Archive for January, 2009

I know it has been awhile since I’ve posted anything here. Life can get busy – of course, whether bored, busy, or making plans to be busy, wine is always good!

On September 18, 2008, I started a Malbec wine and kind of screwed up a bit, forgetting I’d be away when the wine would be ready to be racked from the primary fermenter to the carboy. Ah well.. as I then wrote in October, wine making can be very forgiving on these points.

Since then, life has continued to be very busy! Some wonderful adventures, a few stresses here and there, things that needed to be attended to. Meanwhile, lots of wine getting no attention at all, and bulk aging as it will. Admittedly, there was some fear and apprehension on my part: “Am I going to risk major disappointment with batches of wine and mead I started long ago, have given little attention to, and therefore be disappointed at how bad it is now?”

This evening, I decided to face my fears. I’m glad I did!

I decided to rack the Malbec I had started in September. Since September, the only thing I did was to rack it from the primary to the carboy, and since then, have done nothing. No sulphite. No clearing agents. I was worried that without any sulphite, perhaps the wine might have gone off and began to turn to vinegar. Tonight I decided that if that was the case, I might as well find out now and realize I had plenty of red wine vinegar to use on the steaks and roasts from the side of beef I will be putting in the freezer shortly.

Well, I was pleasantly surprised when I removed the airlock from the carboy. Very nice on the nose! I was even more impressed when I began the syphon to rack the wine – a velvety texture upon my tongue. Only 5 months old, but comparable to some Malbecs sold at the LCBO that are a couple of years old.

I added a quarter teaspoon of sulphite after racking and did some degassing – I’ll do more degassing over the next few days before adding the clearing agents – but I’m not sure they are even needed. I did pour a quarter inch into a glass and was impressed with the clarity of it as the wine has sat for five months, clearing on its own. It does need some degassing though.

Motivated by such good results, I decided to approach the very first batch of Mead I started, back on February 5, 2005. I have done nothing with it since January 8, 2007. Since then, it’s simply been aging – five gallons in a carboy. Gingerly, I removed the airlock with trepidation, worried that I might have produced five gallons of honey based vinegar.

Ah, what a delightful sense on the nose it was! But how did it taste? I took a sample and was impressed with the complexity on the tongue and have decided that this is ready for bottling. But first, another 1/4 teaspoon of sulphite for preservation, a good stir (which churned up some very light fluffy sediment on the bottom) and in a few days, I will filter and bottle this mead. I am thinking that I might experiment a little bit with bottling up the very dry mead as it is, but also bottling some with additions of ginger and/or cinnamon.

Tomorrow, I plan on sampling the blueberry wine that has been bulk aging for about three years, as well as some melomels that have been bulk aging for almost 4 years.

I’ve also got some frozen black currants, goose berries, and Elderberries in the freezer that I acquired for the purposes of making wine from.

There has also been some serious talk of a wedding. I won’t get into the personal details too much, right now, but indeed it includes thoughts of providing our own home made wines.. which I’ll have to think about and am excited to think about! More on that later and what we choose to offer our guests.