Wine day

Red Wine Racking Day.

Say that three times fast.

Today we racked all of our country red wines.  They are clear and for the most part, nearing time to bottle, and so it was a good time to sample them.

I racked elderberry batch #3 (3 gal) off of the oak.  This batch was made with straight tartaric acid and had some tartaric crystals.  It begs the question of whether I should cold stabilize this wine.  Probably not.  I doubt it will be chilled much below the temp of the basement this winter.  Color great, nice body, fruity, not too tannic.  Not sure if there is enough oak yet.  May benefit from more oak or finishing tannins.  However, in the words of a former professor, when in doubt, "Don't just do something, stand there."

Elderberry batch #4 (3 gal) came off of the oak as well.  Just a tiny bit of tartaric crystals in this wine, less than batch #3, because this one was made with acid blend.  I can't tell that it is any sharper than batch #3.

The second run elderberry, an elderberry rose (3 gal) may be the best of the elderberry wines.  Very fruity, low tannins.  This one has a couple of bananas for body which are supposed to be undetectable flavor-wise.  I'm not so sure.  But it is not there in a bad way; there is a complexity to this wine that the straight elderberry wines don't have.

Pomegranate/Cranberry (1 gal) is very good.  This wine, I discovered after investigating further, also has elderberry juice in the base.  I likely will bottle this one as-is.

Blackberry (1 gal) is fruity, a little citrusy, sharp, and probably excessively tannic.  This one is not ready for the bottle.  It clearly needs backsweetening, and may need the egg white treatment if it doesn't settle down in the next several months.

In greenhouse, the Carambola 'Kari' (starfruit) is just clinging to life.  I'm not sure what happened.  Very sad.  As you can tell from the background of the blog, it is one of my favorite trees.  This tree has produced dozens and dozens of tasty starfruit.  I have 4 1 gallon bags of fruit frozen, waiting for the next open 3 gallon carboy.  If I lose this tree it will take years before its replacement can produce the same amount of fruit.

Kari in happier times

The Start of the Garden Year

Each year, despite our best intentions, Lisa and I eventually fall behind with the gardens, sometimes sooner, sometimes later.  I can tell which years we'll fall behind sooner, because we get a rough start.  It might be weather, nice during the week and poor on the weekends; it might be travel; but for whatever reason, if we haven't mowed before the feather reed grass shows, we're in trouble.

This year, while it is not yet really spring, the start of the gardening season declared itself with a beautiful 60 degree sunny, windless Sunday.  Lisa spent much of her day strictly adhering to her pre-emergent schedule.  I tackled the mowing.

Over the years I've tried a variety of methods for cutting back the ornamental grasses.  We have the 'Karl Foerster', as well as Panicum virgatum 'Dallas Blues' and 'Rotstrahbusch', Miscanthus sinensis "Gracillimus', and several others whose names escape me.  The miscanthus is the toughest.  I've tried string trimmers, chain saws and other methods.  It turns out that by far the easiest way to handle the spring grass duties with the Grasshopper.  What used to take an entire day can be reduced to about an hour by simply mowing them down with the Grasshopper.

Unless you get stuck.

My good friend Jorgen bailed me out today, and I partially repaid him with some wine.  This morning Lisa and I bottled 6 gallons of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc.  This New Zealand wine we made from a kit with QA 23.  It is a little tart, but hopefully it will settle down in the bottle.  Lisa's favorite wine.

Anyway, once pulled from the muck I went on to finish the pool beds, the liriope bed, the elderberry beds, and the grasses around the drive.  And the feather reed grass is not yet up.  In all, a good start to the garden year.

Tonight we're having steak we paid way too much for last night at the YMCA auction.  Although we resolved this morning to drink more of our homemade wine, these steaks require a red, and I don't have anything worthy.  So we've opened some wine club reds, a Spanish garnacha (Grenache) and a Cab from Argentina.

Don't find yourself in this mess.