Roll Out the Barrel

There comes a point with certain endeavors that you realize you might be in too deep. With winemaking, that point has almost certainly been reached when you install a vineyard. But a better, more accurate marker might be the acquisition of a barrel. 

This is a little 10L barrel which matches my most common 3 gallon batch. It sealed up in a couple of days. Today it received the 2016 elderberry-blackberry blend.

I'm not wild about the spigot, it tends to leak. And the hole on top is too small to admit my autosiphon. But it sure smells great. We'll leave the 2016 EB in for 2-4 weeks. Next up is the 2016 Syrah. I'm hoping it will concentrate it to an acceptable level.

The barrel wasn't the only toy which arrived this week. I got a backpack mister/sprayer. I found a little powdery mildew on some of the grapes. So yesterday I fired up the sprayer for the first time. It's pretty darn heavy when full. Four gallons of Captan and Immunox were sufficient for one pass through the vineyard. It will take some fine tuning to make this whole spray process more efficient.

Amaretto is the Bacon of Alcohol

Every so often we have a Friday office Happy Hour. This time we held it at our house and Brice supplied the line of the evening. It was not from his T-shirt which asked, "WTF Where's The Fish?"

We wound up going through 5 bottles of home brew, and here they are, in order of consumption (and inebriation).

2015 Elderberry Blackberry Rosé was the starter, chosen because it is pretty reliable. But it was strangely too heavy for a warm evening on the back porch. Can a wine have too much body? At the end of the evening the bottle was empty.

2015 Lychee is as popular as ever. Well balanced, semi-dry, plenty of lychee aroma and flavor. Jamie wants a bottle for her birthday. My parents friends have requested 3 cases. Before bottling this wine, I absolutely agonized over the acid adjustments. It would seem that it was worth it.

2016 Blend 1 was just bottled last weekend. It is 50% Syrah, 50% elderberry and I'm very happy with this result. The Syrah (from grapes) came out smooth and uber-fruity but too thin and light. The elderberry brings the color back. The taste is just what you would expect from this blend, equal amounts of elderberry and fruity Syrah. I need a clever name for this blend.

Bottled wine from last weekend

2016 Blend 2 was also just bottled. 70% Syrah, 15% elderberry, 15% blackberry. Elderberry contributes some color and just a little background earthiness to contrast the fruitiness of the other flavors. I hit this with a little extra KMS before bottling because the Syrah underwent MLF and the blackberry has all of that malic acid. So far so good. Another empty bottle at Happy Hour. 

Finally someone went into the cellar and came back with 2015 Blueberry. I am not fond of this wine. It is made with red grape concentrate, and I simply can't get past the Concord. Saturday morning, even after the second rinse of the bottle, I could still smell the Concord grape. Naturally everyone loved it.

2016 Wines - Chapter 11 - EB

Saying "Elderberry Blackberry" is awkward. I just call this wine "EB." I just today sent the 2015 EB to the Kansas City Cellarmasters 18th Annual Wine Classic. I like the 2015 version a lot, but now I've probably just jinxed myself out of a medal.

So it was time to make the 2016 EB. This time I changed the ratio from 40:60 to 30:70 and bumped up the fruit quite a bit, 12# of elderberries and 28# of blackberries.

The elderberries were simmered to reduce the green goo, and a few bananas added for body.

These were added to the blackberries...

...and everything was thawed, treated with Kmeta, and gently crushed. To this I added 1 cup heavy toast American oak chips, 6# sugar, Opti Red, pectic enzyme, and Lallzyme EX. The inital pH was 3.30, and I'm aiming for a smoother lighter red here, so I added 6 tsp of calcium carbonate. The SG was perfect at 1.090. Then it got a 3 day cold soak for the pectic and Lallzyme to do their thing.  

I used K1-V1116 on this wine, but now I'm regretting not using 71B. The ferment was extremely fast; it hit 27.4C and after only about 4 days was down to 1.008, so I pressed.

From 5.75 gal of must I ended up with 4 gal of free run and 1 gal of pressed wine. There is a lot of sediment however, and I expect to lose another gallon with the first racking in another week or so. 

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.