Can I blend kit wine and juice bucket wine?

Winemaking Talk - Winemaking Forum

Help Support Winemaking Talk - Winemaking Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

globalnavigator

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 7, 2015
Messages
128
Reaction score
49
Example - I have quite a few bottles of Petite Verdot from a kit - 2 years old. If I make a batch of Chilean Carmenere from a juice bucket, can I uncork a few of the Verdots, blend into the finished Carmenere and (re)bottle it?
 
As long as everything is stabilized before bottling it should be fine.

Just out of curiosity, what do you hope to achieve by blending them? I've never blended any wines before. Trying to get better at this and blending might be a useful tool to keep in the toolbox.
 
As long as everything is stabilized before bottling it should be fine.

Just out of curiosity, what do you hope to achieve by blending them? I've never blended any wines before. Trying to get better at this and blending might be a useful tool to keep in the toolbox.
A simple example might be mixing a Petit Verdot (heavier bodied wine) with say a lighter Cab Franc to beef up the body and color a bit. The aim is to make a better product blended than if they were stand alone wines.
 
If you did a. Mlf on the juice bucket and added potassium sorbate to the wine kit, you probably don't want to mix. However, if you did neither of those things, then sure, why not.
Only my second experience with juice buckets, but I don't believe any MLF is involved. I did an Italian bucket in the fall, so I'm going to try some Chilean this spring.
 
As long as everything is stabilized before bottling it should be fine.

Just out of curiosity, what do you hope to achieve by blending them? I've never blended any wines before. Trying to get better at this and blending might be a useful tool to keep in the toolbox.
I made the Verdot kit from WE. I'm sure it's a "blend" already, but I've read that Verdot is good for blending so I figured I'd try taking part of the completed juice bucket, add a bottle or two, stir and bottle. See what happens o_O
 
One web site shows these as good blends. Perhaps I make a Chilean Carmenere, and add some of my Petite Verdot?
wine-blends-examples.jpg
 
I have 11 gallons of Carmenere-Petite Verdot aging in the basement right now. Made from Chilean grapes in 2018. It is a good blend. If you want to blow $50-60 on a bottle of wine, go grab some Purple Angel. It'll give you a good sense of what a good C-PV could taste like.
 
Back
Top