First, hello to AD. I’d like to let AD know that I had thoughts Hope the “Holy Cow” fun goes well with the nephews.

For American readers, they may not be aware that this weekend in Canada is the Grey Cup weekend for our CFL – akin to your Super Bowl – some weeks earlier – but a big weekend nonetheless. And of course, this past weekend has been your Thanksgiving Holiday, and I hope it was swell for you; that you were able to eat lots of turkey, and of course, enjoy wine.

I’m not much into the CFL, although if the Toronto Argonauts were playing, I may have paid more attention. I do know Edmonton beat Montreal, but I found that out AFTER I spent hours on my winemaking hobby this weekend.

Let me refer to my notes while I sip on a young Zinfandel:

If you’ve been following along, I started a blackberry wine on the 17th of November. Interesting to me, the starting specific gravity was 1.092. I used DV10 yeast, and today, just 9 days later, the specific gravity was 0.092. That’s a fast fermentation! It’s interesting because I used DV10 Yeast in my blueberry wine that I started a day or so before the blackberry, the specific gravity when I started was 1.104 and tonight it was only down to 1.020. Activitiy is still going strong in that blueberry wine, and the airlock is bouncing up and down regularly.

Anyhow, I racked the blackberry into a three gallon carboy this evening, and had little left over – with an inch of airspace. I did taste it, and it was nice to the tastebuds but a might tart. We’ll see how some ageing does to that.

Next, I gave my attention to the Riesling I started from fresh Riesling juice back on October 3rd. I ended up with one 23 litre carboy and a 19 litre carboy, with a wee bit left over sealed. I did a little experiment, and added some Vineco Isokleer which is liquid isinglas to the 19 litre carboy, but left the 23 litre to clear on it’s own. The 19 litre has become brilliantly clear while the other carboy has not.

So, I racked both of the Rieslings, and added a package of Isokleer to the larger carboy, had a taste.. “mmm… a touch of sweetness that helps with the high acid level,” and I’ll let that age a while longer before bottling.

Next, I poured myself more Zinfandel.

I then racked and degasssed the four week Chateauneuf-de-Pape (Vieux Chateau du Roi) and had a wee sip which was very yummy.

Who knows how the football game was going by this time.. I still have more wine to take care of, and the Liebfraumilch that I had started a couple of weeks ago had a specific gravity of 0.098 – a good time to stablize and rack, which I did. Topped it up with a about one cup of Riesling.

Then it was time to start my gooseberry wine, which I did according to this recipe. After looking at several other recipes, researching gooseberries, that recipe is what I settled on for three gallons of gooseberry wine.

So that was my “Grey Cup” weekend. With some other errands mixed in, including getting my three year old son new winter boots, having his help with some of the wine racking, and trying to decide when I should bottle the blueberry wine I started six months ago. And the Ginger wine as well… ah, another month of bulk ageing will do them all fine, I’m sure.

When it comes to wine, patience is good. Other things… well.. sometimes I guess you just need to create patience. So how was your thanksgiving or Grey Cup weekend?

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