Archive for the ‘Wine Tasting’ Category

Home winemaking can be a lot of fun, coming up with wines made with different fruits and vegetables. Some years ago, I made a batch of garlic wine using this recipe here. When I’ve told people about it, the usual first reaction is to hold up their nose and have a quizzical look on their face. “Who’d want to drink garlic wine? What home winemaker would want to even make it?”

Well, I don’t drink it out of a glass. But I did have it with my dinner this evening. I took out a chuck roast out of the freezer – not the most tender of cuts and best cooked with liquid. After it had thawed, I decided to put it in a small roasting pan with a cup of garlic wine and a half cup of water. Into the oven it went at 250F for three hours. The roast turned out very good – and the gravy was wonderful!

After the roast had cooked, I added some oregano to the juice, a bit of salt and some corn starch to thicken it, brought it to a boil and then simmered for several minutes while constantly stirring.

If you’ve ever thought of a “different” kind of homemade wine to make, consider a gallon of garlic wine for cooking with. It does have a wonderful flavor and makes for a good marinade too. Again, here’s the garlic wine recipe.

Yesterday, I spent a fantastic 8 or 9 hours in the company of Home Winemaking expert Daniel Pambianchi at his Niagara-On-The-Lake vineyard. For readers still not familiar, Daniel wrote the book, “Techniques in Home Winemaking,” a book that I recommend to any home winemaker that wants to improve their skills and learn more about the art and science of winemaking. My review of the book is here.

Daniel operates a 14 acre vineyard just off the QEW in a very pretty part of Ontario. When I arrived (about a two hour drive), I was met by Daniel and his friendly staff. We had fun discussing wine while sampling some of the delicious bottled wines that Maleta has produced. And then on to some Grappa! I’d never had Grappa before, but Daniel had several styles ready for me to try including one that had been aged in Oak, one that had been aged with a hot pepper in the bottle, and a delicious espresso version.

After the introductions were all made, it was time to learn more about Maleta Winery and the services they can offer those who make their own wine. I had brought down a small sample of my “Mystery Wine.” I was curious about the specific gravity being below 0.900 and wondered what the alcohol content was. Daniel “fired” up the DuJardin-Salleron ebulliometer, calibrated it, and we discovered that my fruit wine was 16% alcohol by volume. Yes, it does taste a bit hot, and I’ll experiment with it. I was then shown some of the other interesting tools and testing equipment in the lab and felt like a kid in a candy store.

It was soon dinner time, and we watched the sun setting while enjoying a barbecued dinner on the deck while discussing a variety of home winemaking subjects. Daniel was very helpful and gracious in sharing some of his knowledge with me and I’ve come away with some ideas on improving my own wines. Shortly after dinner, we explored some of the wines he has aging in French and American oak barrels – and all I can say is that you’ll definitely be wanting to keep Maleta Winery’s wines in mind! We sampled several different varieties (unfortunately, I was unable to fully enjoy it all as I was driving home later) it various stages.

All in all, it was a super day! I learned much, enjoyed very good company and was introduced to some very good wine! Thank you Daniel!

Yesterday, I wrote about sharing a couple of bottles of Zinfandel that I had made three years ago over a Leonard Cohen concert broadcast on television. A few weeks ago, I was at the local LCBO (for those readers who do not live in Ontario, that would be the Liquor Control Board of Ontario store) where I found a “staff pick” – bottles of Cline Zinfandel. I knew that I would be opening up one of my bottles of Zinfandel (that cost me about $4.00) and wondered how it would stack up against this one that cost $14.00.

Well, the $14.00 bottle definitely was better than mine. The most noticeable difference was that the Cline had more “mouth feel” whereas mine in comparison was flatter. The aromas from the Cline were also stronger, and there were very nice vanilla notes that my Zinfandel did not have, probably due to no oaking. On the other hand, the colour of mine was exactly the same as the Cline Zinfandel, and the anise and blackcherry were a bit stronger.

All in all, I wasn’t disappointed in mine at all. I knew it hadn’t been fermented with the skins, had little exposure to any oaking, and when I was younger, I had drunk far worse stuff that cost me $4.00. I can’t afford to regularly buy $14.00+ bottles of wine, and my Zinfandel had the same gentle intoxicating effect I’m sure, as the $14.00 Cline.

But I think I am going to experiment more with oak in some of my wines that I plan to age awhile.

One reason many people do not learn to truly appreciate wine is because of the appearance of “wine snobbery” that exists in the world of wine. It’s unfortunate as wine can be appreciated in many different ways. When I drink a glass of wine, I don’t always stick my nose into the glass and then stick my nose into the air and with flourishes of my hands, try to come up with grandiose words to describe what I’ve just sensed. Although, it can be fun and interesting to learn how to detect various aromas in wine – but it’s not necessary in order to enjoy it.

Another attitude that sometimes comes across as “wine snobbery” is that which suggests only some types of wine should be eaten with some types of food. While I agree that the right choice of wine will compliment dinner, I also know that sometimes, I can enjoy any type of wine with whatever food I happen to be eating. Interestingly, I came across an essay in the most recent issue (Mar/April 09) of Silver and Gold magazine by Michael Pinkus, entitled “You’re Having What With That?! The ‘myth’ of wine & food pairing.” Mr. Pinkus who is the Founder of Ontario Wine Review suggests that pairing wines with foods originated with pairing regional food with regional wine. But here in North America, we don’t have the same very distinct regional dishes that the Old World, where wine with dinner first originated, has. Pinkus writes in his article,

“However, we still haven’t fully developed “regional cuisine”, beyond what’s local. We’ve become accustomed to a culinary canvas of steak and frites, Kraft Dinner and hamburgers – and what in the world goes with that? For that I will give you my standard answer: Whatever the heck you want!”

Michael Pinkus suggests that we try anything with any wine, and experiment for ourselves. I say that is good advice!

There is always debate about whether wines should be fined and/or filtered before bottling. It can be confusing to those who enjoy the hobby of home winemaking to know what to do. There is even disagreement among professional winemakers and wine tasters. Most would probably agree that fining and filtering have much to do with the appearance of wine, but what about taste and aroma?

There are some who claim that using Bentonite and other fining agents, and then filtering a wine strips away some of the flavors and aromas, while others say any such reduction is imperceptible to most.

In Forbes Magazine, there was an interesting discussion about this along with a list of ten commercially available unfiltered/unfined wines that wine enthusiasts can try for themselves. Article is here.

If you regularly read (well, read my irregular posting here), you may remember that I started a blueberry wine back in November, 2005. I commented on it, on April 22, 2006, writing,

“… I used DV10 yeast. The specific gravity this past week was 0.990 – very dry – and I’m not sure I’ll use this yeast again for blueberry wine, but we’ll see how it turns out with more time.

First, the bouquet was not very attractive. Admittedly, I only had a quick, little taste – not a mouthful – but I did not enjoy it nearly as much as I did this blueberry wine. There was something I liked about it, but it didn’t beg for more, if you know what I mean.”

Since April 2006, the carboy has been sealed. I figured I may as well check out this wine and see how it’s been doing, three years later. Today, there was a noticeable improvement on the bouquet. I very much enjoyed what my nose was detecting. However, I’m not convinced it will be as good as the other blueberry wine noted above, where I used a different yeast. This batch fermented using DV-10 yeast.

It just doesn’t seem as bold. However, the first blueberry wine needed some time “in the air” before the full flavours came out so perhaps this one will too. One thing I did notice was too much sulfite. I like to sulfite my wines before racking them, and I figured that after almost three years, the quarter to half teaspoon I put in the five gallons of wine would have at least partially dissipated. So I added just over 1/4 teaspoon before racking today. I don’t think I needed to do that at all. I’ll have to learn more about measuring free sulfite levels in wine.

I’m going to rack it a few times in the next day before bottling it to let some of the sulfite dissipate, keep a bottle to try in a couple of weeks (I’ll give it lots of time to decant before drinking) and depending on how the taste test goes, give away some bottles as gifts and cellar most of it. If the taste test does not go so well, I’ll just cellar all of it – don’t want to be giving good friends lousy wine!

This evening, I was about to put some of the bottles of mead I had just bottled into my cellar. Now, I don’t have the perfect wine cellar by any means. I live in a very old house where the basement is tiny and I can’t stand up straight. One one side, is a crawl space that is quite dusty and filled with cob webs. I’ve never actually crawled into the crawl space because I have no idea what else might be in there. But through the small opening in the wall, I can put a few boxes of wine, or add bottles to the plastic wine storage racks I have.

I had thought the cellar was empty. I knew there were a couple of cardboard boxes laying on their sides, but for some reason, had the belief that they were empty. Tonight, I thought I’d get them out of the way – but there was a certain heft to them that told me, “Hey! There’s wine in one of those boxes!”

Turns out there are about 8 bottles of the “Old Vines” Zinfandel that I started making back in some part of October, 2005. I recall now that it was a batch of wine that I wanted to try the synthetic wine corks and age some wine a few years with those in the bottles.

With more than a bit of excitement, I grabbed two of the bottles and brought them upstairs. Would the wine have gone off? Did it keep well? Had it turned to vinegar? With a little trepidation, partly because I had lost all my notes on this wine and had no idea whether I sulfited before bottling, I uncorked one. Took a whiff… not sure what to expect… vinegar?

NO! Nothing but the rich scent of red Zinfandel wine! My wee man, who is now 6 years old would have been 3 years old when I started this wine, and helped with the bottling of it, wanted to have a sniff. He pronounced it “Mmmm!” Then he asked, “What were you afraid it might smell like, Daddy?” So I took out a bottle of vinegar, undid the cap, and let him have a sniff of that. “The wine smells much better, Dad!”

I’m going to let the red Zinfandel warm up to room temperature and decant it. I’ll offer some tasting notes later.

UPDATE: Tasting Notes

Mmmm.. so the wine has warmed up and somewhat decanted. Oh, this is a good classic Zinfandel.

On the nose: black cherry with hints of smoked wood
On the tongue: black cherry, pepper and licorice.
Mouthfeel: Velvet

If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time (and I don’t blame you if you haven’t due to the non-regular updating), you might remember I started a dry mead on February 4th. As in three years ago – February 4th, 2006. This mead seemed to have problems along the way with lack of clearing and a lot of CO2 present for quite some time.

With the clearing problem, I resorted to using finely ground egg shell which certainly seemed to help. Over the past three years, I’ve done little to it except let it bulk age. I think about a year ago, I did rack it and added a 1/4 teaspoon of sulfite just to ensure some protection.

The other day I was looking at it and decided it was time to bottle it. I don’t filter my wines often, but after looking at this mead and discovering that there was a very powdery residue on the bottom, which was easily stirred up simply by inserting the wand of a racking hose, I decided to filter before bottling.

I was hoping to filter and bottle this evening but ran out of time. But I did get to filtering it – I’m not sure that the #2 filter will have removed all of the sediment, but the result sure looked nice and clear! Filtering can introduce some unwanted air to a wine, so it’s probably a good thing I didn’t bottle this evening. Instead, I’ll let it degass for a day or two to get rid of any air introduced. But I did take about 1 oz for myself to give it a try.

I’m impressed! It is a dry mead and clear like a white wine with a tint of light straw color. On the nose, it smells like.. well.. Mead. I can detect some light odours of honey.

On the tongue? Smooth! Very smooth, with a just a hint of spice and goes down nice. This mead might be improved chilled. Perhaps when I decide to open a bottle later, I’ll keep one at room temperature and chill the other. Instead of one bottle, I’ll have two!

Now after three years, it’s time to bottle this stuff!

Alright, over here, Jeff asks what the garlic wine actually tastes like. He claims he’s tasted garlic icecream, and that it was “supurb.” Well, I have no clue about Jeff’s subjective likes and dislikes as far as his taste buds go, but what the heck – I’m up to the challenge of tasting my garlic wine – straight – and without cooking it with something first.

So.. here goes… as I start to think to myself, “Ok Ian, are you nuts?? Well… yeah, and a promise to Jeff is still a promise, even if it is to Jeff… ”

So I’ve poured a very small amount into a wineglass.

Colour: About the colour of pineapple juice. I was thinking something else at first, involving snow and one of those moments when you really have to go… but thought there might be a better description. So the colour of pineapple juice is it.

On The Nose: You know, it’s not bad at all! It’s kind of like.. mixed vegetables.

Alright… here goes the part where I become a he-man, willing to actually taste… garlic wine.

On The Tongue: You know what? This is not unpleasant. There is a hint of garlic, but ever so subtle. But along with that subtle garlic are flavours, believe it or not, of salt, celery and tomato.

But, there is also something very unique that I can’t place at all. It’s not gross or anything; at the same time, I’m not planning on sitting down with a glass of this stuff to sip on while reading a book, that’s for sure. But it’s really not unpleasant at all.

If you were thinking you might be able to torture someone by forcing them to drink garlic wine, I don’t think it would work. I don’t think folks would come back for seconds mind you – unless it was something you had cooked using the garlic wine, which does add a very nice subtle flavour, at least to the rack of lamb dish I cooked the other day.

A day mixed with delight and disappointment. First, the disappointment: I wish I had made more!

The delight? Ahh… three gallons of blackcurrant wine that I started November 2005. The last time I racked it (I don’t recall when now), there was still some haze in the wine so I figured today would be as good a day as any to rack it off any sediments on the bottom.

Once again, it had been so long since I paid attention to the wine that it was with a bit of trepidation that I put the one end of they syphon to my mouth and sucked. What would I be tasting? I shouldn’t have worried about anything foul; rather worried about how lovely this would taste, my tastebuds begging for more!

I took another sip, delighted with the sensations across my tastebuds. There is just something wonderful, sensual, about blackcurrant wine. Little sips are enough to liven the pallate. Yes, it’s not a dry wine – but if Jesus really did make water into wine, it must have been blackcurrant wine.

I now am going to find me a parcel of land where I can plant blackcurrants. Enough blackcurrants that I may make gallons and gallons of this.

That might take awhile, so in the meantime, I’m heading back to Andrew’s Scenic Acres and will be crossing my fingers that they have lots of frozen blackcurrants still in stock.

If you want to make a wonderful wine, I’d suggest that you find yourself some blackcurrants as well, and try this recipe. I think you’ll agree that you’ll have made a few gallons of heaven as well.