After a good start last winter, things pretty much ground to a halt on the wine front ... Well just my activity really , the wines in progress benefited from my neglect I am sure.
I managed to get over the hurdles though and am back into the swing of the home winery.
The Pelican winery now has going the following:
1 gal Pomegranate Blueberry
1 gal Chokecherry Mash
6 gal WE Vieux Chateau Du Roi
3 gal "Phil & Alexander" Blend **
**Phil is our neighbor, I am not sure what variety of grapes he has growing but I was happy to pick them ~ some kind of concord type but not our Valiant or Beta varieties that we grow; Alexander is the Alexander's Pinot Noir concentrate
1 gal Pomegranate Black Currant
1 gal Joes Ancient Orange Mead which - could be bottled but... tastes super bitter. Letting it "bulk age" for now and contemplating sweetening it at some point to cover up the bitter taste.
Since I was last active on the board here, I've bottled the Raspberry-Rhubarb which I blended with an attempt at Apple wine; the Crabapple-Rhubarb; two chokecherry batches, and a Dandelion wine.
We have finished off drinking up all the Alpha-Beta-Valiant (Beta and Valiant blend, and "alpha" because that was the first batch I made!) but I do have a few precious bottles of chokecherry from each batch to compare after they've had proper time to mature a bit.
The difference in the two chokecherry versions was primarily the yeast, with only minor other tweaks such as amounts of tannin added. First one was 'more astringent' tasting, and the second was slightly fruitier. I used Lalvin 71B-1122 and less tannin in the second one , and pretty sure I used EC 1118 in the first batch.
My latest chokecherry attempt is using the results of steam juicing a bunch of chokecherries ~ about 2 gallons, thanks to NW I have a stash of Chokecherries in the freezer now and no, I won't be civic minded with them at all.
I saved the juice for a later batch, and took the mash of pulp left over and created a batch from that. Drawing a blank here on what yeast I used - notes are not at hand.
The newest batch is the Pomegranate Black Currant which I'm attempting to start on the lees left from the Phil & Alexander blend plus the dregs of final racking the VCR wine. It certainly smells yeasty and I'll wait and see if it takes off. It seems a shame to waste all the goodness of that layer of sediment when I racked off the Primary to the Secondary on the P&A creation.
With the economy the way it is, I'm guess I am feeling 'frugal'...
Frugal only goes so far though, I also picked up a Choc Raspberry Port that one of the metro area's LHBS had still in stock last week
I'll probably start that this weekend - getting a head start on next year's Xmas family gift exchange (there's that frugal angle).
And, I'm actually ready to bottle the VCR kit, but I ran out of corks so I'm waiting for my package from George which should be here tomorrow.
AS I mentioned to George in my reply to his confirmation of my order, I'd rather use his good corks than go with the cheaper ones from the local shops. Some things are worth a few pennies more and even the wait for the shipping from Texas! That kit will get bottled this weekend, and then it will be time to clean up some more bottles and make way for more incoming stock for our little winery's side-business of glass recycling
.
So, that's the news from somewhere near Lake Wobegon...
Mrs. Pelican
I managed to get over the hurdles though and am back into the swing of the home winery.
The Pelican winery now has going the following:
1 gal Pomegranate Blueberry
1 gal Chokecherry Mash
6 gal WE Vieux Chateau Du Roi
3 gal "Phil & Alexander" Blend **
**Phil is our neighbor, I am not sure what variety of grapes he has growing but I was happy to pick them ~ some kind of concord type but not our Valiant or Beta varieties that we grow; Alexander is the Alexander's Pinot Noir concentrate
1 gal Pomegranate Black Currant
1 gal Joes Ancient Orange Mead which - could be bottled but... tastes super bitter. Letting it "bulk age" for now and contemplating sweetening it at some point to cover up the bitter taste.
Since I was last active on the board here, I've bottled the Raspberry-Rhubarb which I blended with an attempt at Apple wine; the Crabapple-Rhubarb; two chokecherry batches, and a Dandelion wine.
We have finished off drinking up all the Alpha-Beta-Valiant (Beta and Valiant blend, and "alpha" because that was the first batch I made!) but I do have a few precious bottles of chokecherry from each batch to compare after they've had proper time to mature a bit.
The difference in the two chokecherry versions was primarily the yeast, with only minor other tweaks such as amounts of tannin added. First one was 'more astringent' tasting, and the second was slightly fruitier. I used Lalvin 71B-1122 and less tannin in the second one , and pretty sure I used EC 1118 in the first batch.
My latest chokecherry attempt is using the results of steam juicing a bunch of chokecherries ~ about 2 gallons, thanks to NW I have a stash of Chokecherries in the freezer now and no, I won't be civic minded with them at all.
I saved the juice for a later batch, and took the mash of pulp left over and created a batch from that. Drawing a blank here on what yeast I used - notes are not at hand.
The newest batch is the Pomegranate Black Currant which I'm attempting to start on the lees left from the Phil & Alexander blend plus the dregs of final racking the VCR wine. It certainly smells yeasty and I'll wait and see if it takes off. It seems a shame to waste all the goodness of that layer of sediment when I racked off the Primary to the Secondary on the P&A creation.
With the economy the way it is, I'm guess I am feeling 'frugal'...
Frugal only goes so far though, I also picked up a Choc Raspberry Port that one of the metro area's LHBS had still in stock last week
And, I'm actually ready to bottle the VCR kit, but I ran out of corks so I'm waiting for my package from George which should be here tomorrow.
AS I mentioned to George in my reply to his confirmation of my order, I'd rather use his good corks than go with the cheaper ones from the local shops. Some things are worth a few pennies more and even the wait for the shipping from Texas! That kit will get bottled this weekend, and then it will be time to clean up some more bottles and make way for more incoming stock for our little winery's side-business of glass recycling
So, that's the news from somewhere near Lake Wobegon...
Mrs. Pelican
