Well I decided to start my 2012 Cellar Craft Limited Release "Red Mountain Trio" today. I have had this guy since last April. I have decided its time to pick up another 23L Vadai (#4). This will serve as the "break in" wine for this barrel. All the other barrels have been exposed to MLB so its a good time to get a fresh barrel and break it in while my 8 carboys of California fresh grapes from this years crush are finishing MLB.
To that end I decided to go a little crazy with the tweaks. Why not, this should be fun to see how it turns out.
First tweak, will not be using EC-1118 yeast. Looked in the tool box and decided to go with (2) packs of RC-212 yeast. RC-212 has been used in some of the high end kits from other kit manufacturers so this should hopefully give it a little more robust flavor profile especially with the other tweaks.
Second tweak, after adding the 2L grape pack and waiting for it to dissolve for 4 hours with stirring, the initial SG was a very disappointing 1.090. This is pretty much in line with what other posters who had started this kit back in April were seeing. That would only make a wine with 12.3%ABV and I wanted something more in line with current "fruit bombs" coming out of Napa and WA State. I had purchased several of the last grape packs from George at FVW about a year ago and I had one of the 1.5L Syrah packs left still and I just thought, what the heck, this will raise the SG to what I want plus give me an extra dose of skins (solids) for even more mouthfeel. After adding the 1.5L Syrah grape pack in on top of the 2.0L grape pack (combined 3.5L SUPER GRAPE PACK!) the initial SG was a text book perfect 1.102 which will yield a nice 14.1% ABV wine, much more inline with what it should have been actually.
Third tweak, added ~8.0 grams Tannin FT Rouge. This is a (pre or post) fermentation tannin that will help with color stabilization, increased mouthfeel and lengthen the finish considerably.
Fourth tweak, not using any of the supplied oak, will spend 4 weeks in a brand new 23L Vadai followed by ~8 months of bulk aging in a carboy. If the oak falls back I will layer with an ounce of Med toast French oak beans at some point down the road.
So thats about it for now. The must is inky black with the addition of the extra grape pack and the Tannin FT Rouge.
Heating pad is being used as the winery is ~60 degrees these days.
Should be a fun kit!
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