You are right that the odds are in your favor for your first wine being "drinkable" if you start from a kit but you will likely never achieve a really excellent wine from a kit no matter how many "PhD's " work on it. it will always be designed around the lowest common denominator. I fully...
For me, I'm lucky to live in a region that produces a lot of grapes for wine so smaller amounts are usually available from someone somewhere. With decent fruit, its fairly easy to make wine thats better than anything available for $10 while still keeping the cost per bottle well under $10...
How did everyone do this year in this comp? There are thousands of entries (and dozens of judges) but I do appreciate the impartial feedback from this type of competition.
If not this one are there any other competitions anyone prefers?
If you're staying in or near Calistoga try the Hydro Grill, great food and a great place. Also the Calistoga Inn Brewery and restaurant is quite good. If you are heading up to Mendocino through Anderson Valley (where most of the wineries are) I recommend Husch, Navarro, Goldeneye and Elke...
I've never had this happen with wine but I just had a large flip top beer bottle have its bottom blow off 2 days after carbonating. The corresponding element to this story is that this batch of bottles arrived with 2 bottles broken, having obviously been handled roughly. I never thought to...
Great idea, I just bought this one on a recommendation from this forum and I've found it to be great!
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0012LOQUQ/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20
And , No, I have absolutely no connection or affiliation with the sellers of these scales , just FYI :-)
Just for clarity, are you sure they didn't include TCA cork-taint as a type of cork failure? 9% is still astonishingly high but just curious. I use Diam composite corks and have had great luck with them, though I learned that I need to leave the bottle upright for a week or so after bottling so...
Too Funny :-) Well.. The problem clearly stems form my failure to read your post correctly; whereas you said "makes a little difference" I read "makes little difference" sans the "a" (the old hidden a trick :-) .