blending wines

[winemaker81]

@vinny asked a question about blending in another thread, and since this topic is pretty deep, I started this thread so it's in the right place. The specific topic is topping a kit wine with a "compatible" wine, and Vinny asked if it would negatively affect the flavor. [Excellent question!]

The correct answer to that question is, "it depends."

My take on it is there are 4 key factors: the base wine, the blending wine, the amount of each wine, and the blender's tastes.

My thoughts include:

Do both wines taste good, especially the blending wine? When blending wines, the lesser wine will normally pull the better one down, so topping up with a better wine is a good idea. Why risk 22.25 liters of wine to save a few dollars (or your favorite currency) on a 750 ml bottle? At the same time, don't spend $50 USD to top up a kit. Balance and common sense are required.

Do the wines fit together? If it's the same varietal or blend type, made in a similar style, matching is easy. If they are different, do a taste test, e.g., add 1 ml of the blending wine and 22 ml of the base wine to a glass (this simulates a bottle in a 23 liter carboy).

If the addition changes the overall taste, this is not a problem if you like the wine. The original taste of the kit is a result of the vendor's blending of juices and concentrates. There is nothing sacred about that -- it's what the vendor decided would work. If the winemaker changes the taste by topping up with a different wine, this is not a problem

Does anyone have other thoughts on the subject?

 

[vinny]

I appreciate this. I had noted that you mentioned blending in some of your wines and it was a topic I wanted to look deeper into. Mostly why? kits come blended if that's the goal. Topping up is an obvious reason to 'blend', but more of a consequence of racking and aging. Is it common practice to blend finshed and very appreciable wines?

As far as my question of negative affects, I was equally concerned about adding store bought finished wines to a first racked kit, as well as the effects of not properly diluting and fermenting a concentrated juice.

After racking I ended up 3ish liters short of a full carboy due to measurement discrepancies between fermenter and carboy, and racking losses.

 

[winemaker81]

I appreciate this. I had noted that you mentioned blending in some of your wines and it was a topic I wanted to look deeper into. Mostly why? kits come blended if that's the goal.

The really short answer? Because I want to. [I realize that's not exactly helpful.] Outside of topping up, I blend to achieve a target of my own, that a kit vendor may not hit. Since I prefer grapes for reds, I can easily make my own field blends, within the limits of 36 lb lugs. See my Meritage and Meritage Plus logs for details.

Folks blend everything you can imagine. A common suggestion is to grab a bottle of a previous year's wine to use for topup. But you can add any wine, although I recommend sticking with dry wines. If you want to backsweeten, do it at bottling time.

Generally speaking, I don't top until the wine is degassed and settled. In the last few years I started manual degassing on all wines -- using a drill mounted stirring rod, stir for 20-30 seconds, then change direction. Depending on various factors, I do 3 to 5 direction changes. IMO the 3 minutes the kit vendors specify is overkill, but I agree with their POV that they want a newbie's wine to be fully degassed. After degassing I let the wine set a few weeks for the sediment to drop and the wine to complete the major part of degassing. At that point I topup.

Currently, all my large batches are blends. I like them better, although there are times when I want a plain 'ole Merlot or Cabernet.

One barrel currently has a FWK Super Tuscan, which is FWK's blend. The other contains FWK Syrah, Petite Sirah, and Merlot kits. My plan for fresh grapes last fall (southern Rhone blend, Italian blend) got scotched, so plan B was the use kits to keep the barrels full. The Super Tuscan was an easy choice, and the "Rhone-style" blend was the closest I could come to what I wanted.

Read the Grape Wine forum -- you'll note that many of the folks will blend in 5% Petite Verdot or other dark grapes into wines to improve color, add complexity, etc. I see blending either becoming more common in our circles, or possibly it's being discussed more.

After racking I ended up 3ish liters short of a full carboy due to measurement discrepancies between fermenter and carboy, and racking losses.

3 liters is a LOT of discrepancy!

I have a couple of old primaries, one a bit over 6 gallons and the other a bit over 7. Many moons ago I used a quart measuring cup and filled them with water, marking each gallon. It's been long enough ago that the permanent marker is proving to be less than permanent. I'm going to remark the buckets, this time in half gallon increments. Check your fermenters.

In the same way, test your carboys for capacity. Two of my old 19 liter carboys are closer to 20 liters when filled to within 3" of the stopper. Keep in mind that the capacity of the carboy may be accurate to where the vendor says it's "full", not to where a home winemaker fills it.

My third bucket is an LD Carlson with the markings on the side. This one, AFAIK, is accurate. I'm debating buying 2 more, if I'm in the situation where I fill a barrel again with 3 kits, so I can do EM on the individual kits. Last fall I fermented 3 kits together in 32 gallon Brutes, and there's no way I trust to seal a Brute for EM.

In the past I've not been sold on EM, and may only do it as long as the FWK directions say (2 weeks). We'll see ...

 

[VinesnBines]

Does anyone have other thoughts on the subject?

So I've blended by topping up with compatible wines. Examples include topping a Petit Verdot with Cab Sav and a Cab Sav with PV. They will be blended eventually, anyhow. I will top Dandelion with a lemon or grapefruit wine or a neutral Chardonnay. The best thing I did recently was top up 3 gallons of jalapeno wine with two and half bottles of Chardonnay. That was brilliant, the jalapeno went from a cooking wine to a nice sipping wine with just enough heat on the back.

 

[vinny]

Jalepeno wine...

Who knew.

It sounds like 20 years from now I'm going to be able to find as much interest in this as I do now.

Is dandelion wine made from the leaves or flowers? We add the baby greens to our salads in the spring before they become too bitter.

 

[winemaker81]

It sounds like 20 years from now I'm going to be able to find as much interest in this as I do now.

If you run out of things to do, it's on you!

Is dandelion wine made from the leaves or flowers? We add the baby greens to our salads in the spring before they become too bitter.

Just the yellow part. Any greenery introduces bitterness.

Funny story -- my brother and a friend picked large bucket of dandelion flower petals, and started the batch. My father came home and asked him where he got the flowers from. The source had been numerous places, including our front lawn.

Oops! My father had sprayed weed killer the previous day, so my brother had to toss the batch!

I say "funny story", because it's funny now, 40 years later. At the time? Not so much ....

 

[mainshipfred]

I agree that when topping up a similar wine is just fine and that's what I do when I run out of the original wine. I do however still consider the main wine as the original varietal. I agree with @winemaker81's point of it's the manufacturer's opinion of the right blend and not necessarily what the best for an individual.

When I blend there is always a supply of the original varietals on hand to compare. Not that it hasn't happened but I don't remember a time where single varietal was better than the final blend. Not to mention the blend you choose to use is not necessarily the only blend. Other ratios may offer a different profile that is equally satisfying, you just have to decide on one.

What to blend is another decision of which my palate lacks the ability to do. I can taste different wines but really have no idea what would be better with what. So I, for the time being, stick with the varietals that are known to go together.

Last Saturday I had some friends come to help me do some blending. We started blending OVZ and PS. The most popular blend was 75% OVZ and 25% PS although it was a toss up between 80%/20%. Now these friends did enjoy dry red wines but were limited to knowing the more common varietals. During the blending they were interested some of the less common varietals. The ladies loved the word Alicante so I pulled a sample for them to try. For some reason they poured a little in the blend and it turned out adding just little something special. Now we have a second blend of 25% Alicante/35% OVZ and 40% PS so I can never tell what a different wine might do.

You also have to deal with how much of the varietals you have. Once all this is done I'll have 7 gallons of PS left over. 9 gallons of the first blend and 12+ gallons of the second. Blending takes a lot of time, effort and patience but I feel it is well worth it.

 

[VinesnBines]

Funny story -- my brother and a friend picked large bucket of dandelion flower petals, and started the batch. My father came home and asked him where he got the flowers from. The source had been numerous places, including our front lawn.

Oops! My father had sprayed weed killer the previous day, so my brother had to toss the batch!

I say "funny story", because it's funny now, 40 years later. At the time? Not so much ....

Ugh. Dandelion is SO labor intensive (picking) that having to toss a day of labor is painful. Don't think the grandkids will be ay help...they want to keep all the flowers they pick.

Jalapeno is great; it only takes 8 to16 peppers per gallon. It is wonderful for cooking or blending with a neutral white for a nice sipping wine. Give it a go!

 

[winemaker81]

I agree that when topping up a similar wine is just fine and that's what I do when I run out of the original wine. I do however still consider the main wine as the original varietal.

In the USA, if a wine is 75% of one varietal, it may be commercially labeled as that varietal.

Me? My naming method is not consistent. If I top a Merlot with a bottle (or 2) of anything else, I call it Merlot. If I intentionally blend a wine into that Merlot, I either rename it or list it on the label. [This is not intended to make sense.]

What to blend is another decision of which my palate lacks the ability to do. I can taste different wines but really have no idea what would be better with what. So I, for the time being, stick with the varietals that are known to go together.

Same for me. I use my experience, research into grape characteristics, and what commercial wineries do to make blends.

Fall 2020 I intended to buy 12 lugs Merlot and 1 lug each Cab Sauv, Cab Franc, Malbec, and Petit Verdot, to make a single Bordeaux/Meritage blend. In late August my wife & I toured Biltmore House and had a tasting at the winery -- my favorite was a Bordeaux & Rhone grape blend that included Zinfandel. So I switched gears and swapped out 4 lugs Merlot for Zinfandel. The result was a Meritage, and a Meritage plus Zin. We recently bottled both and are highly pleased.

The original plan for 2021 was a southern Rhone blend (Grenache heavy), and an unusual Italian blend. I had access to 6 Italian varietals (grown in CA) that are from different areas of Italy -- they are not blended in Italy. I researched the characteristics of each and decided on a Sangiovese blend. These plans got derailed, but I'm potentially doing the same this fall, if the same grapes are available.

Note that I lack the space to do what I want, so I make field blends. All grapes are chosen and blindly blended. I formed the opinion the red Vinifera can all be blended, with varying but positive results. I research characteristics and roll the dice.

Last Saturday I had some friends come to help me do some blending. We started blending OVZ and PS. The most popular blend was 75% OVZ and 25% PS although it was a toss up between 80%/20%. Now these friends did enjoy dry red wines but were limited to knowing the more common varietals. During the blending they were interested some of the less common varietals. The ladies loved the word Alicante so I pulled a sample for them to try. For some reason they poured a little in the blend and it turned out adding just little something special. Now we have a second blend of 25% Alicante/35% OVZ and 40% PS so I can never tell what a different wine might do.

I love this story!

The "traditional" European blends (or any region for that matter) was limited by the difficulties of travel. Transportation today is much easier, and with world-wide varietals grown in areas such as CA and South American, it's easy to violate the traditions, making new ones.

 

[mainshipfred]

After doing the OVZ/PS blend we attempted to blend S. African CS and Shiraz. We weren't able to come up with a blend we could agree on, but even if we did I wouldn't have trusted it because I think we all had palate fatigue.

 

[winemaker81]

but even if we did I wouldn't have trusted it because I think we all had palate fatigue.

I understand that!

I was a preliminary judge at the NY State Fair amateur wine competition for several years. Each year we set aside the really good bottles, to have a glass after the competition. Each time we found we could not taste them.

We (mixed group) also discovered that we were lit, despite spitting every wine out. We absorbed enough alcohol through our mouths to hit us after 70+ wines.

I also had my month's quota of crackers, cleansing my palate between wines ....

 

[Scooter68]

While many alluded to this I think a lot depends on the strength of flavor of the primary wine. for example in country fruit wines topping off an pineapple wine with any decent white wine isn't going to be an issue unless you are topping off with more 20% of the existing volume. Pineapple wine is strong enough if your starting fruit amount was at least 5.5 lbs per gallon. On lighter flavored wines like a blush or white Zin, you could easily alter the flavor with just 10% of a different wine. The other approach would be when you want to alter the flavor. Then it comes down to doing bench trials to hit the blend you want. I would hope that with all but the more "exotic" variety grape wines, you should be able to match your topping off wine to the batch you are making.

 

[winemaker81]

@Scooter68, I was thinking in terms of grape wines; thanks for broadening the scope of the discussion.

 

[Bmd2k1]

When blending kits after bulk aging -- do you let the blended vino sit/age for any period of time or do you bottle immediately?

Cheers!

 

[mainshipfred]

When blending kits after bulk aging -- do you let the blended vino sit/age for any period of time or do you bottle immediately?

Cheers!

I don't think the type of wine makes any difference be it grape, kit or fruit. I've found when you blend you should wait a couple weeks and taste again because it does change or perhaps it's what you were eating at the time. I've also noticed on some occasions that even clear wine has additional fallout once it's blended.

 

[cmason1957]

I also wait a bit, for the same reasons as Fred. Blending changes the wine chemistry and you can get additional fallout, cloudiness, and other issues. As always patience (procrastination) is a good thing with winemaking.