Armonizzare Italiano

[rrawhide]

Well, this batch of Armonizzare ( my Italian for monster blend of Italian red wines) is crap!!!

This is the result of the 800# of red grapes that we picked and blended all together. The varieties we used are barbera. carmine, carnelian. charbono, forestera, grignolino, nebiolo, negrara, refosco and centurian. The brix was 25 and the ph 3.43 and there was lots of critter damage. Have it in a 59 gallon blue plastic food grade barrel with 1 1/2# of french oak hanging in it. Has a great rotten egg smell and taste is very unusual. So, there it sits !!!! I am going to send a sample up to the lab at Valley Vintners in Northern Cal soon and see what they say. Hopefully there is some way to correct this but do not have high hopes. Maybe lots of copper sulfite but ? MAybe blending later with something else or let 'er sit for years.

Fun project to do but whooooooooppppppssssss!

Oh well, there is always next year!!!

later
rrawhide

 

[Goodfella]

Boy.... I'm sorry to hear that Rick.




I would not give up on it yet....

 

[grapeman]

Don't throw it out yet. You just need the electrical wire trick. Stay away from copper sulfite- it is too precise and very prone to error. Just take a two to three foot piece of electrical 12/2 wire. Strip the jacket off the outside and retrieve the ground wire without jacket. It should be shiny. Take some emery cloth or steel wool and shine it up good. Stir the wine with it for about 5 minutes and let it hang in the wine overnight. Retrieve it the next day and the rotten egg smell should be gone. The flavor should soon come around. I wouldn't leave it in the blue barrel too long or it may oxidize. Good luck with it. I had to save a friends wine last month with this trick and she was amazed at the results! Let us know how it turns out.

 

[rrawhide]

Hey Rich

Well, we racked the wine off of the lees and put into a sanitized blue barrel and topped off clear to bung. This makes it right at 60 gallons. I have 2 - 4 foot pieces of copper wire going down to bottom of barrel. The smell seems to be going away - looking forward to tomarrow morning. Added 80 grams of so2 and now we wait. If all goes well will rack into a neutral barrel in a couple of weeks and let 'er sit.

This just shows that we have our OWN GRAND POOBAH and we are so lucky to have you. !!!!!!!!! Thanx thanx thanx.

rrawhide

 

[grapeman]

I hope this did the trick for you. I would hate to see all that good wine go bad on you. Be sure to remove the copper wires before aging the wine. Also check the bung to make sure the wires going through the sides didn't leave indents. If they did and don't spring back, put a fresh bung in there before too long. Good luck with it from here out.

 

[rrawhide]

Rich

Just went out and pulled the copper wires and guess what it smells like?

just wine - wine - wine ------------ the bad aroma is gone!!!

taste is still harsh but that will calm down with time i am sure.

guess that we will have to change your name from Grand Poobah to
MIRACLE MAN</font>.

thanx thanx thanx

by the way - should i rack this again now? will there be more lees to worry about?

have a great day

rrawhide

 

[Goodfella]

I had a peach wine that I had to do the same thing with. It really does work.


I am glad to hear it worked for you Rawhide.

 

[grapeman]

If you racked off the lees in the last few days, don't do it again yet- no need.


This really isn't any miracle of mine, I am just pulling it out of my bag of tricks for you to add to yours. By sharing our ideas, all our bag of tricks grow!

 

[Big Ike]

Rich,

Wanted to send a shout out to you on this one. I over sulfited my wines by failing the basic step of measuring what was in the wine. Just followed the "rule of thumb". Used the copper wire and made a huge improvement on my wines and the measurements were more reasonable as well.

Thanks for sharing!

Ike