Mosti Mondiale Wine diamonds in VN kit??

[whino-wino]

I'm trying to solve a mystery and I'm hoping someone can chime in with an answer.

I made a Vinefera Noble Gamay back in '09. Did everything according to directions, didn't tweak a thing. I bottled this one in December of '09 and stashed most of the bottles away for aging. I tried some around Easter this past year and I thought it was OK but it needed more time. Hadn't tried any since then until just the other week.

I had given a bottle to my Dad and he said that they opened it on Christmas Eve. He told me it was very good and really smooth. He also gave me back the bottle. I noticed that the bottle had a lot of loose crystals clinging to the side of it and immediately thought "wine diamonds". A couple of days later I pulled a bottle of it out of the cellar and sure enough, it had diamonds in it. In fact, they all did. Then curiosity got the best of me and I had to crack one open. Needless to say, I was disappointed in what I tasted. My dad had a lot of company over during the holidays and my guess is that they had gone through several bottles of wine before getting to this one because it's really, really bland. He's right about one thing, it is easy to drink but that's because it has almost no noticeable acid in it. It tastes like Kool-Aid that's been spiked with vodka. It's way to "watery" for my tastes.

Question: How could this have possibly happened to this kit? Any ideas so that I might avoid making the same mistake in the future?

I can't see how any sort of bacteria had caused this even if I had missed sanitizing some piece of equipment. It's possible that I missed sanitizing a hose or hydrometer but I don't see how that could cause this particular problem. I didn't add any bicarbonates or other additives that didn't come with the kit. The only thing I added that wasn't included were some medium toasted oak cubes that I bought from George. I can't see how these would have resulted in wine diamonds either. I've gone through my notes and I'm racking my brain over this one. I've never seen this from a kit before.

On the bright side I may be able to use this stuff to blend with some higher acid fruit wines in the future without having to do cold stabilization or a ML fermentation. That's about all I can think this is good for now.....

 

[grapeman]

There really is no problem with getting wine diamonds in some bottles or batches of wine. It is not considered a fault and can be an indication of a good wine. If your Dad likes it, then you know others might also. We all have different likes and tastes. He apparently doesn't like it as full bodied as you do. I can serve the same wines to 50 people and they all have different likes and dislikes.


If you like fuller wines, make those for yourself and make some of the lighter ones for others whose palates aren't as sophisticated as yours.

 

[v1rotate]

Wine diamonds will precipitate out of your wine while it is still in the carboy by cold stabilizing. Shouldn't be a problem finding a spot that is close to freezing for a week or so in Northern Minnesota! As Appleman noted, wine diamonds are usually present only in quality wines with a high amount of TDS (total desolved solids) like CC Showcase kits and WE Estate series kits. Its possible that your Gamay hasn't fully matured yet. If you are still dissatisfied with it at 24 months then it will still be useful, as you suggest, in blending and certainly for topping up batches of red wine and as gifts.

 

[Wade E]

Its surprising that a kit of this stature is giving off diamonds but like said above that just means its a good quality kit and better then I knew as usually you dont get that until you reach a 15 liter or more kit.

 

[whino-wino]

Thanks for the replies. They are rather encouraging. I still had some of that bottle left so I popped off the wine saver and poured another glass. I have to say I still don't like it. I'll give it more time though as V1rotate suggests.

Everything about it seems fine except for that there seems to be no lingering aftertaste at all. It actually tastes decent while you're drinking it but as soon as you swallow there's nothing there, just the slight warmth from the alcohol. Almost like drinking water. I'll wait and see what it does though.

There seems to be a pretty good quantity of diamonds. I'd say there's a good heaping teaspoon worth in each bottle.

It does remind me of a WE Zinfandel I made a few years back. When it was a year old I deemed it "too light and watered down" and gave almost all of it away, only keeping 2 or 3 bottles. Two years later I cracked one open and have regretted giving any of that batch away ever since. At 3 years old it was awesome. It is to this day one of the best batches I have ever made and I only kept a couple bottles from it. I've still got 25 bottles from this batch.