Wine Kitz Coupage de Soleil

Recently, I happened to be in Markham, Ontario which is a town I seldom get to visit. Prior to my travel there, I did a search for winemaking shops and discovered that there was a Wine Kitz franchise close to where I’d be visiting.

After doing a search on their website, I found a wine that I was interested in trying – one of Wine Kitz’s “Limited Releases,” the Sommelier Reserve Coupage de Soleil.

The Wine Kitz website describes this wine:

“(a) “Meritage” style wine made from the classic Bordeaux varietals of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc.
This truly fantastic marriage of grapes is extremely dark and dense in colour with loads of currant, blackberry, black pepper and subtle mint aromas. These aromas carry over into layers of rich, full flavours and elegant structure with enough backbone for aging.:

Sounds yummy, doesn’t it? Eight weeks from starting fermentation to bottling with the 18 litre concentrate, I thought it would be interesting to give it a try. I found the Wine Kitz shop without any problem and managed to arrive about ten minutes before closing time. As well as the kit, I picked up a few other things that I wanted to add to my “winemaking lab” and paid for my goods. I was a little surprised at the total I spent – around $150.00 Canadian including tax and assumed that the extra items I had purchased were a little on the expensive side until I got home and looked at the receipt.

The wine kit retailed for $130.00 – the most expensive kit I’ve ever purchased. Now, I realize that it does come with 3 litres more than the premium R. J. Spagnol’s kits, but $45.00 to $50.00 more? This had better been one fine home wine!

When I got home, I opened the kit and was pleasantly surprised though by the fact that this wine included attractive wine labels, both for the front and back of the bottles. It also included two packages of oak, Lalvin EC1118 yeast, a single package with combined contents of sorbate and sulphite, Chitosan, Keiselsol and clear instructions. Another very handy item included in the kit is a log card that will fit around the mouth of a carboy with space to track racking dates. In my opinion, this should come with every winemaking kit!

After adding the 5 litres of water and stirring, I took a specific gravity reading which showed an excellent sg of 1.102. I followed instructions and added the two oak packets before pitching the yeast, and let it sit for 7 days.

On the 7th day, the specific gravity was 1.000 – time for racking into the secondary carboy. As I write this, we’re at day 19 – the Wine Kitz instructions recommends leaving the wine sit until between day 28 and day 42 at which time their directions say to rack the wine, add the sorbate/sulphite packet and kieselsol. The next day, the Chitosan is added, then racking ten days later for bulk ageing an additional 21 days.

My Personal Comments

Pros:

• Comes with attractive labels
• Includes winemaking log card
• Extra oak is welcome
• Yeast variety is clearly marked and known to the winemaker

Cons:

• The price. I’m wondering if I was charged the price for winemaking on premises.
• Mixing sulphite and sorbate into a single packet
• The instructions suggest adding Kieselsol followed by Chitosan the very next day.*

*Kieselsol is negatively charged and attracts positive charged matter during fining. Chitosan is positively charged and attracts negatively charged matter. I would prefer to give more than one day between use of either to allow the first one to do it’s work before adding the opposite charged fining agent.

Tasting Notes:

May 4, 2006

Bouquet: dark cherry and blossoms.

On The Tongue: black cherry, black currant and pepper. Excellent mouth feel. I personally enjoyed this wine very much.