RJ Spagnols RJS Riesling Traminer?

The next kit on deck is the RJS Riesling Traminer blend. I was wondering if anyone has made it, what yeasts you tried, and if it should go through a tiny bit of bulk aging.

I made this kit last fall and we are down to just a handful of bottles left. I have another of these kits on deck. It will be going into the fermonster as soon as there's a carboy available. I made this kit according to the recipe using the provided EC-1118 yeast. When it came time to add the flavor pack I added half and let it settle for a couple days. The flavor seemed a little weak so I added the rest of the F-pac, waited a couple weeks and bottled it. This is my wife's favorite wine and it's also is a big hit with dry red drinkers. After a few months in the bottle it is darkening somewhat (more amber than pale) and seems to be getting just a bit sweeter.

For the next round I will probably reserve about 1/4 of the F-pac and allow it to bulk age 3-4 months to see where the flavor is before bottling. We really like this kit. I have a batch of Riesling and one Gerwurztraminer in bulk right now and we are toying with blending a portion of these batches to emulate this wine.

As a side benefit the kit comes with nice labels that are easy to peel off with a light soaking.

That's great information, especially with the F-pac! Does that give it a sweeter/fruitier flavor?

skyfire322 said:

That's great information, especially with the F-pac! Does that give it a sweeter/fruitier flavor?

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Yes, without the F-pac it was a pretty bland generic white blend. The F-pac provided a small amount of sweetness and a lot of classic Gewurztraminer spiciness. As noted above, the sweetness appears to have come forward in the last few weeks.

I checked my notes and my batch was started on 11-4-16 and was bottled about 6 weeks later. I'm holding on to one bottle to see what a few more months does to it, but the remaining bottles will be consumed shortly.