Recent content by parick

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Nice web site. You're vineyard and nursery looks great.

I'll check for gas before adding the chips. thanks for the info. I'm glad to find out I can tweek the oak after 6 mons or more into aging.

good point, might be tough to get out! I would end up cutting it and racking anyway! The wine is a Chilean Zinfindel from a juice bucket.

would you put the 3 oz. of chips in a stocking or mesh bag with marbles for weight?

I think I will try the stocking with marbles method and maybe about 1/4 c of the oak cubes. It's a 5 gal carboy.

I have a Chilean bucket that has been racked three times in 6 months. All is well and tastes fine, but I did not add any oak. Now I wish I did. Is it too late? I have some American oak cubes I was thinking about adding.

My mistake it was Lodi Zin. It fermented to dry .998 . The taste is bad maybe too much sulfite? My brother had it so I'm not sure how the smell/ taste had been over the year. We could not find a cure and we dumped it.

My brother and I have been making kits for about 2 1/2 years. we got a bucket of Chilean Zin Sept 2010. Was a balanced bucket, Brix 23, TA .65, so2 50 ppm. I think we did all the right things, sulfited, pitched yeast, and resulfited after 2 months in the secondary 1/4 tsp per 6 gal. 4 months...

labels If you get the bottle in the right light you'll see there is a vertical seam. put the edge of your label along that seam. Sometimes that helps keep it straight.

I really have no idea what the experts would say or do. We just did it for fun. We had six people tasting. The majority liked the even blends. I'm sure the final taste in 6 months will be different than when we bottled it. :)

The cab and merlot were ready for bottling according to WE instructions and the Zin was bottled about a month ago. We measured and marked a spare carboy and blended in the carboy then bottled our blends.

My brother and I blended VR Cabernet and Selection Orig Merlot 50/50 very nice blend. We also did some VR Cab, SO Merlot, and Old Vine Zin. 1/3 each. That one tastes real good! We compared it to store bought Menage a trios and we think it is very similar even with no aging of our wine. We had...

I have the Petite Verdot in the primary. Actually ready today to go to secondary. The juice was really a nice dark ruby color. They say this wine is actually a 'super cabernet'. I think I'll age it in the carboy. Can't wait to try it.

Mine turned out quite well. I added 4c. of sugar early in the primary. Did not sweeten it but did boost the alc. to close to 9%. I gave most away for Christmas and everyone loved it.