Cellar Craft Pinot Gris - Passport Series 2015

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geek

Still lost.....
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Pinot Gris - Willamette Valley, Oregon.

Looking for feedback from the folks that bought and started this kit.
Aroma, flavor, color, etc.

Assuming it came with EC-1118, did you swap the yeast, what did you use?

Any feedback would be appreciated.

Thanks,
 
This kit came with two yeasts - 71B-1122 and EC-1118. The instructions don't mention two so I added both with the 71B going in one day earlier.

Initial SG was 1.088 and mine went to 0.993 or 12.8% ABV. SG went up to 0.999 after adding F-pack. The F-pack weighed 1070 g or just over two pounds.

When bulk aging started around day 60 my log notes stated "Flavor was not great, flat, musty, with no bright fruit flavors. Hoping for a significant improvement with some age."

I have not tried it again since then. It is now about 5 months old and I am going to taste it again when I filter/bottle next week.

This is the first white I have ever made so I am really not sure how good it should be.
 
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Thanks for your feedback.
Surprised at those notes that there's no fruit flavors....
How's the color and smell?

At 2 months you'd expect a promising result even at that young age.

My Eclipse Riesling was really flat at the beginning and had a weird smell but I opened a bottle at the 7-month mark and was pleased with it.

Lastly, I've never seen a kit with 2 different yeast types....wondering if they made a mistake?
To my knowledge it is never a good idea using different types of yeasts as they may "compete" in the fermentation process and cause problems.....not sure.
 
Thanks for your feedback.
Surprised at those notes that there's no fruit flavors....
How's the color and smell?

At 2 months you'd expect a promising result even at that young age.

My Eclipse Riesling was really flat at the beginning and had a weird smell but I opened a bottle at the 7-month mark and was pleased with it.

Lastly, I've never seen a kit with 2 different yeast types....wondering if they made a mistake?
To my knowledge it is never a good idea using different types of yeasts as they may "compete" in the fermentation process and cause problems.....not sure.

Color seems appropriate (pale golden), and while I didn't make any notes about the nose I would have made some if it had been off in some way.

I was really hoping for better early results but have learned patiences is a virtue in this hobby. I do have some concern because I expected this would be more vibrant early on. Glad to hear you had a white that improved with age.

The only thing I can think of that went wrong in the process is that the stopper came off part way though vacuum degassing. I re-installed it and pulled a vacuum again and finished degassing with some agitation, but I think there was too little CO2 left in the wine to displace the newly introduced oxygen. Perhaps mine is simply oxidized. I am aware that can significantly impact the flavor of whites especially.

I also agree about two different kinds of yeast being rare, but at least one other person got the same as me. See this thread:

http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=48422

They did mess up the kieselsol on a batch of kits including mine so hopefully the yeast wasn't a mistake also. I double checked the instructions and it never mentions two packs of yeast anywhere. I assumed that was just because the instructions were generic.

Hopefully someone else has some experience to share because I am also curious.

Here's a picture of the contents minus the main juice bag:

20150117_215216.jpg


And here's a picture of a bottle from when I racked down for bulk aging:

20150321_113534.jpg
 
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When bulk aging started around day 60 my log notes stated "Flavor was not great, flat, musty, with no bright fruit flavors. Hoping for a significant improvement with some age."

I have not tried it again since then. It is now about 5 months old and I am going to taste it again when I filter/bottle next week.

I filtered and bottled this last night and am glad to report that it has really come around in the past few months. The nose is subtle, typical of a kit, but the flavors are now predominantly peach and honey and the mustiness has dissipated. I prefer dry and this is more off dry, but the F-pack was definitely flavorful rather than just sweet so I think it would have been a mistake to leave it out. Adding it all to the primary would likely have affected the freshness too much but as a compromise I might do as others have suggested and add part of the f-pack into the primary next time.

I was hoping this might have a bit more minerality and perhaps slightly more acidity but it is genuinely enjoyable the way it is even if not extremely complex yet. Hopefully it will continue to develop over the next year or so.
 
Update: I tried another bottle, now 6 months from pitching yeast, and it is getting pretty good. I just came back from a couple of weeks in the Okanagan and was worried that might have spoiled my taste buds. If you have never been, they have truly fantastic whites. While this will never compete with the $20+ bottles I enjoyed from around the Naramata bench it is not off in any way. The most notable differences are that the commercial Okanagan wines have a crispness and minerality that are lacking in the kit. Perhaps being off-dry is softening the kit compared to the rather dry commercial Pinot Gris from there.

Hopefully others will post their results also because I am curious about how good this kit is compared to other "unlimited" offerings like the Showcase version.
 
I bottled this guy finally about 3 weeks ago and it is now almost 6 months old. Crush got in the way of bottling it earlier. I ended up going with BA11 as usual and then once clear I checked the pH and brought it down from like 3.4 to 3.2. I only added 1/2 of the F pack, the other half went into the Primary. Man is this thing GOOD! It has a fantastic bouquet, along with the crispness and zing on the tongue that was lacking before adjusting it. Took a bottle to a small Xmas get together this week and it disappeared in about 30 mins flat.

This wine will go fast!
 
I just opened a bottle and it is a bit flat when made by the instructions. So I added another 2 g/l tartaric and it livened up a bit. I also compared to a $25 Blanc de Noirs from the Okanagan and interestingly the kit was more aromatic. I bet no one expected that! Where it fell short was the sweetness, which was listed as off-dry but by my taste is semi-sweet, and on the smoothness.

I would definitely add at least half the F-pack to the primary if I had it to do over again.

For some reason, and I noticed this with a Cabernet Franc Ice Wine style I made also, the kits all have a bitter edge on the finish which detracts from their enjoyment compared to their commercial counterparts. I haven't made a fresh juice bucket white to compare so I don't know if this is an artefact of the concentration/pasteurization process or just the quality of the fruit.

Still, overall pretty good for what it cost.
 
The quality of the fruit? This is as good as it gets for a wine kit! LR/LE are all supposed to be superior to what is available all day every day.......

I haven't made a fresh juice bucket white to compare so I don't know if this is an artefact of the concentration/pasteurization process or just the quality of the fruit.

Still, overall pretty good for what it cost.
 
Ours tasted really nice when we transferred it into bulk aging last month. Would have bottled it then had it been completely clear. Looking forward to bottling this spring and enjoying it this summer.

edit: we dropped the entire f-pac into primary and fermented dry.
 
Personally, juice bucket juice could be all over the place in terms of quality.
The Moscato from California this fall was blah completely.
I'd definitely think about making all my whites from LE/LR moving forward, or just any high end kit.
 
Personally, juice bucket juice could be all over the place in terms of quality.
The Moscato from California this fall was blah completely.
I'd definitely think about making all my whites from LE/LR moving forward, or just any high end kit.

They are almost triple the price though. But I tend to agree. My limited experience with white wine juice buckets is 'meh'. LE white kits and even high end white kits? Pretty darn good.
 
They are almost triple the price though. But I tend to agree. My limited experience with white wine juice buckets is 'meh'. LE white kits and even high end white kits? Pretty darn good.


Double the price maybe?
The LE from LP is less than $110 at my door... [emoji12][emoji12]
 

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