whino-wino
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OK, this is a long story but I'll try to make it as short as possible. Please bear with me.....
I bought a Selection Estate Series "Lodi Old Vine Zinfandel" kit back in the summer of 2006. I got the kit and set it aside for a couple of weeks as I am usually quite busy in the summer and I had a few other projects I was working on. One particular project ended up affecting my life quite significantly for the next year and a half.
I hired a crew to come to my house and re-shingle the roof. They showed up, it was a beautiful sunny day, and there weren't any forecasts for bad weather. As soon as they got the shinglesoff andstarted to put the tar paper down a big dark cloud came virtually out of nowhere and BAM!!, we got about an inch of rain in the next 30 minutes. Although they hurried and got tarps over the roof, they were not fast enough and the damage was done. I had severe water damage in my home. The ceiling in the living room collapsed and part of the kitchen ceiling as well. I also had water running down the inside of my walls which got into the sheet-rock. To sum it all up, it was a very bad day and within a week I had packed up all of my stuff and moved out. I stored most of my belongings in a steel shed at my parent's place. This shed is heated in the winter, but is not cooled in the summer and the temps would exceed 100° in there sometimes. This is where my wine kit sat for over a year.
The nice part of this story is that although I had to move out, the contracter did have insurance to cover the damages. I figured that since I was remodeling anyway, I might as well add on too so I doubled the size of my home (I even added a "wine room"). Anyway, I moved back in (finally)late last summer, unpacked most of my stuff, put everything else in the basement and went through it a little at a time. This is where all of my winemaking equipment ended up, including the kit I had. I pulled this kit out and all of my equipment about 6 weeks ago. I decided that although the kit was expired (it expired not quite a year ago) I'd dump it in my primary and see what happened.
First off, the concentrate smelled and tasted fine, but when I went to dump it in the primary there were big globs of slime in it. I don't want to make anyone lose their lunch or anything, but it was like elephant boogers, big giant globs of slime. At this point I figured the stuff was ruined and I might as well toss it, but a little voice in my head kept telling me to give it a try, so I did. I dumped it out of the primary and into another primary, this time running it through a funnel with a screen. This removed most of the slime, but I lost quite a bit of volume. Rather than buy 4 bottles of wine to top up what might not even be a worthwhile endeavor, I just went ahead and fermented what was there and then racked it into a 5 gallon carboy instead of a 6 after the primary fermentation. There was only about a quart left in the primary when I did this so I figured I must have lost about 3 quarts from the slime. There was still a very small amount of this slime left in the wine at this point. After the fermentation was complete I took my degass whip and tried to see If I could break it up. Then I gave it a little heavy dose of potassium metabisulfite (I just use the powder rather than the campden tablets) and went to the clearing stage.
The wine actually cleared out quite nicely and just last week I figured it was doing well enough that I might be able to run it through a coarse filter and see if I could rid it of the slime once and for all. This seemed to work quite well. I've checked it a couple of times the past week and I seem to have gotten rid of it.
The wine smells and tastes quite good at this point, but it is rather "heavy". It has a consistency simliar to a port wine. If I shine a flashlight on the other side of the carboy, you can tell the wine is pretty clear, although the light is not very visible. It is really, really dark stuff. Now I have a dillemma and here's where I would like some opinions.
I could:
a.) toss it out (I've already put so much effort into this I am not considering it much at this point, but it is an option and I'm not even sure this stuff is safe to drink. I'm pretty sure the slime was caused by some sort of bacteria.)
b.) bottle it in about 4 more months and age it for 2 years and see what happens.
c.) Bulk age it in the carboy until next January, then bottle and age for another year.
d.) If it has the consistency of port, why not make it into a port? Sweeten and fortify with brandy and voila!! (this is what I'm leaning towards, but I have no idea what to do with 5 gallons of port! I love to cook with it but I have not yet acquired a taste for it as a drink)
If you can think of some other option here I'd love to hear it. I'd also like to hear opinions on the options I've listed. If I get a few good suggestions I might put this up as a poll.
I bought a Selection Estate Series "Lodi Old Vine Zinfandel" kit back in the summer of 2006. I got the kit and set it aside for a couple of weeks as I am usually quite busy in the summer and I had a few other projects I was working on. One particular project ended up affecting my life quite significantly for the next year and a half.
I hired a crew to come to my house and re-shingle the roof. They showed up, it was a beautiful sunny day, and there weren't any forecasts for bad weather. As soon as they got the shinglesoff andstarted to put the tar paper down a big dark cloud came virtually out of nowhere and BAM!!, we got about an inch of rain in the next 30 minutes. Although they hurried and got tarps over the roof, they were not fast enough and the damage was done. I had severe water damage in my home. The ceiling in the living room collapsed and part of the kitchen ceiling as well. I also had water running down the inside of my walls which got into the sheet-rock. To sum it all up, it was a very bad day and within a week I had packed up all of my stuff and moved out. I stored most of my belongings in a steel shed at my parent's place. This shed is heated in the winter, but is not cooled in the summer and the temps would exceed 100° in there sometimes. This is where my wine kit sat for over a year.
The nice part of this story is that although I had to move out, the contracter did have insurance to cover the damages. I figured that since I was remodeling anyway, I might as well add on too so I doubled the size of my home (I even added a "wine room"). Anyway, I moved back in (finally)late last summer, unpacked most of my stuff, put everything else in the basement and went through it a little at a time. This is where all of my winemaking equipment ended up, including the kit I had. I pulled this kit out and all of my equipment about 6 weeks ago. I decided that although the kit was expired (it expired not quite a year ago) I'd dump it in my primary and see what happened.
First off, the concentrate smelled and tasted fine, but when I went to dump it in the primary there were big globs of slime in it. I don't want to make anyone lose their lunch or anything, but it was like elephant boogers, big giant globs of slime. At this point I figured the stuff was ruined and I might as well toss it, but a little voice in my head kept telling me to give it a try, so I did. I dumped it out of the primary and into another primary, this time running it through a funnel with a screen. This removed most of the slime, but I lost quite a bit of volume. Rather than buy 4 bottles of wine to top up what might not even be a worthwhile endeavor, I just went ahead and fermented what was there and then racked it into a 5 gallon carboy instead of a 6 after the primary fermentation. There was only about a quart left in the primary when I did this so I figured I must have lost about 3 quarts from the slime. There was still a very small amount of this slime left in the wine at this point. After the fermentation was complete I took my degass whip and tried to see If I could break it up. Then I gave it a little heavy dose of potassium metabisulfite (I just use the powder rather than the campden tablets) and went to the clearing stage.
The wine actually cleared out quite nicely and just last week I figured it was doing well enough that I might be able to run it through a coarse filter and see if I could rid it of the slime once and for all. This seemed to work quite well. I've checked it a couple of times the past week and I seem to have gotten rid of it.
The wine smells and tastes quite good at this point, but it is rather "heavy". It has a consistency simliar to a port wine. If I shine a flashlight on the other side of the carboy, you can tell the wine is pretty clear, although the light is not very visible. It is really, really dark stuff. Now I have a dillemma and here's where I would like some opinions.
I could:
a.) toss it out (I've already put so much effort into this I am not considering it much at this point, but it is an option and I'm not even sure this stuff is safe to drink. I'm pretty sure the slime was caused by some sort of bacteria.)
b.) bottle it in about 4 more months and age it for 2 years and see what happens.
c.) Bulk age it in the carboy until next January, then bottle and age for another year.
d.) If it has the consistency of port, why not make it into a port? Sweeten and fortify with brandy and voila!! (this is what I'm leaning towards, but I have no idea what to do with 5 gallons of port! I love to cook with it but I have not yet acquired a taste for it as a drink)
If you can think of some other option here I'd love to hear it. I'd also like to hear opinions on the options I've listed. If I get a few good suggestions I might put this up as a poll.
