Finally...Gold!

The Kansas City Cellarmasters 2020 Wine Classic is in the books. I'm starting to figure out what judges like and what performs well in a wine competition. It's not always the wine we prefer to drink in the evening.

Let's start with the bad. Just one. Blackberry. Again. I took careful steps to avoid loss of color and to sweeten this 2017 Blackberry more, but it wasn't enough. "Unbalanced, needs more sugar." "Grassy, no blackberry" was strange to see when truly the only thing that is in this wine is blackberries. "Diesel flavor finish." 9.33. I give up. Blackberry pie anyone?

The rest of my wines at least medaled. Granted, they are pretty generous with medals but this is my best performance to date. The 2017 Zinfandel earned 14.5, good for bronze. Two comments about it being tart. "Overall nice wine."

The 2018 Grenache Rosé got a bronze with 13.67. There was only one comment, "On the thin side." Apparently it was solid if unspectacular, according to these judges. I'm ok with solid.

The Chardonel from 2018 is in my opinion one of my best wines to date. Alas, in competition it was good only for 13.83, bronze. "Notes of melon, flint, citrus, butter." "Crisp, flinty, minerally, apples." Yes, I like this reviewer! "Thin body" "thin, medium finish" from the others.

My 2018 Traminette earned a bronze with 13.5. "Notes of spice, floral." "Low tannins." One sheet with no comments. At least it wasn't thin.

I sent in the 2017 Blueberry which, at that time, I made with some Merlot concentrate. Got one comment that "flavors did not blend well." "Not much blueberry flavor" contrasted with another reviewer, "Fruit forward with Merlot influence." Overall, 15.33 was good for a silver medal.

As an offshoot of the 2017 elderberry, I made a port. To us, this is a delicious dessert drink. I don't have much left actually, but went ahead and sent two bottles in the Fortified/Dessert Wine category. "Nice flavor." "Nice after dinner drink." and then literally two reviewers wrote "Nice dessert wine!" The port earned a silver with 15.50.

I've been fooling around with the 2017 Pear wine for a long time. It was made in two parts, neither went dry, one got some H2S, and, well, it just took a lot of tweaking. All of this for some 7 gallons of wine which to me tastes uncomfortably like apples. I still haven't brought myself to bottle all of it. Well maybe I should, because the judges liked it. "Nice bouquet." "Pleasant" "Very nice, couldn't find much to complain about." "Tastes young." "I think that this will mature into a fine wine." 16.5, silver.

The 2017 Vignoles came from our friend Bill down the road. He couldn't get the mechanical harvester in to pic the grapes so called us. We had to scramble a little bit. It's not my favorite, because to me it's a brassy, tart, in-your-face sort of wine. But the judges really liked it. "Very nice!" "Nice color." "Nice finish." "Nice wine." 17.0. Finally, gold!

Better Today than Yesterday, Better Tomorrow than Today

This week the results came in for the Kansas City Cellarmasters Wine 2018 Classic. I entered 9 wines this year - only $10 entry fee, and I really wanted some feedback on all of of my 2016 wines. Also, some folks say these wine competitions are a bit random, so more entries gives a better shot at a medal.

In the past I've medaled at about a 50% rate. I guess I'm getting better, because this year I medaled with 7 of the 9 entries. I won second in class in two categories, worth $40 in gift certificates at St. Louis Wine and Beermaking. Hopefully I can put that toward grapes! In no particular order...

Syrah/Elderberry blend, a 50/50 blend, not surprisingly scored just out of medal range at 12.67. Judges felt that the elderberry overpowers this wine and I completely agree. You have to close your eyes and pretend you are drinking a fruity elderberry.

Syrah/elder/blackberry, 70/15/15 blend, scored better at 13.83 for a bronze. Still probably too much elderberry, and some judges felt it could use some sugar. This need for more residual sugar shows up a lot in my feedback, and I'm beginning to think this is just a personal preference we have for drier wines. These dry wines suffer in competition due to the Pepsi Paradox.  I've put at least one bottle away for long term aging, I think this wine will age well.

The 2016 passion fruit wine was interesting because we opened a bottle at Christmas (fulfilling a vow to open one bottle of each wine just before the submission date, just for quality control purposes). I thought it was excellent. Beth and Lisa noted an off odor of funk or onions which, try as I might, I couldn't pick up. Well the judges missed it too, and this wine came in at 15.33, my highest score, worth a silver medal.

Blueberry rosé scored just in medal range at 13.00, but that score was worth second in the category, so was enough for one of the $20 gift certificates. I'm not particularly proud of this wine - I bottled it early, but missed on the acid. So I dumped it back into the carboy, treated it with KHCO3, then rebottled. It was better, but I thought the KHCO3 left it a little out of balance. The judges thought it was still too acidic with too little blueberry. Fair enough. I recognized the mistakes I made and adjusted with the 2017 version of this wine.

The wine with perhaps the greatest discrepancy between comments and score was the 2016 elderberry. I got three judging sheets back, and the final comments from each were, "Nice balanced fruity wine," "Nice overall wine for its age," and "Very nice wine." So I would have expected a little better than 13.67, bronze medal range. Elderberry tends to age well. I am going to start holding some of these wines for year or two before sending them in.

Chambourcin scored 14.3, worth a bronze. There weren't too many negative comments here either, with one judge noting this wine should age well. I agree. Thank you, Bill Books, for these grapes.

I think the judges at this competition just don't like dry blackberry wine. Seems there is an expectation that blackberry will always be sweet. I went to great lengths to assure that my 2016 blackberry did not suffer from the fatal flaws of the 2015 blackberry. I still only managed a score of 11.67. Comments included "too tart" and "needs some sugar." One judge noted "little blackberry aroma." There is literally nothing but blackberry in this wine. Short of spiking it with flavoring or blackberry brandy, there is no way to cram in more blackberry. Next year I may pull off a 1/2 gallon and sweeten it to 2% RS, just for this competition.

In contrast, everyone lines up behind the 2016 blueberry. This wine scored a silver medal with 15.17. We did bench trials for back-sweetening and wound up using 40g/gal. Comments included another "too tart" along with "needs more blueberry." I made some tweaks to my blueberry this year that might help in this regard.

Finally, the 2016 pinot grigio. This was a California juice bucket. This wine scored 15.17 as well, worth a silver medal and second in the white vinifera category. I've detected intermittently a very slight off odor - one of the four judges picked this up as well. They all liked it well enough however.

2017 Wines - Chapter 1 - Blackberry

We didn't have to travel as often this year to get the fruit we needed, as the elderberry and blackberry yields continue to improve at home. Therefore this year's blackberry was an all-juice, no water affair using mostly home-grown blackberries. The ingredients:

• 51# blackberries
• 2.5# elderberries (for color and tannin)
• 0.5g Lallzyme EX
• 5g OptiRed
• 5g Booster Rouge
• 2t tannin
• 1 cup heavy toast American oak chips
• 2700g sugar 
• 6t calcium carbonate 

The sugar adjusted the SG to 1.090. The calcium carbonate adjusted the pH to 3.40. 71B was the yeast, step fed with Fermaid K, total of 1.5tsp. 

I let this wine go until the cap dropped, then pressed off 5 gallons. 

Once in the carboy, I dosed with KMS. There was a fair amount of sediment and airspace after the first day. Given how quiet the wine was and that we were leaving town, I racked it down to 4.5 gallons in separate containers. We made several tweaks to the technique, including tannin and oak chips in the primary, elderberry in the primary, and letting it ferment to dry before pressing. It will be interesting to see the result.

Inventory

No 2017 winemaking just yet, but we are getting close. Blueberries are in, and between what we have picked at Danamay Farms and a little left over from last year, we've got over 40#. That should be enough to press for a rosé and still get a 3 gallon batch of traditional blueberry.

Blackberries are also coming in, both behind the chicken coop here at home and at Danamay Farms. We are behind on blackberry picking, we have maybe only 25#. I'm aiming for 40# or so for a straight juice blackberry. Hopefully it will come out like the 2016, not the flawed vintage of 2015. We cracked open a 2016 Blackberry for dinner glazed peach and honey chicken this past week and it was delicious.

The grapes are coming along. I understood Norton was a vigorous grower, but so far it is lagging behind the other grapes for me. Traminette is my best grower, followed closely by just about every other variety I planted, save Chambourcin and Norton.

Traminette foreground, Chardonel in the back

Vidal Blanc

In other fruit news, the pawpaws are coming right along. I found this oddball in the mix, a conjoined pawpaw.

Today we'll finish up mowing and bottle some 2016 wine. The rest of the blackberry needs to be bottled, along with the Pinot Grigio, elderberry rosé, and blueberry. My nose tells me we knocked it out of the park with our passion fruit wine, and it needs to be racked, along a few others. But there are empty carboys calling.

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.

2016 Wines - Chapter 1 - Blackberry

We had our best ever blackberry haul in 2016 and September is the time to start making wine. Forty-two pounds of blackberries were dosed with K-meta thawed in two buckets.

Twenty-four hours later the berries were gently crushed and combined. SG was 1.042, and with 1.77kg sugar brought up to 1.085. pH 2.98 adjusted with 2.5t calcium carbonate to 3.28. Added 3t of pectic, 3g of Opti-Red, and we let the temp come up.

The next day we pitched a starter of 71B, and it took about 24 hours to form a nice cap. Fermaid K was step fed and after 6 days we were near 0 Brix and we pressed the must.

Yes, I filled the airlocks

We got about 2.5 gallons of free run and almost 4 gallons after pressing, about 11# per gallon. The pH is 3.03, probably from the additional acid released by the blackberries. I was aiming for a little higher than that, but hey, that's blackberry. Backsweetening will hopefully balance that out. We'll try to keep this wine protected from the light to preserve its color, but last year I had to blend a little elderberry to make this wine look good.

Wine Weekend - Part 2

Today I racked the reds. It is possible that the worst of my 2015 reds is better than the best of my 2014 reds. Lisa has declared the 2014 second-run elderberry her favorite wine. In 2015, the second run wound up with about 1/3 blackberry and so far this seems to be an improvement.

Is it a red? Is it a rosé?

The elderberry-blackberry blend was roughly 2/3 elder, 1/3 blackberry.  This wine took the oak very well. It is fruity and dark and jammy.

I'm calling this EB. It will certainly make it to the label.

The straight elderberry has less oak than the EB, but well enough. This wine is less fruit-forward, thick and tannic.

Straight elderberry wine

Finally, today I racked the blackberry. This was a straight-juice wine, one of the first I've tried. It has an interesting, fruity pop. I'm going to lightly oak this one, and so I added 7 cubes per gallon. I will also probably nudge it with a hint of vanilla.

I'm told this color is typical of blackberry.

For Father's Day I became and EGGhead. I lit it and played around for a few hours last night, cooking some cedar plank salmon. I hope I'm far enough up the learning curve that I don't ruin the 13# of pork butt we have planned for today.

Fall Winemaking is Underway

The sauerkraut went into the fridge after 5 days of fermentation.  It is chunky and crisp with enough acidity.

We are home for the first weekend in a couple of months. This provided the opportunity to catch up on some winemaking. I bottled the elderberry-persimmon wine. This wine is unique for the large dose of bentonite and heavy toast oak chips in the primary, then a secondary treatment of some black currants. I think it is very good at 8 months, and it is supposed to improve for a couple of years.

We racked the starfruit and lychee wine.  The starfruit wine is not quite clear but will, once again, be fantastic.  I think we have the starfruit wine recipe dialed in pretty well. Getting the pH low enough with mostly citric acid is the key. No malic acid for this wine, acid blend or otherwise. The lychee wine unfortunately blew off all of the lychee aromas during fermentation. I anticipated this, and kept back 15 large lychees from the greenhouse.  These were thawed, destoned, chopped, treated for several hours with pectic enzyme, then added to the secondary. I expect a wine that is subtle but distinctly lychee.

We then kicked off the first of the fall batches.  This one is blackberry.  We are going with (almost) straight fruit. It is said that it normally takes about 11-12# for a gallon.  I had 29.5#, just under 10# per gallon for the 3 gallon batch.

To make up the volume I did use about 4 pints of water. I have some of last year's blackberry wine to top off with if the volume is still short.  The initial pH was 2.79 and it took 7t of calcium carbonate to get it to the desired 3.4.  Sugar calculations were perfect, we're starting at 1.084. I let the pectic work a full 24 hours. 71B will hopefully tame some of the malic acid.

Shawn and Suzanne came over for supper.  We had a nice veggie-based chili, then Suzanne make a delicious apple galette.  I was a poor host.

Spot the veggies?

Apple Galette.

Here is my recipe for 3 gal of carambola wine.

16# carambola
1 liter white grape concentrate
Sugar: 3# (SG 1.082)
Campden: 2 tab at start
Yeast nutrient: 3/4t Fermaid K divided
Yeast energizer: 1t GoFerm
Tannin: 1/2t
Pectic enzyme: 3t
Citric acid: 6t  (starting pH was 3.27)
Tartaric acid: 3t
Opti white: 6g (dose 1-2g/gal)
Water: 2gal
Yeast: QA23

Add Campden tablets at fruit thaw.  Bag the sliced fruit.  Add bagged fruit, grape concentrate, sugar to primary.  Boil water, pour over primary.  When cool, add Optiwhite, pectic, acids, and wait 12-24 hours. Double check pH and adjust if needed.  Rehydrate yeast with GoFerm and pitch.  Step feed the Fermaid K. Stir twice a day.  Bentonite on day 3.  Drip drain bag and rack to primary when 1.010 or lower.  Usual care thereafter.

Lining them up

Friday I went back for what likely will be the last of my elderberry runs this year.  It was brutal. Weeds 6' high, flies, horseflies, and of course I forgot my pruners, making getting through the wild blackberries a challenge.  Final pickin' totals:

• Blueberry 3.5#
• Blackberry 42#
• Elderberry 22.5#

The birds are finally leaving the elderberries in the yard alone long enough for them to truly ripen.  I may get another pound from the yard.  So the plan is as follows:

• Elderberry 16# (3 gal)
• Blackberry/Elderberry blend 10#/6# (3 gal)
• Blackberry 16# (3 gal)
• Blackberry/Elderberry Rosé with skins/seeds from first 3 batches (3 gal)
• Blueberry/Blackberry 3.5#/3# + whatever elderberries I can yet get from the yard (1 gal)
• Blackberry 13# pure juice no water (1 gal)

I need to get some bottling done, as right now I have no open 3 gal carboys.  But the remaining 2014 elderberry wine, when racked this past week, is looking and tasting very nice.

One of the remaining 3 gal elderberry batches I still need to bottle.

This doesn't look like exercise equipment.

But this pressure washer extension has me sore on this Sunday.  We used it Saturday to get the mud daubers off of the ceiling of the lanai.  You don't really control it, you just sort of restrain it.  It reminds me of a slosh pipe.  This is a home maintenance tool I suppose I'll use for 30 minutes every 2-3 years but which has no substitute.  We're not considering a move, but I will be very happy to leave this monster with the lucky buyers of our home whenever that time comes.

Allie is getting settled in her new apartment.  We delivered the green Valium loveseat, so-named because it is so comfortable lying on it is like taking Valium. This required removal of the back door from its hinges.  We took the opportunity to stop by Lucky's and get some rosemary and garlic steak kabobs.  I cooked these perfectly but they were badly overseasoned.  Thanks, Lucky.  The 2013 blackberry mead was therefore a nice surprise.  I admit to have cheated a little bit on this one, but Lisa doesn't care.

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