Blending Wines.

[eblasmn9]

In the last issue of Winemakers magazine they had a nice article about blending wines and a chart of blend this with that. Joeswine mentioned in another thread about being creative and thinking outside the box and blending your own wines.

I would like to know how many people have blended their own wine, kit or othewise, and what is your favorite blend that you can't find in a kit or is hard to find in a commercial wine. I know Tonyt has blended some Italian varietals. I also saw mentioned an amarone-barolo blend called Barone.

 

[joeswine]

Blending

I've TAKEN CHARDONNAY AND BLENDED WITH CHENIN BLANC.NICE FLAVOR PROFILE,,,

OR TEMPRANILLO AND ORANGE ZEST,,

BLACK MALVASIA AND CABERNET SAUVIGNON...............JUST A FEW....

KNOWING YOUR WINE PARTNERS IS A BIG HELP .

 

[Rocky]

Yes, Earl, I was the "Barone" guy and the wine came out great. It was done for convenience at the time because I had 6.5 gallons of Barolo and Amarone which I had racked into 5 gallon carboys. With the 1.5 gallons of each that I had left, I made 3 gallons of the blend. I have also made two other blends that I thought were good and I will list here. A little background. To me, true blending is a way to take the strong points of one wine to augment the weak points of another wine, not for convenience as I did with the Barone.

Brurolo This resulted from two batches of wine that I had, neither of which I really liked. One was Brunello and it was flat tasting, very dark and heavy. The second batch was Granbarolo, which turned out more acidic, light tasting and thin. I bench tested three ratios of Brunello:Granbarolo, 1:1, 2:1 and 3:1, We had a blind taste testing with several friends and the 2:1 was the preferred blend. I blended two 5 gallon carboys of Brunello with one 5 gallon carboy of Granbarolo. The wine is filtered and ready to bottle. I should also note that the Brunello had been in bulk aging for about a year and the Granbarolo had been for about 9 months.

Ricetta di Stefano This is a wine that I make that is named for my Father-in-Law who made this blend. It is 75% Zinfandel and 25% Muscat. I have made it both by co-fermenting the two varieties and by separately fermenting and then blending. Frankly, I can discern no differnece between the two methods, but that may be because I haven't a discriminating palate.

I find blending is fun but I don't do it for all wines and I still make some straight Zinfandel and Barolo.

 

[eblasmn9]

Thanks guys. This is what I was looking for.

...I find blending is fun but I don't do it for all wines and I still make some straight Zinfandel and Barolo.

I also want to blend a few things just for the fun of it. Who knows, I might find something I really like. On the Ricetta di Stefano is the muscat dry or off-dry.

Joeswine, I do like chenin blanc. I assume the Chardonnay is oaked.

Thanks

 

[Rocky]

Earl,

When I fermented separately and then blended, the Muscat was dry (SG 0.992). When I co-fermented, i.e. mixed the two juices in primary, if fermented the combination to 0.993. In answer to your question, the wine is dry.

 

[joeswine]

Chardannay from downunder

CHARDONNAY WAS FRUIT FORWARD AUSTRALASIAN STYLE WHICH COMPLEMENTED THE CHENIN NICELY BECAUSE OF ITS SOFTNESS..

 

[marssane12]

i got chardonnay viogner and chenin blanc all fresh juice from alexanders wine i like to blend all tree .What percentage of juice fro each one i should used?
thank you

 

[Rocky]

marssane, that would be an interesting experiment. It is really up to you to decide which characteristics of each wine yoiu like and which you do not and then develop a ratio of the three wines that emphasizes the good and de-emphasizes the bad. I am not sure of the source of the juice that Alexanders uses, but I would imagine that it is from the US, as opposed to Europe, South America or Australia. Of the three wines you list, I suggest Chardonnay as the base. Chenin Blanc would at "crispness" and Viognier would add different "fruit" tastes. Do some bench testing of various ratios, e.g. 50:25:25 or 60:20:20 and see where that leads you. When you find a mix that you like scale it up to the full batch.

 

[eblasmn9]

Marssane, The blend of Chardonnay and Chenin Blanc is one I am going to try. Adding Viognier to the blend sounds interesting. Keep us posted on the blend ratio you decide upon. Everybody has their own tastes in wine, but it would give me an idea where to start my own bench testing. Thanks

 

[joeswine]

Blending

When I do my blending are usually do it straight juice, although we had a guy in our wine club who was extraordinarily skilled and blending kit wines and took that to a whole different level ,and one every place he went, so from this I learned blending is acquired taste ,. The Chardonnay blend. I talked about went straight up 50-50 ,viognier and sommoginon, not sure if Ispell that last one right ,, that is an excellent blend of done that one before. Remember what I found out to my friends at different wineries is that each wine has a different characteristic . Sometimes I characteristic lens to be the leader and sometimes it does not sometimes they are useless fillers for whatever the reason color ,, texture or, aroma knowing your partners is a developed skill and when the glee very fun and learning. E

 

[marssane12]

thank you guys i will keep you posted . the juice came from california fresh from alexanders and son

 

[italianwine]

yes, i prefer CHARDONNAY BLENDED WITH CHENIN BLANC