Cellar Craft Expiration Date on Cellar Craft

[Hummingbird]

I can't find it anywhere on my 5 week Merlot. Can you tell me where it hides?

 

[ibglowin]

Used to be a small white sticker on the box I think. My last couple of CC Kits have been printed directly on the box. No sticker.

 

[Hummingbird]

neither on my box

 

[v1rotate]

Last year I made a CC Red Mountain Cab which had the manufacture date printed somewhere on the outside of the box A07912SA. Decoded that would be October 7, 2009. B would be November and C is December. I haven't seen an expiration date on any of the kits I have made so far.

Do you see any coding like that?

The cab has been bottled for about 7 months now, I'll have to try a split now that I think about it.

edit: OOPS, just realized the A07912SA is Jan 7, 2009. My bad. Getting ready to stabilize a CC Amarone and noticed the manu code is G08912SA,

 

[ibglowin]

neither on my box

You do realize the manufacturer date is sorta encoded right?

Try looking on the empty bag of of juice.

 

[Hummingbird]

ok how do I break down the encoding??? I'm a bit clueless I think.

 

[Hummingbird]

seems stupid to encode it.

 

[v1rotate]

I wasn't clear. The code is a letter for the month of manufacture, A=January, G=July, etc, then the day with 2 digits, then 1 digit for the year. The last 4 characters aren't terribly meaningful to me. So C21912SA would be March 21, 2009.

Winexpert is even less obvious. I have a New Zealand Merlot going right now with this code:

0434408 0026.

The first 2 digits are a mystery to me. The next 3 digits are 344, which means the kit was made on the 344th day of the year. That would be Dec 10th or so. The next 2 digits are 08, for 2008.

I don't know why the codes are so cryptic.

 

[ibglowin]

The last four characters are internal Cellar Craft info such as maybe an individual lot or batch number, tank number from where the batch came out of. etc.

 

[Hummingbird]

Mine is I24012SA so that is October...and I don't follow the rest. 10/24/00? Isn't that rather old? I have to call them tomorrow. Bacci.

 

[Hummingbird]

oops, I24912SA

But Why do I have to figure this out???

 

[Hummingbird]

Can't they just put the date on it like other wine companies do?

 

[Hummingbird]

Why encode it? This makes no sense whatsoever. Will finevinewines explain this to me if I call them tomorrow? Sorry if I sound frustrated... but I AM frustrated.

 

[Hummingbird]

It seems to me, that if a company that makes wine kits wants to have QUALITY wine, then they will make sure their customers know when the fruit was harvested. To do nothing less would make them into bad companies, because, quite frankly, this is all about taste, if not health. To sell good kits you want the best quality of grapes that you can get from the best terroir. That should be the goal. Just seems like a no brainer to me. maybe I'm just dumb...

 

[Hummingbird]

or idealistic.

 

[Hummingbird]

ymmv

 

[grapeman]

You can use the search function here in the middle of the night to lessen frustration. Here is a search for date code Cellar Craft response immediately found- just search any date.


http://forum.finevinewines.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=5393&KW=date+code+Cellar+Craft&PID=86434#86434
so yours is 11/24/09 with a shelf life expected of 12 months so you have about 9 months left to expiration date.

 

[Dean]

you are also going to find that not only is the date code cryptic, but the contents are going to be closely protected by 99% of the main kit manufacturers. All of them have very proprietary processes to get the grape concentrate, and the formulations on the kits is usually in flux to create the same results everytime.

The only kits you get that you can be reasonably sure of Harvest date and general location are the RJS EP Hightail line, which are only available near RJS in Canada. These kits are made to be "hightailed" to market, so are usually only out for a few months the from the years harvest.

Other kits that specifically state appelations (Wahaipo valley Sauv Blanc, Delu Woodbridge, etc) will have to source most of the product from that area, but due to the nature of how kits work, we will have no idea of the age or other details of the harvest.

In order to truly get that information, one has to forgo kits and move on to fresh grapes that one has sourced. Of course that requires crushing, pressing, and testing for various levels of acids, free SO2, chromatography tests, etc. Usually, you'll make much larger quantities with fresh grapes because of the labour involved. 6 Gallons takes just as much effort as 60.

 

[ibglowin]

I have to say at least Cellar Craft gives you pretty good information about where the juice came from even down to the Vineyard (at least on their Showcase products). The Mosti Mondiale kits are pretty much mystery juice for all practical purposes. My Renaissance "Australian" Chardonnay kit actually had juice from the US. In very small print I found the words "Australian Style" printed on the box somewhere. Thats just not right IMHO.

 

[Hummingbird]

Thanks folks. Ya'll are helpful!