a little more than this actually.)
5 Campden Tablets crushed
Acid Blend to .60 TA
Starting SG 1.090
PH 3.32

Yeast Starter:
2 cups warm water
1/4 tsp citric acid
1/2 tsp nutrient
2 tbsp sugar
Montrachet Yeast (this is the type of yeast I've seen suggested in every pumpkin recipe I've looked at, so it must be the right one!)

Procedure:
Make yeast starter - Red Star Montrachet -
Pitch yeast 24 hours after starting

Scrape pumpkin meat using an Ice Cream Scooper.

Add the sugar into 2 gallons of boiling water which with sugar volume will yield a total of 3 gallons liquid. Add liquid to the must.

Rack the Pumpkin wine juice from the squeezed pulp to carboy. Total juice will be 6 gallons once it gets all put back together (I will use a little less pumpkin and maybe a touch less water since I only have the capability for 5 gallons right now! - ed.) Be sure to allow room for finishing fermentation foam.

Secondaries of juice will sit now until fermentation is complete. When the foam dies down and fermentation is complete, rack to a fresh carboy which should fill it to the top for aging and add sulfite.

That's it for the first few weeks! After a few months, I will rack the wine again, just go from there. I hope that I only need to rack once, but from what I've read, it sounds like I will need to rack this a few times to get the wine off all of the sediment.

The first thing I need to do is to make sure I've got all the ingredients I need and make a stop at Alternative Beverage. Then I'll get started tomorrow morning!

BBQ Festival and Childress Vineyards

2005-10-28T11:39:00.000-04:00

Last Saturday, Kat and I went with Bobby and Casey to the Lexington BBQ Festival. It wasn't quite what we thought it would be, though. It was mostly just street vendors selling crafts and the such, with very little BBQ and long lines where it was. We got to see General Johnson and Chairmen of the Board who still have very energetic shows even though they've got to be close to 300 years old now! After that, we walked through the streets a couple of times and decided that it would be easier to get our BBQ fix if we just left and went to a BBQ restaurant. We stopped at the Barbecue Center restaurant and ate our fill. Great restauarant - as I said to Kat, it had everything a good BBQ place should have - Pulled (or chopped) pork bbq, hush puppies, sweet tea, and homemade banana pudding.

After that, we still had quite a lot of time before we needed to get back to Charlotte (so Kat could watch the Auburn football game!) We decided to stop by Childress Vineyards and do a wine tasting there. The Winemaker was there. His name is Mark. I stopped him and asked him if he had any advice for the home winemaker. He laughed and said, "Don't make wine, buy it!"

Very funny, Mark. Very funny. I bet we'll all be laughing once I take your job from you! (So it'll take a long time, who cares?) I'm gunning for you!

What exactly would ya' say it is you do here?

2005-10-27T10:53:00.000-04:00

Hi again everyone! Thursday morning now. I'm getting excited about starting the wine this weekend!

I just popped open the first bottle of my first batch of wine a couple of weeks ago. It was a Blackberry Wine Vintage 2004. Both Kat and I thought it was really good, but it turned out even better after I chilled it! I can't wait to let more people try it, but I've got to get the labels on first.

I first became enamored with the idea of home winemaking after hearing the song "Blackberry Wine" by Big Sandy and the Fly Rite Boys. I thought about doing it for a couple of years before I finally sat down and started getting my thoughts together about it. I looked up a recipe online and found a great Home Winemaking website run by a man named Jack Keller called The Winemaking Homepage. It's full of useful info for the home winemaker. Igot a recipe there, and found a link to my local winemaking supply store: Alternative Beverage. After a stop there to pick up supplies and a trip to the farmer's market and Bloom (I bought all of the remaining blackberries at the farmer's market, but still needed a few more!) I was ready to go.

It was a little bit of work, but I was on my way to 5 gallons (2 cases (24 bottles)) of Blackberry wine with no idea of how it would turn out! I was hopeful and nervous at the same time!

In everything I've read on the subject of Home Winemaking, one of the most important things suggested was to keep notes to record what you've done and track the progress of your wine. This will be extremely helpful for future batches of wine. If the wine turns out bad, then you can go back and see what you did and try differnt things to make it better the next time. If the wine turns out good, then you have a record of how it was made so you can reproduce the wine the next time.

Well, it may come as no surprise to anyone who knows me that I decided I would just remember what I did. And while I have to brag that I have a good memory, it can be tough to remember whether I let the wine ferment in the primary for 5 days or 6 days, whether I used 1.5 pounds of sugar or 2 pounds, and later whether I added a 1.5 sugar solution or 1.75 to sweeten the wine. Alas, my existing batch of blackberry wine may be the only one of it's kind to touch the face of this earth. I'll likely do things differently next time without wanting to.

That's the purpose of this blog. It will serve as my notebook to record the procedures I use and the amounts of ingredients that go into my wines. I offer it to y'all as something that may interest you on how I'm doing with the wine. I intend to eventually add photos of the wine as it is progressing. Maybe I'll throw in a random thought here and there about the world and anything else I want to say. Feel free to leave comments (please leave comments!) and I'll try to keep things interesting!

More soon!

Hello!

2005-10-26T22:13:00.000-04:00

This is my first post! Thanks!!

This blog will be my record for my wines which I will be making. This weekend, Oct. 29, 2005, I plan to start my 2nd batch of homemade wine. It will be a Pumpkin Wine! I'll keep you posted on how it's going! See y'all soon!