RJ Spagnols Suggestion please on Grand Cru Malbec

[ArdenS]

I have a Grand Cru Malbec enroute. I know it's only a 10-liter kit. I was wondering if any of you have made this (or similar) kit and what tweeks you may have made to it. Also, suggestions from you more experienced winemakers would also be much appreciated even if you haven't done this particular kit.

I made a 10-liter Castel del Papa (MM) a year ago & it's pretty nice without tweeks, but I'm interested in seeing what I can do to improve this one.

Thanks in advance.

Arden

 

[ibglowin]

Have not made the kit but the biggest complaint about the smaller kits is thinness. So make sure to only top off with a similar wine. Also quite a few people have mentioned that adding Tancor Grand Cru (tannin) really improved the overall taste and mouthfeel in low end kits. You need to let the wine age a bit then do a bench test of sorts to determine what level is appropriate then scale it up for your full batch. It takes about a month to be fully integrated into the wine but you can get a good estimation within a few hours on your bench test samples.

Let us know what you end up doing!

 

[cpfan]

Spagnols makes two Grand Cru Malbecs. The original Grand Cru Malbec, and the Grand Cru International Collection Chilean Malbec with grape skins. If you have the grape skins one, you'll probably need to age it longer.


There is also the Grand Cru International Collection Argentina Malbec Syrah with grape skins.


Steve

 

[ArdenS]

Mine is the original, w/o grape skins (unfortunately).

 

[Dean]

How far are you willing to go voiding the warranty?

You can add raisins to increase the body.
you can add Tan'Cor Grand Cru to increase the tannins and mouthfeel.
you can add 6 to 8 bananas (very overripe and blackened) to increase the body/mouthfeel. It doesn't add any taste of bananas.
you can add skins from another manufacturer. I think that Mosti was considering just selling skins at one point.

All will void the warranty with the exception of maybe the Tan'Cor. All of these will also make the wine need to age much longer too.

 

[Bartman]

How far are you willing to go voiding the warranty?



You can add raisins to increase the body.

you can add Tan'Cor Grand Cru to increase the tannins and mouthfeel.

you can add 6 to 8 bananas (very overripe and blackened) to increase the body/mouthfeel. It doesn't add any taste of bananas.

you can add skins from another manufacturer. I think that Mosti was considering just selling skins at one point.



All will void the warranty with the exception of maybe the Tan'Cor. All of these will also make the wine need to age much longer too.

Does anyone actually make claims on the warranty? I know that's a "selling point," but it would be a real pain to try to return a kit after bottling and being disappointed by the result, ya know?

At what stage would/could you decide, forget it, this kit is not salvageable, and the fault lies with the kit alone? As a practical matter, I wouldn't throw in the towel until after I had bottled and aged it for a year or more (unless there was something obviously wrong right out of the box).

 

[Dean]

yes, I've personally seen RJS replace kits that were not to someone's liking. As long as the kit was made to their specs, they will always replace it, and rely on the honor system for you to dump it.

I've even seen them replaced for poor sanitation practices too.

 

[ArdenS]

Thank you for those suggestions, Dean. I started the kit this evening. I added 1 lb of raisins (no sorbate - I checked) and 5 frozen, over-ripe bananas. It started at 1.086 after I lightly mashed the bananas and stirred them in well.

The kit came with oak chips in the primary. Guess I'll check things out when it gets to secondary to see if I think it needs more time on oak or wine tannin. (I used a little of both oak & tannin in a cyser about a year ago which is beginning to get real nice.)

We'll see what happens.