First ferment - Thanksgiving debut

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SCAndy

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Well whoever said making wine is easy; "grapes just want to turn into wine" may have some inside info.
I had chronicled my first attempt with 50 lbs of frozen malbec on this forum and I could not have tried harder to trip up these grapes on their way to winehood. But somehow they made it.
From probably killing most of the yeast before pitching them to all of the other stumbles I made it's hard to believe I felt it was worth putting them in a bottle. But I did.
The "ready, fire aim" technique was mostly due to the fact that I was learning on the fly. No real pre planning. Hard to get your mistakes out of the vessel and start over during the wine making process. You just have to move forward.
I ended up blending the Brehm Vinyards Malbec with approx 30% commercial merlot. I didn't want to drown out my efforts with a higher percentage. But I did bottle three of 100% just to see how it turns out. I did try it before the holiday and I was surprised that it did not induce a gag. Actually not too bad.....
Still had what I describe as a metallic taste and other off notes. But for a first try, I was pleased.
I learned everything from yeast to corking.
Fast forward a month or so to Thanksgiving. The family gets a taste. Everyone liked it. They are polite. Is it good. No. Was it a great learning experience with 15 bottles to show for it.
You bet.vino1.jpg
 
a good learning experience, and everyone has their own taste preference, as for traditional like you are doing is it is kinda like other styles, the more you do, learn will cause it to become much easier on you, before you know what has happened, you'll be putting along,
patience, and perseverance will be the rule until you find out you're hopelessly addicted to this craft,
good luck
Dawg
 
Andy .... I am also where you are LEARNING. The past 6-8 weeks have been so much fun learning about yeast, fermenting, aging, bulk aging, back sweetening ... on and on.

Your wine might not be as bad as you think and who knows, in a few months it might be better.
 
Congratulation! You'll do fine.

First, I've only had a metallic taste once in my Skeeter Pee where I used Realemon. Well, Realemon ALWAYS tastes metallic to me and I never buy it unless I don't have a choice. A metallic taste can be almost anything. I've even read that being on antibiotics will make a wine taste metallic.

Second, I made a wine with garlic scapes and after secondary I thought it was the most vile disgusting thing I ever tasted. The only reason I didn't dump it was because I read that time does amazing things. I was curious so I kept it. Still in bulk and at last racking I thought it was delicious. Blew me away.

So, I had to do some searching. You started this wine about a year ago? Is that true? If so, it may still be in diapers. Patience.
 
Andy, Nice job! Congratulations!

I named my first attempt “train wreck” for all the things I tried and yo-yo’d, holy moly it’s amazing that it made it despite my best efforts. That was all before WMT. Time super helped, as it does now too. You’re in a great place with tons of mentoring here. I’ll second everyone’s sentiments about patience. That first attempt turned out pretty well after some time. You’re well on your way! Looking forward to hearing more~
 

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