2016 Wines - Chapter 7 - Lemongrass Mint

With time, the 2015 Lemongrass Mint wine improved quite a lot. It was perhaps a bit heavy on the mint, but still a very drinkable white wine. Back in May, the mint and lemongrass were abundant, but I wasn't ready to make the wine. So I picked a 3 gallon batch worth, simmered the stock, and put it in the freezer.

Since I was splitting up a can of grape concentrate, I thawed out the stock and started this wine. The stock had 650g lemongrass and 2qt mint leaves. To this I added 24oz Sauv Blanc concentrate, 2.35kg sugar, citric and tartaric acids, Opti White, and Booster Blanc. Looks yummy.

K1-V1116 was the chosen yeast. I'm not sure why, but this was kind of a slow ferment. Maybe it was the fact that I rehydrated the yeast without any must. I kept the temp down to start, and when I let the temp come back up it never really took off. But it steadily worked down to 1.009 on day 7. Because of the slightest hint of an off odor, I splash racked it to the carboy.