March Work in February

We had a very nice weekend so I skipped Something Rotten at the Fox in St. Louis. After a long delay, I finally scheduled my ACL repair for a couple of weeks from now. There are only so many opportunities to get this work done.

When the painters did their work last fall, they brought in a huge bucket lift which destroyed the walk to the old arbor. The first item of business was to reset the pavers.

Then we got all of the grasses cut back. This is a job which used to take a couple of days. With the Grasshopper, it takes a couple of hours.

I'm going to receive around 120 vines in March and April. While I have some good friends who have volunteered to help plant, I felt as if it was my duty to get the holes dug ahead of time. I rented a small backhoe and it took about 4 hours.

On Sunday we cut back the beautyberries and cleaned up. Now we just need some grapes.

2016 Wines - Chapter 12 - Elderberry Rosé

Final chapter for 2016. Some passion fruit which will go toward a one gallon batch when all of the 2016 passion fruits have been harvested, but it cannot be counted as a 2016 wine, as some of the fruit is left over, frozen from 2015. There are some elderberries, blackberries, and blueberries left, but I'm out of carboys and low on inspiration.

This is the third year for elderberry "seconds" wine. Last year's wine had some blackberry, and it was pretty good, earning a bronze medal at the Wine Classic. But I judged the 2014 version superior, and it was all elderberry. Therefore, I started with the idea of dialing back the blackberry this year. But because I tweaked the first runs of both wines, it wound up with even more blackberry this time than in 2015. That may be fine, as the comments from the Wine Classic indicated the elderberry dominated the 2015 version; more blackberry should be welcome.

We used seconds from the 2015 elderberry wine, which started with 15#, and half of the seconds from the 2015 EB. All told, it used seconds from 21# elderberry and 14# blackberry. Also included were 3# bananas, simmered and strained; 46oz can of Alexanders Sauv Blanc concentrate, 1735g sugar, 11.5qt water, 3g Booster Blanc, 6g Opti White, 3tsp pectic, and 0.3g Lallzyme EX.

Banana water

Initial SG was 1.086, spot on. The pH started at 4.07, down to 3.41 with 3t citric and 1t tartaric. Pitched K1-V1116 and it was off to the races.

I kept this in the basement most of the time, hoping to keep the fermentation cooler. Step fed with Fermaid K and added some bentonite on day 3. The Lallzyme is a new addition, and I think it worked, perhaps too well. I racked today to carboy at 1.015, and this wine has a ton of pulp.

Cleaning this carboy will be interesting

Next Steps

This year I entered 6 wines in the Greater Kansas City Cellarmasters Wine Classic. We earned 3 medals: Silver for Lychee Wine, and bronze for 2015 Elderberry Rosé and Lemongrass Mint. Two others didn't medal but earned nice comments. But I learned that I must open and sample every wine before sending, as the blackberry had gone bad. I hadn't tried it in the months since bottling, and while it wasn't great at bottling, it is awful now. It oxidized and developed the geranium smell. Fortunately, there were only two remaining bottles, and now nobody can be considered at risk from this wine any longer.

I'm conducting an elderberry wine experiment. I have three 1 gallon batches of elderberry, the making of which is detailed elsewhere. I racked these three today and added kmeta. Lots of red fruit from the simmered solution and the pressed fruit batches, particularly cherry from the pressed fruit. The batch which was fermented on the fruit has the least aroma and is most characteristic of elderberry.

The greenhouse is still sleeping for the winter. We are eating, rather than fermenting, this year's citrus crop. The only exciting news to report is our first grapefruit harvest.

Double A Vineyards notified me that they don't have enough Norton to fill my order. Apparently this is a very popular grape right now. I was able to get another 25 vines from a place in Arkansas. If I actually receive all of the Norton I am still promised, it will fill the remainder of the available trellis space.