Wine Update!

Bet you all are interested in how the 2008 wine is doing.

I went and check on it, and I am proud to claim both are drinkable -- but not ready for prime-time.

The white, a California White Grenache, has improved since Christmas. It has a fruity flavor and the sweetness is gone. The wine has a harsh aroma that dissipates after aerating it. The clarity is good, although the color is a little reddish since I added a bit of cranberry juice. There is much less yeast flavor. The wine has some of-flavor bite to it, and I am not sure what it is. It does not seem plant-y. I am hoping it is a yeast flavor that will disappear. I will rack it again in another month.

The red, a California Merlot, does not have any off-flavors. Its flavor is simple and it has a little young-wine, bourgeois flavor. I am hoping this deepens into something more complex. Right now the flavor far less rich than the Woodbridge Shiraz (2006) that I got at the grocery last weekend.

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.