Just finished racking some of last years stuff. Sadly, I'm guilty of a big no-no. This was the second racking after moving the wine to carboys. I should have done it a few months ago, but didn't. Oh well....
A primer on the process: Primary fermentation makes alcohol from juice. When that's done you rack (move) the wine to a secondary fermenter, let stuff settle, rack the wine off the sediment, lather rinse repeat every 3 months or so till it's clear, you're ready to bottle or bulk age.
All of these are from September and had their last racking (to the secondary) in October.
How did things turn out? Pretty well...Fate may have smiling upon me tonight.
- Red Zinfandel: Great Zin taste, still a little gassy, but that'll go away. This is going to be a good one.
- Chardonnay: Smelled great, the first part of the taste was good...the WHAM, some harshness I hope goes away. It all tasted like chardonnay, but wow...it kinda hurt.
- Diamond: Got this juice in the Finger Lakes region of NY. Smelled wonderful, very grapey, and had a definite 'diamond grape' taste, but it needs conditioning (sugar added before bottling) to get the true diamond flavor people are used to. (and by 'people' I mean my lovely wife Heidi, and our friends.)
- The backyard red: This I'm very excited about. I have 6 vines in the yard, mostly for decoration; 2 each of Concord, Catawba and Niagara grapes. Last year was insane with the amount of grapes I got. So, I made wine from them. Yep, good old Dunmore Red...hahaha. Well, the wine smells incredible...just outstanding. The taste: it's getting there. Probably will have to be conditioned, but I think I'll be happy with it.
Looking forward to a blueberry wine, and possibly a strawberry wine in the next few weeks. I'll keep you posted.
Lastly, what do you think of this? Send me your feedback. There's a poll on the right side of the screen, take it.
Till then....
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