Search results

@winemaker81 nailed it. What we might consider as off, or faulty flavors, they just savor it all the same. Just a cultural difference really.

We have the following available to winemakers! Feel free to message me with offer. 2x Blichmann engineering 55 gallon wine easy with piston. Only used for 1 batch. Piston requires press vacuum to operate. I wouldn't attempt to ship these, but happy to deliver up to 100 miles in Southern...

Very. I suspect the brix will be quite high, but could also make for a great back sweetener too. This was taken during sunset today, so the light is a little weird.

A hopper full of Malbec. Apple valley CA

Late harvest Malbec looking good so far! I'm estimating about 180L that looks pretty much like this. Zinfandel wasn't as happy, I think they needed more water or perhaps better timed watering

Oh boy do I feel you here. DO NOT start a winery without a healthy nest egg and being ready to be in the red for 5 years

WHOA my zin is nowhere near that size per berry. But I will say that our average cluster has a lot more on it. Interesting differences. Looking great!

We ended up going with pro line Blichmann Engineering tanks, which were easy to source but not cheap. We aren't doing quantities larger than 200L per tank. And have more than enough space to run lots of tanks. I didn't like the idea of needing to buy infrastructure just to be able to properly...

They're quite upset actually 😭 I've increased irrigation, but the zinfandel isn't having this 110°F+ nonsense. I've never seen it this hot here for so long. We'll occasionally hit 105ish, but only for a day here and there. This is pretty weird

I have so many weeds out there I bet there's dozens of clover species 😂 the only thing I pull out nowadays are the goat heads. The fiddlenecks used to bother me as they stick to socks, but it turns out that they just die off with regular mowing since they propagate by seed only. I see the most...

Yeah that's a lot of energy to heat 60 gallons by 5°F. That's like.... 500BTUs? You may be cooking the first gallon or two as that kind of energy in only 2 gallons could be reaching 100°F+

This might be too obvious, but a chiller is a great way to do this. You don't need anything fancy with the exception of a temperature power switch. Just some water in a refrigerator pumped through hoses submerged in your wine is enough to do the job, especially if you're working with small...

60°F is not going to damage your wine. What is the temp of the barrel just before you fill? What size of barrel? To heat 60 gallons ish by 5°F, that's a good amount of energy. If it's 30 gallons, not too shabby imo

Was gonna say this. Your home Depot roses aren't going to do this for you. Roses on sale will be amazingly hardy

Yup, flowering here also. A few of my Malbec are starting fruitset. So far this year has been ideal. No critters. We never have fungal issues. A good wind storm has me nervous but everything came out just fine. I haven't seen a need for any pesticides or really anything extra at all this year...

Some folks actually like oxidized wine. I'm not a fan and any competition that I know of will call it a fault. It is highly recommended to add a k-meta before bottling to help the wine protect itself during transfer and while aging in bottle.

I use tilt pros regularly and find them to be very accurate. I certainly rely on them. Unfortunately, they don't really work in reds due to the cap, methods to strain out a spot for them I find to be more cumbersome than just using a hydrometer, but I still throw them in for temp monitoring...

I have NEVER seen that happen before. Maybe the cork compressor is too large? Maybe this is more common with rubber corks, I'm not too experienced with those.

I haven't been impressed with the natural nomacorcs, can't speak for agglos. I was getting consistent drying out after bottling (bottles on side) which can cause issues like tearing on the way out and other things. Could also have just been the batch I had, but they weren't dried out before I...

While family loves this time of year