Racking the 2008 Merlot

I racked the Merlot today, and I was pleased at how much it had matured. There was only a small amount of sediment, which I washed out.

Based on my brother, Glenn's advice I am going to wait until fall to bottle this. In the fall, I will need the bottle.

The Merlot now tastes like Merlot with fruitiness, but also with a stringency and hardiness. It is not as fruity as Shiraz. It is not a very complex flavor though, still relatively simple. It is nice, and quite drinkable especially with food.

Of course, I don't believe that good wine should be drunk with food, since the food wrecks the flavor of the wine. Good wine should be enjoyed alone.

As mentioned below, the fermentation carboy is a reducing environment, and by racking it we let is oxidize a bit. Unlike the 2008 White Grenache, there is no bitterness.

I have not added any oak chips, which I contend are unwelcome to my palate. I did put a three tea bags in during the winter to get the tannins up. I think tea tannins are nicer than oak tannins.

White Gernache Update

Easter is coming up, and I wanted to get another racking in. The wine is much improved from January. It is drinkable, but it still has an off-flavor that could be yeast, but might be mold. 

As in January, the off-flavor disappears if one aerates the wine. Of course I could be fooling myself, although my DW agreed. 

The color and clarity are great. As pretty as you could want. It is a little golder than standard because I topped off with some cranberry/apple juice.  The picture at right is the actual wine. I recently failed to place in a photo contest, so I am trying to come up with some entries for next year.

Racking the Wine

I racked the wine today, both the Pinot Grigio and the Merlot. Racking means to decant the wine, clean out the sediment, and then pour the wine back in the demijohn for fermenting.

The good news is that the Merlot tasted great.

The bad news is that the Pinot Grigio did not. It had an off-flavor that I was hoping was yeast, but I am fearing that it was mold. I don't know where mold could have come from.

I had an incident with Pinot Grigio where the siphon hose came out of the receiver, and spilled on the floor, which unfortunately had a carpet fragment on it. I had to cut the carpet up, and through it out. (I am doing it in the basement; but I should have anticipated a spill.) This meant I had to buy extra wine to top off the demijohn. Since the wine tasted so bad, I bought cheaper wine. I put in almost four liters after racking, which is a lot on a 27 liter batch. Next time I am going to buy extra juice and ferment an extra gallon or so of each kind.

When I was done, I put the wine aside, and I am not going to touch it until January at least, when I rack it again.