Tosca Fresh juice buckets

[tbayav8er]

Hi Everyone,

My LHBS here in Winnipeg is placing an order for some Tosca fresh juice buckets, which will be here in April. Anyone done these before? Anyone know if they come already inoculated with yeast? Have their acid levels been adjusted? How did you like the wine that they produced? I'm planning on ordering the Merlot. Any suggestions on tweaks I should make? Thanks!

 

[cpfan]

You might get something out of these two threads.

http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=39362
http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=39970

Steve

 

[tbayav8er]

Just got my Tosca Merlot pail. Came with grapeskins in the juice. On the pail, it's advertised as 100% pure 1st run juice from the Tosca family winery in California. I heard from other people who have done these kits that the tannin and acid levels are a bit thin. I used test strips to check the acidity....Seems like the PH is around 3.6 or so. I added 4 oz dried elderberries, a large can of Merlot grapeskins, and 1/2 tsp of grape tannin powder. The juice had already fermented down to 1.073 by the time I opened the pail. I just added RC-212 to enhance the varietal characteristics a little bit, as I assumed it probably originally had EC-1118 in the juice. I also added 80g of toasted oak chips. Hopefully it turns out nice!

 

[tbayav8er]

Well, a bit of an update. 6 months on, and the wine seems to taste quite nice. It is extremely gassy, since I did no degassing myself. I think I will degas with a wine whip, 1/4 tsp of K-meta and let it go another 6 months