Using a juice bucket as part of a blend?

[Meadini]

I received my first price list for 2021 grapes today! Alright! After a careful review, my wife “suggested” I order 12 gallons of Muscato and 6 gallons of White Zin.
As I was making the necessary adjustments to my wishlist to compensate, a thought occurred to me. Since CS will be the main varietal in my Bordeaux style blend, why not just buy a bucket of CS juice and order the appropriate amount of lugs for the other varieties?
Is this a viable option, or would it water down my blend?

 

[winemaker81]

Using juice is a viable option, depending on what you're trying to make. Juice will produce a lighter wine than fermenting on the skins, so while I wouldn't say the blend is watered down, it will be lighter in color and body.

I recommend the use of enzymes for extraction, and those work on grape, not juice.

 

[Cynewulf]

I added part of a bucket of Grenache juice to my ferment with three lugs of grapes last year and wish I had fermented everything separately and blended afterwards. The wine is ok and I think will get better as time goes on but it’s not as concentrated as I’d like. Plus the juice bucket had kind of a strange chemical-sticky smell to it that I think has gone away but I would rather have kept it separate.

 

[pgentile]

Not crazy about my last batch, from spring 2020, zin juice buckets and grapes. 2 buckets with 6 lugs. Too light. I've done some in the past that were better than this. But in the future will ferment buckets and grapes separately.

 

[mainshipfred]

I received my first price list for 2021 grapes today! Alright! After a careful review, my wife “suggested” I order 12 gallons of Muscato and 6 gallons of White Zin.
As I was making the necessary adjustments to my wishlist to compensate, a thought occurred to me. Since CS will be the main varietal in my Bordeaux style blend, why not just buy a bucket of CS juice and order the appropriate amount of lugs for the other varieties?
Is this a viable option, or would it water down my blend?

I'm probably missing something but neither Muscato nor Zin are Bordeaux grapes.

 

[winemaker81]

I'm probably missing something but neither Muscato nor Zin are Bordeaux grapes.

This reminds me of professional exams I've taken, where coaches say to read the first and last sentence, and ignore everything in between.

This is the reverse -- ignore the first sentence, as it's unrelated. @Meadini is asking if he can replace Cabernet Sauvignon grapes with juice.

I've taken enough courses for passing professional exams, which teach how to take the test and have NOTHING to do with the actual material -- so I parse things like this correctly.

 

[Meadini]

This reminds me of professional exams I've taken, where coaches say to read the first and last sentence, and ignore everything in between.

This is the reverse -- ignore the first sentence, as it's unrelated. @Meadini is asking if he can replace Cabernet Sauvignon grapes with juice.

I've taken enough courses for passing professional exams, which teach how to take the test and have NOTHING to do with the actual material -- so I parse things like this correctly.

Well it seemed intelligible before I typed it out. I had planned a large amount of Bordeaux blend, but now I’m trying to find viable ways to keep my quantity with a smaller financial hit due to her additions to the order. I’ll have to find a proofreader for my future posts.

 

[winemaker81]

I try to proofread everything before I hit Send, but sometimes there is still PEBKAC*.




* Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair