What is your best wine and why?

[Xlev]

Like the questions ask what is the best wine you have ever made and why do you think ot turned out so well?Was is the excellent grapes/kit, was it your process/additions, was it the aging or something else?

I can start. I have so far done only kit,with the first wine from grapes coming up in a few days.

My best wine to date is a Winexpert LE21 Pinot noir/shiraz. I havent done anything special with it other that it has been sitting in a carboy for a year now. Its fruity,round and balanced,much better pinot that any I have bought in the $20 range (have not tried any more expensive ones).

What about you?

 

[winemaker81]

IMO good wine is a result of good starting materials, care, and aging.

I consider K-meta to be critical, as it addresses a lot of problems including oxidation and unwanted microbial life.

 

[Hazelemere]

Siegerrebe Reichensteiner 2003

Perfectly balanced and super fragrant estate grown grapes in perfect condition Siegerrebe has the smell Reichensteiner has the acid. I'm ripening Reichensteiner right now having picked excellent 2023 Siegerrebe to try to match it. Reichensteiner is 18 brix. I want to pick it at 21 brix if I can. The Siegerrebe was picked at 21.5 brix. The 2003 was a tropical fruit bomb picked in a long dry Indian summer like we are having now.

Carneros Chardonnay (a couple of different years)

I remember going to Chateau St. Jean in Sonoma to taste Dick Arrowood's gorgeous chardonnays with the smell and flavour of bananas, melons and pineapple. My son in law and I got fresh settled juice from Pacific Breeze Winery in New Westminster BC from the Carneros Sangiacomo vineyard. The wines were sensational tropical fruit bombs. This is how I like Chardonnay.

Surprisingly both wines were fermented with EC-1118 yeast. Now I'm using 71B yeast.

What seems to matter the most is fruit quality, small dry berries, high skin terpenes (think high quality Gewurtztraminer) and wine balance especially acid level. Higher acid gives you more fragrance and aging potential as long as the acid isn't too high.

 

[Nebbiolo020]

My best wine that I have made at home outside of commercial winemaking was my 2021 Zinfandel, it’s fantastic and pretty much spot on perfect and is what every Zinfandel should strive to be, I picked the grapes spot on perfect acidity and brix wise and then proceeded to nail the cold soaking and picked the right yeast and managed to get good color in the wine great acidity and great balance it’s a very bold luscious velvety full bodied Zinfandel and the alcohol is perfectly integrated and does not stand out it’s a enigma a case where nothing went wrong at all and the stars aligned for a perfect wine.

I have not had luck with grapes from that vineyard since then