February 24, 2012
georgefebish
Cellar & Storage Rules, Home Wine Making, Racking
Aging of wine, Barolo, Bottle, bottling, Cabernet Sauvignon, California, Carboy, Chianti, Food, Home Wine Making, Italian wine, Pinot noir, Red Wines, Rioja, Wine, wine aging, Winemaking, winter
Image via Wikipedia
Usually I don’t mind racking in the winter. Afterall there isn’t much else to do when it’s cold outside. This year delivered one of the warmest winters in history to the northeast. With that said, I racked my Californian & Italian juices this week as well as two kits (Rioja). As I rack each wine, I try a small sample to see how it’s progressing. The Californian Cabernet Sauvignon and Pinot Noir were both great but still young. The Italian Barolo was great and could be drunk now. The Italian Brunello and Chianti were also great but still young. Brunellos typically take 4 to 5 years to reach a great mature flavor. The Rioja kits were magnificent and ready to drink. None of these will be drunk yet. I will bottle them in April, freeing up carboys and demijohns for this years Chilean wines. They will sit in cold storage for 2 to 3 years minimum and then be enjoyed. Hears to the great taste of wine!
December 5, 2011
georgefebish
Fermentation, Home Wine Making, Racking
Aging of wine, Cellar controls, Fermintation, Home Wine Making, Italian wine, Preservatives, Racking, wine aging, Wine tasting descriptors, winter
This is a great time of year for wine making. Not much to do except rack and taste your creations. The wine making process is over and the new wine is aging and maturing. Each time you rack it you get more clarification and you can taste the maturity of your wines. Racking does have a negative side. Racking too often introduces oxygen to your wine. oxygen is wines arch-enemy. It with turn the color of your wine brown and give it a bad flavor if it is allowed. Adding some sulphites at each racking will help fight off the enemy.
November 3, 2011
georgefebish
Cellar & Storage Rules, Fermentation, Home Wine Making, Racking
Aging of wine, Bottle, bottling, Carboy, Fermintation, Home Wine Making, Italian wine, Juice, Must, Preservatives, Racking, Red Wines, Specific gravity, Wine, wine aging, Wine Storage, Winemaking
Image via Wikipedia
The Italian juices have finished fermintation (specific gravity is .996 or below). I racked them and cleaned the carboys to get rid of sledge and racked wine back into carboys. The juice is technically a wine now. It tastes like wine and has an alcohol content. They may be young still and their taste will develop with time. After racking I added 1/4 tsp of sulphite to protect the wine for long term storage. Most will be drunk in 2-3 years but some may last for 6-7 yaers in the bottle. I moved the carboys to a temperature controlled room (cold storage) where I store all my bottles. They will sit here until I need the carboys to start the cycle over again. Then I will bottle the wines and store them in cold storage.
October 17, 2011
georgefebish
Cellar & Storage Rules, Fermentation, Home Wine Making, Racking
Aging of wine, Bottle, California, Cellar controls, Fermintation, Home Wine Making, Italian wine, Juice, Red Wines, Reserve wine, Rioja, Specific gravity, Wine, Winemaking
Image by Shoes on Wires via Flickr
My Californian juices and Rioja kits are finished fermentation and have been moved to cold storage (a room that stays at 55 degrees F for wine aging) along with my bottles of wine from previous years. My Italian juices are still in secondary fermentation. The specific gravity is around 1.000. After it gets down to .996 or lower, secondary fermentation will be finished. I will then rack off the wine and get rid of any sediments, add water to bring juice back to 6 gallon level and add a 1/4 teaspoon of Potassium Metasulfite to help it age longer. I enjoy drinking my wines 3 years old or older. I typically set aside 5-10 bottles of the 30 for long-term storage (Reserve bottles). I have drunk some of these as old as 6 years. Once the Italians are moved to cold storage there isn’t much to do. I will rack at least one more time to ensure a clear crisp wine. In the spring I buy my Chilean juices and bottle the Californians, Rioja and Italians. The process starts all over again. Home made wine is so much better than most wines to buy commercially.
October 7, 2011
georgefebish
Home Wine Making
Barolo, Brunello, Carboy, Chianti, Fermintation, Grape juice, Hammonton New Jersey, Home Wine Making, Italian wine, Must, Racking, Red Wines, Rioja, Wine
Image via Wikipedia
I just picked up my Italian juice from Gino’s in Hammonton, NJ. This year I got (2) Brunello’s, (1) Barolo and (1) Chianti. The juice is dark colored and looks great. I had it in primary fermintation for about 8 days (until specific gravity went below 1.0000. I then racked it to carboys for secondary fermintation. I also have the (2) Rioja kits in secondary fermintation. They will probably be here for another week or two. Then I will rack off sediment, add some water to bring all juice bacl to 6 gallon mark and move the carboys to my wine storage room (55 degrees F), cold storage for aging.
September 19, 2011
georgefebish
Fermentation, Home Wine Making
Cabernet Sauvignon, California, Pinot noir, Red Wines, Yeast
Image via Wikipedia
I picked up two 6 gallon buckets of California Must today from Gino Pinto’s in Hammonton, NJ (a Cabernet Sauvignon and a Pinot Noir). This fall I will do these two, (2) Rioja Kits and (4) Italian juices from Gino’s. The Selection Rioja kits had a confusing set of instructions that ended step #1 before adding the yeast. It had an arrow going to next page and under Step #2 was the remainder of step #1 telling you to add the yeast. Those that have been doing this won’t be fooled since you can NOT start fermentation correctly without yeast! But anyone doing kits for the first time read the instructions through once in their entirety before starting. Think about what you are doing and then begin. Enjoy your wine!
September 16, 2011
georgefebish
Cellar & Storage Rules, Home Wine Making
Drink, Food, Home Wine Making, Red Wines, Rioja, Spain, Wine
Image via Wikipedia
I just picked up (2) Selections Spanish Rioja kits. They make a fabulous wine. My distributor doesn’t carry any Spanish juice or Rioja in any form. This wine is a great tasting wine. It is one of Spains best. Try it you’ll like it.
August 10, 2011
georgefebish
Home Wine Making
Barolo, Cabernet Sauvignon, California, Carboy, Pinot noir, Rioja, Spanish wine
Image by iamvhl via Flickr
I just ordered my California Juices: 1 Cabernet Sauvignon and 1 Pinot noir. They will be available to pick up in mid September. I also ordered my Italian Juices: 1 Barolo, 1 Chianti and 2 Brunello to be picked up beginning of October. This year I also will do 2 kits (Rioja). Rioja is a major Spanish wine that tastes so good. unfortunately I have not been able to get it as juices so I do the kits. I will buy them in September. By mid September the cellar temps are dropping to low 70′s or upper 60′s and that is a great cold fermenting temperature. This will give me a total of 8 – 6 gallon demijohn‘s of wine or about 240 bottles. I did 6 chilean juices in spring which yielded about 180 bottles. That is a total of 420 bottles. Much more than we drink or give away but I am still building wine reserves in my cellar so I can drink 3-4 year old bottles normally.
June 17, 2011
georgefebish
Cellar & Storage Rules, Fermentation, Home Wine Making, Racking
Chile, Wine
Image via Wikipedia
The spring Chilean juices have completed fermintation. The wine is very young and not yet drinkable. It nows is moved to cold storage (55 degrees farenhite) for at least 6 months. It will be racked several times until little or no sediment shows up. This clarifies the wine for drinking. Some will be bottled in the fall (when I buy my Californian & Italian juices) to free up carboys and others over the winter. I basically taste the wine and look for any residual gases. If it doesn’t taste quite ready or there is gas, I won’t bottle it yet.
- Spring Wine Making (personalwinemaking.wordpress.com)
May 23, 2011
georgefebish
Cellar & Storage Rules, Fermentation, Home Wine Making, Racking
Beverages, bottling, California, Carboy, Chile, Fermintation, Food, Home Wine Making, Shopping, United States, Wine, wine aging, Wine bottle, Wine tasting descriptors
Image via Wikipedia
Spring is a time that I bottle my fall Italian & Californian wines, freeing up my carboys and demijohns for the Spring Chileans. I ordered 6 – 6 gallon bucks of Chilean juice this year. It has completed primary fermentation in the plastic buckets with the yeast and has been siphoned into carboys and demijohns for secondary fermentation. Tomorrow I will check Specific Gravity readings and if ready will add some sulphites to stop fermentation, rack to clean off raw sediment and move them into cold storage for aging. At this point they are technically wines but not very good yet. They are way to young to drink. As they slowly age they will mature and get much better tasting. Then I will bottle them and let them age for 2 years in the bottles. At that time they will be ripe for drinking and enjoying. Here is to enjoying an ancient drink we call wine!
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