Recent content by Paulie vino

It's not really burnt match smell. I opened a juice bucket merlot from 3 years ago and it had a similar taste and smell which improved after 2 days in a glass. Not sure it's the sulfites since that one had a normal 1/4 tsp every 3 months additions. The pH of my 2033 wine was 3.51 pre...

Thanks for the advice. I'm still tasting and experimenting. I opened up some other vintages since they also had similar tastes and smells when opened. I tasted those right after pouring and they had similar tastes and smells (although my 2022 has some h2s issues during fermentation, not sure...

**it looks like I posted in the work g section, can one of the moderates move this to the appropriate section? Thanks Assuming the barrel in neutral, how long can you leave wine in it to benefit from the microoxidation effect. Is there a point where it's too much oxidation? 1 month, 6...

I'm not going good at describing what I taste. Maybe hot isn't the best word, it's hard to describe. When smelling the newly opened wine in a glass it has a small burn in the nose, almost like what kmeta smells like but not as pungent. It's hard to smell any of the nose over that smell. After...

Grapes from California. All ages in glass, usually with an oak stick for part of the time. Last year's wine bulk aged for about a year and was bottled in october. That's the bottle I referred to in my post. This is my second wine from grapes and after it decants for a day it tastes like wine...

I've been thinking about this for a while now. All the wines I make have a similar taste when opened, not a good taste. Kind of hot, maybe sulfur smelling. Recently I left a glass out overnight and it was much better the next day. Now I'm experimenting with how much time it takes to hit the...

Thanks for all the advice so far I have 750ml swing top bottles from a local winery, I don't know if their pressure rating so I'm hesitant to use them but that's all I have. I don't want to invest in any other special corking equipment as this is more of an experiment. Is there a way to...

Has anyone ever made sparkling sumac wine? I made a very small batch of still sumac wine this year, I have one bottle left and was thinking how it might taste sparkling. Im tempted to transfer it to a swing top bottle and try my first attempt at making sparkling wine. Any advice?

I got CA grapes, syrah and grenache, colavita brand and the pH was 3.8 brix 23. That was early October though.

I used avante yeast for the primary fermentation. Previous years I've used ch16 for malolactic fermentation but this year I decided to forego it and see what happens. I had a hard time sourcing it locally and didn't want to pay $30 for MLB plus shipping costs.

I did not add any at crush or this racking to allow for a natural mlf (if it happens). Plan to add kmeta in 6 weeks or so and then every 3 months until bottling.

The last 2 vintages were my first with grapes and I had some oxidation issues so this year I want to improve. After primary I pressed into carboys with a few inches of headspace to account for any unexpected volume increase and left for 4 days. I racked again and the picture below is the result...

Id start with 1/4 to 1/2 of the recommended amount, remeasure, and continue as necessary. Sugar should be easy to get in range. Acid may be a little trickier. My experience with these additions is very limited however.

Thanks, I used enzymes so hope they help, as well as optired and powdered tannin. I punched down and put a lid on the top. That should suffice until tomorrow when I press. I would like to try EM but maybe another year, I'm not confident in my skills yet to try that this year.

The must temp never got past 87, which is within range as far as I know. I thought about using ice water bottles to cool it down but I wanted the extraction provided by the higher temperature. For the first 2 days it warmed up from 66 to mid 70s then took off and was in the mid 80s through this...