Results are In!

Last year I threatened to enter the Kansas City Cellarmasters Wine Competition but didn't get around to it.  This year I sent 4 wines.  The wine I honestly expected to do the best did not medal.  More on that in a later post.  But I did win three medals, including First Place in the vegetable flavored wine category.  The award is a $20 gift certificate to St Louis Beer and Wine Making which may or may not be the same as St. Louis Wine and Beermaking, I'll have to look into that.

I went to the cellar to get a bottle for a picture, and found that I had sent my last bottle of 2014 starfruit (carambola) wine.  This wine was made with 7# fruit/gallon, ended at a final pH of 3.44, and was backsweetened with 70g sugar/gallon.  As to color, two judges found it "excellent" and "great" while a third found it "inky, should be lighter."  On taste, despite the 70g of sugar, judges found it "close to being dry" and "close to dry but OK."  One taster thought the acid and sweetness were good, while another thought that the acid and tannin were too high and were distracting.  I wonder if some of the judges weren't quite familiar with the taste of carambola.  Overall score 13.83, a "sound wine." I think 5-6#/gallon is probably enough fruit for carambola wine; going forward, I'll be sure all seeds are out, and won't be shy about backsweetening this wine.

I honestly didn't have great hopes for the hibiscitrus wine. I may have mislabeled it as 2014, I'm pretty sure I sent the 2015.  There's not much to this wine - hibiscus flowers and whatever citrus I had growing in the greenhouse.  Used Booster Blanc and QA23.  The acid addition was straight citric, no acid blend used. It cleared, I used a little grapefruit rind in the secondary, backsweetened with 40g/gal sugar.  The color was rated as "nice" and "great."  One judge thought it "sharp" while another thought that the acidity was not as prominent as expected.  The finish was thought too short by two judges, while one thought the finish was "too grassy" and not floral enough.  I'm not sure how to fix that.  The overall score was 14.67, a "sound wine."

My third batch of lemongrass ginger wine saw further adjustments.  The second batch was far to gingery because the crystallized ginger I used was so strong.  So I dialed it back to only 80g of crystallized ginger.  This turned out to be a little short, as I ended up tweaking with a small dose of ginger extract in the end.  The lemongrass was upped to 500g for 3 gallons, and I added one Meyer lemon, along with white grape concentrate for body. Yeast was K1-V1116, acid additions 50/50 citric/tartaric, and it was backsweetened with only 25g/gallon sugar.  Aroma was "aromotic, grassy, earthy;" one judge noted "slight lemon" and another "strong lemon."  The acidity was "bright" with a
"nice lingering lemongrass" finish.  Overall score was 16.5, a "very good wine" which placed first in the vegetable wine category.