This past week I took a staycation in order bottle the 2010
wines including a Lodi Zinfandel and a NC Syrah. Both wines have been aging for a year in 32
gallon Vadai Hungarian oak barrels. The
Lodi Zinfandel was the first wine I made from California grapes. The Zinfandel
grapes were extremely difficult to move through the crusher/destemmer (we have
a manual one). However after tasting the
wine this week, I would now say it was worth the effort! However, the Zinfandel did have one
issue. It was very high in alcohol – about
16.5%. Fortunately, it does not taste like
it. We kept half of both the Zin and
Syrah in their original state, and used the rest for blending. The NC Syrah was about 12% alcohol by
volume.
The first thing I did was move about half of each barrel
into carboys for the blend between the Zin and Syrah. That blend will be about 14.5% alcohol by
volume. We now have 6 cases of the
Zinfandel, and 6 cases of the Syrah. I
plan on bottling the blend sometime over the next few weeks.
Once the barrels were empty, I cleaned them out and filled
them with the 2011 wines. That included
a Paso Robles Grenache and an Amador Cabernet Sauvignon. I’m a little worried about the Cab because it
tastes a little green to me. I’ve read
that this taste is the result of the grapes being harvested too early and
before the seeds have fully matured. Luckily
the green flavor is not dominant and the wine has also has a strong cherry
flavor. Hopefully, after some time in the
barrel the cherry flavor will concentrate and the green flavor will
diminish. Time will tell. There were two gallons of the Grenache that
were left over after putting it in the barrel.
I decided to go ahead and bottle the remainder as a “young” version of
the wine. It is light in color, but
strong in flavor, oddly enough.
Now I have some wine to give as gifts this holiday season! We didn’t get grapes this past fall, in order
to put funds towards a shed to move our yard equipment out of our
basement. This makes the basement a
little cleaner for my winemaking activities.
I think next year we’ll be doing some fruit wines to fill a little of
the void. Cheers!