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A blueberry farm I’ve bought berries from saves tart, unripe blueberries for wine makers for half price of ripe blueberries.

Pulled a muscle in my back this morning so I’m imbibing muscle relaxers all day and watching Pennyworth on HBO MAX. Had great plans for the day ,but drinking wine and relaxing for a change is nice.

Meanwhile…I,ve enjoyed this post,nice to see you are doing well

This year I’m hoping to sell some grapes as I really don’t need to make 250 bottles of wine every year from my vineyard. I also want to make fresh blueberry , fresh cranberry and maybe some Chardonnay from juice bucket.

Tonight I’m drinking my 2023 Marquette , tannins are a bit harsh but I had to top the barrels off and have to finish the bottle anyway..

I bought a couple of their 2020 vintage. It’s a bit harsh, probably could use a couple more years aging. For the price it’s worth picking up a few more.

Quite possibly beeswax. My barrel had beeswax all around the rim, the way the barrel is made should seal up without wax but it’s a good just in case kinda thing.

Nice looking barrel, hope it works for you.

update on my post about freezing avante. don't do it. it killed my Avante even tho it was vacuum sealed. it says in the literature not to freeze it, of course i didn't read that till after i ruined it.

I picked up a $50 15 gallon used bourbon barrel and didn’t like the flavor it imparted to my wine after about a month so I decided to take it apart, bandsaw off the inside of the staves and sand the inside of the heads to remove the char. The barrel was a number three char which was about an...

That sounds good. I did a poor job of setting up my end posts and had to redo them when they started pulling out of the ground, fix it now before there’s a lot of weight on the wire.

Steve , from AIO pumps can make bungs for vacuum racking. I think he freezes them and then drills them. He made one for me to use with the AIO pump system.

There is probably a lab close to you.

For $55 you can send a sample to Lodi wine lab and use their cellar panel, I’ve used their service and they are very fast with results. Here’s the panel Includes pH Analysis (Units: pH, Technique: Manual) Titratable Acidity (TA) (Units: g/L, Technique: Auto-Titration) Volatile Acidity VA (as...

I racked out of the barrel yesterday and after sulfiting and sitting overnight the wine is very mildly bourbonized (is that a word) the char taste is gone, maybe vacuum racking took care of that. I'm still glad i racked it tho as im not a fan of bourbon unless its really a good well aged brand...

The char is very thick, looks like charcoal. I’m a little worried the staves will be too thin, and allow too much oxygen transfer.

I was hoping to remove most of the bourbon taste by soaking the barrel with water first, that mostly worked, but the char taste is way too strong now. I’ve tasted commercial wine from a bourbon barrel and it was pretty good.

Actually yes, after I clean it I’ll take it apart, let it dry and use a hand held power planer or else a shave hook. Two weeks ago it tasted of bourbon I should have racked it then.

Today I tasted the Marquette wine in the used 15 gallon bourbon barrel. It’s been about a month in barrel. It has a mild ashtray taste . No ashtray taste is ever good. Very disappointed. I’ll rack it all tomorrow to carboys and hope the taste goes away over the next nine months. Anyone want a...

Way to go. I’ve been married 41 years, unfortunately it has been to 4 women.😃