Festa Juice - Red Zinfandel Started

OK. In the face of very little information: I stopped by a local Magnotta to get a bucket of juice.

I intended to get a bucket of Grenache but, as it was out of stock, Zinfandel it was for $46 CAD.

21L of juice came in a 28L bucket, pre-inoculated with yeast, chilled to keep the yeast dormant. Opening the bucket revealed a very nice deep red juice that had a nice light fruity scent.

Per the instructions from Marco @ Festa Juice: I've opened the bucket and will leave it to start fermentation for the first week before I transfer to a 6Gal carboy for another 3 weeks (before dropping to a 5gal for longer). When I checked the juice this morning: it was still a pretty chilly bucket.

This'll be my first full-size wine kit. I'm stoked.

I'll be, on the heels of this one once my 6gal frees up, starting up a white wine for my wife. Though I'm not certain what to make yet.

46 CAD seems to be a very good price, especially for Canada!

Good luck with it.

No kidding on the price. The Grenache was around $36. I think the Cab Sauv is top at $52 along with Chardonnay (excepting their limited release buckets with skins).

By the end of the first day it'd warmed up to room temp and bubbling away.

I just started a Festa "Red" (doesn't get more generic than that) bucket last week because I needed something to keep a barrel filled, and at $36 it wasn't much more than water!

I added some tannin and some nutrient but otherwise just let it go.

Seems like it should end up drinkable but it is still in primary so too soon to know exactly how drinkable.

Last year I bought a Festa 100% Chilean Merlot with skins and fermented on the pressed skins from a grape wine I made. Granted that one was significantly tweaked but it is decent so far, if not a little thinner than I would have hoped.

So far, from scent, it's not far off from an Italian Primitivo I'm drinking right now.

Let me know how the generic Festa 'red' works out. If it's light: the missus might be interested.

Zin was racked from primary about a week ago into a 23L carboy. I was reading 1.000 SG after a week.

I talked with Magnotta about the gravity, as I expect to fall below .992 shortly at this rate, before stabilizer and second racking to 19L and they recommended that I keep it going for another week to two before taking this step.
.992 is their threshold note in the instructions for racking - but also claim 2-3 weeks in the 23L carboy.

I plan to check it this weekend and if it's below .992: I'll stabilize and rack for aging (adding some French oak).


On a related note: I picked up a rose Chardonnay yesterday that's warming up right now and I'll do the same (along w/ the French oak).

My red went steadily down to 1.000 then slowed and stopped at 0.998 for a few days so I degassed and sulfited. 0.992 is very low and I am not sure why they say it should get below that.

So far it is surprisingly good. I would say medium body, but for being so young it is already fairly tasty. Not really fruity, more tar and leather I would associate with an old world style. Not much in the way of tannin or acidity. Some barrel time should improve it significantly.

The Zin was at ~.990 on Sunday. I racked to a 5gal and topped up to the neck. I head no bubbling from the vent. I had quite a bit leftover after that racking and, for humor's sake, I bottled a 750ml out of some of the remains - i'll wait for that to settle out before using that as my baseline tester with no oak.

I added a pack of French oak (which I'm kind of regretting right now since I put it into a bag and stuffed into the carboy - that'll be fun getting back out) and the stabilizer and plan to leave it there for about two more weeks before doing a second racking.

The Chardonnay is moving along well and I'm at 1.05 bubbling happily. It'll get a pack of oak when I transfer to the 6gal tonight and stay there for two more weeks.

The Chardonnay smells very nice right now. The Zin smells (and tastes) ok.

jsiddall said:

So far it is surprisingly good. I would say medium body, but for being so young it is already fairly tasty. Not really fruity, more tar and leather I would associate with an old world style. Not much in the way of tannin or acidity. Some barrel time should improve it significantly.

Click to expand...

What are you doing with the remainder that's not being used to top up the barrel?

Spikedlemon said:

What are you doing with the remainder that's not being used to top up the barrel?

Click to expand...

This isn't going to be used to top the barrel but rather fill it after the current batch comes out.

If I left it in until fall when the next grapes are ready the batch currently in the barrel would be over oaked.

Because the bucket only makes about 20 L (after racking) I have topped up with other bottles on hand to get it to fill a 23 L carboy.

My Zin is sitting with a second dose of Oak. This time 25g of American oak (whereas the first was French). It's going to remain there for a while. It's not been tasted or otherwise sampled (beyond accidentally during siphoning when it was moving to secondary).

The Chardonnay, as I noted in the other thread looking for feedback on the Festa Juice buckets, is very thin tasting. Not too impressed right now. It'll be bottled first - perhaps in the coming weeks. My wife figures that we can use it for a base for mixed beverages (sangrias or juice).
http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=52445

I used some Isinglass on my 3Gallon batch of SP to help clear and had a little left over that got tossed into the Chardonnay. The Chard is looking much clearer already and it's been only about 2 days.

The bottle of Zin I had set aside for topping up was both used and consumed. I poured myself a full glass of it and, once I confirmed it tasted of wine, poured the remainder of the bottle into my Merlot to help top it up after racking.

The bottle of Zin set aside had no oak and had been aging in the screw-top bottle for about a month. It tasted... Ok. Very faint fruit flavors, light fruit scent but a rather strong 'alcohol' bite that did not balance with the lighter flavor in there. Not bad but... optimistic for more.

The Zin in the carboy is sitting with some American oak chips right now. I'll see in a couple weeks when I rack it if it needs something else.

I think, if I were to do this juice bucket again, that I'd definitely need to add some fruit or raisins to it from the start.

With intentions to bottle the Chard: I racked it to a bucket and, while it looked clear to start, I got a scoop of 'stuff' that contaminated the batch into a cloud so back into the carboy it goes to settle out.
I did the same with the Zin but, being a dark red, I couldn't tell how cloudy it got.

The Chardonnay tastes, well, light on flavor and overpowered by an alcohol flavor. Not well balanced and doesn't taste much like a Chardonnay to me.

The Zinfandel smells right and was light on flavor as well. Similar scenario as above. If I didn't know it was a Zinfandel: I would have just called it a cheap Merlot. It would have been ripe for tweaking (to get more flavor).

Both are on plan to be bottled as soon as they look clear and will age in bottles. At worse: I may have more alcoholic juice for mixers than good wine.

Bottled this weekend. Both the Rose Chardonnay and the Red Zinfandel.

Outside of the lightly fruity Zinfandel scent: it is just a plain red table wine.
The Chard, too, is just a plain white wine.

They are perfectly 'ok' table wines. There's no note to my nose that the Chard is nor is there there much taste that the Zin is.