Black currant port.

[seth8530]

Ahh, now that is some good thinking on your part. Do you have any pictures of your rasberry "port" that you are willing to post?

 

[WVMountaineerJack]

Now you have to wait a couple of months to see if they liked it or thought you tried to poison them WVMJ

 

[spaniel]

Ahh, now that is some good thinking on your part. Do you have any pictures of your rasberry "port" that you are willing to post?

I don't, but there is no reason not to post some. When I get around to it I will post them in a new thread.

 

[seth8530]

Yeah, I think that would be really interesting.

 

[seth8530]

I have one last bottle of black currant port I am willing to open up this year. The question is... when do I open it? After the competition? Now? Never?

 

[WVMountaineerJack]

You could wait until you get your judging notes back in the mail days after the competition, then open a bottle, take a big drink, and open your envelope and figure out where the judges went wrong when they tasted a 6 month old port?

WVMJ

 

[seth8530]

Eh, it was just over a year old when they tasted it. However, that is not a bad idea.

 

[WVMountaineerJack]

Seth, Did your notes come back with any good constructive criticism? I actually had 2 judges contradict each other, a first for me, I thought that was pretty funny. WVMJ

 

[seth8530]

I have not received mine yet. When did you get yours?

 

[seth8530]

Ok, I am uploading my judging results for everyone to see. When the wine was judged it was around 13 months old. I am defiantly mildly disappointed with the results. I wonder if the reason why the judged the taste and after taste so harsh was because of category I put it in. Around the july 4 weekend I will do my own tasting with some frineds and we will see if we can find these flaws that they speak of.

 

[Deezil]

Honestly, it seems young to me.

Bitterness
High Alcohol
No aroma
Out of balance

.. Does that say 'meaty'?


If it had aged longer, the "high alcohol" would have faded back more, the aroma would have emerged in that same step, which would have effected the balance... Thats 3 of the 4 they mentioned... Bitterness.. Did you over press/extract? Or is that tannin-bitterness that didnt age out?

 

[seth8530]

Lol yes! as best as I can read it, it says meaty lol. It would be nice to see if all of those features do age out over time. As far as bitter, I have no idea why they would say bitter. I used black currant concentrate so no need to worry about over pressing and the only tannin component in this wine is Hungarian med+ oak. That is a thought, maybe over the course of a year or so it might change in a way that is unexpected.

 

[seth8530]

Just gave this thread a quick re glance over. I think I might give one of the bottles a tasting soon to see if it has improved.

 

[user 31015]

I just read all this and want to know how the competition went!

 

[seth8530]

I just read all this and want to know how the competition went!

Rofl, get ready for the antithesis of what is awesome. Check out my post on the very end of page 13. In short, they ripped me to shreds. However, it could be as others have noted that it might have been a bit young at the time. However, I still have a good bit of my bottles still aging out right now.

 

[Boatboy24]

I didn't see this earlier for some reason, but seeing your scores, I'm glad I decided not to make any entries into that competition this year. It seems to me that if you are finding enough fault with a wine to give it 1 out of 6 points (or less), you should be able to back that up with some detail. Giving a 1 or a 0 with no explanation is simply not acceptable to me - particularly for a contest as expensive as that one.

This wine has sounded good to me from the word "go". Hopefully, it is aging gracefully for you. You didn't happen to enter it again, did you? It'd be interesting to see how it does with another year on it.

 

[seth8530]

I agree, that is why I will never enter their competition ever again unless I have a wine/mead that has won in another competition and I am only looking to get my name in the magazine. I will not send my wine off and pay money just for a score. I am more after feedback and constructive critz not an ego boost.

I have not tasted a bottle of the "port" in quite a while so I am interested to see how it is doing. Perhaps I will have my folks bring a case of it up in a week or two. I believe that the wine is a good concept, I feel that perhaps some adjustments might be possible to make it even better. Perhaps using honey instead of sugar and adding in some cranberry juice to the black currant to give it a little bit of a pucker factor.

 

[joeswine]

Judges comments

AT THE VERY LEAST THEY WERE CONSISTENT WITH YOUR PORT,ALWAYS REMEMBER JUDGING IS A MATTER OF PERCEPTION AND IN MOST CASES NOT ALL THE JUDGES ARE PROFESSIONAL,BY THE WAY NEITHER ARE WE,MY COFFEE PORT DIDN'T SCORE AS WELL AS IT SHOULD HAVE,THAT'S A FACT (IN MY OPPION) BUT THIS CONTEST ONLY REFLECTS THE JUDGES AT THAT TIME AND THEIR TASTE BUDS,THE TRUE TEST IS TO SPREAD YOUR WINE (THE SAME ONE) OVER A FEW CONTEST AND GET A CONSENSUS ,THAT WAY YOU CAN VIEW YOUR WINE THE WAY OTHER PEOPLE SEE IT,MAKE YOUR ADJUSTMENTS AND MOVE ON TO SOMETHING ELSE.......

 

[seth8530]

I agree, and I also accept that not every batch of wine that I will make will be great either. I respect the scores they gave, I just do not respect the lack of comments.

Not a bad idea on spreading your wine across multiple competitions to get a good consensus, I might try this with my mead that won 2nd at the MCI.

 

[joeswine]

Comments

I AGREE WITH YOU THOUGH ABOUT THE LACK OF COMMENTS OR YOU ACTUALLY COULDN'T READ THEM,SO WE MARCH ON ,RIGHT?