Improbable Successes

[Bartman]

Having been on this and FVW's forum for 3+ years, I have noticed a strong tendency for posters (beginners and veterans) to focus far more on 'fantastic' results and unexpected triumphs, whether in the course of experiments, following mistakes or purely by accident, rather than talk about the crushing and disappointing 'defeats' or mediocre results. On the other hand, many of us have more or less negative views of most commercial wines, so it's not as if we all love every wine - good, bad or ugly. While I would certainly prefer a good result to a bad one if it was my wine, we all learn more from mistakes and negative consequences (e.g., undrinkable wine) than from success, especially if the success was inadvertent, right?

Since this is a forum intended to assist, 'teach' and share knowledge among the members, why do we (including myself) seem unwilling or disinclined to discuss the errors we have made and the impacts those have, including the occasionally horrendous aftermath? Are we all just so good at wine-making that only a tiny fraction of batches made turn out poorly, or is wine inherently that forgiving of our mistakes? Is it because the 'fruit of your labor' always tastes better than it would if it was store-bought?

Since the first kit I made, which was fizzy because it was under-degassed and not aged, I have not had any wine I was truly disappointed by, although a few I had higher hopes for (a Riesling that I added diced green apples to post-ferment that never took on that flavor, etc.), and folks that have tasted those wines have always been mildly positive to ecstatic (the only unopened bottle ever returned to me was from a batch that had been voted the best red among our local wine-making group a few weeks earlier - just goes to show how much tastes/opinions can vary).

So, are we just that *good*, or is it simply human nature to dwell on the positive and ignore or forget the negative?

 

[seth8530]

I have made a spiced apple wine that I used entirely too many cloves in. It is 14% abv and is currently 18 months old. It still taste way too clovey for me, but their are surprisingly some people who like it.

 

[jswordy]

I'm not skeered. I have already posted elsewhere here before that my very first must was a FAIL. I misread the k meta instructions and thought it was 1/4 tsp per gallon. Nothing ever fermented in that must, and all that expensive apple juice went down the toilet.

That's why you will always see me type the ratios in caps, like 1/4 tsp PER FIVE GALLONS. Especially in a recipe where there is a mix of liquid volumes. I'm trying to make sure no first time winemaker fails right out of the box like I did.

Since then, every ferment has been successful. I've deduced that of all things in the must, a good yeast nutrient in proper proportion in every bucket is essential to ensure success.

However, as you mentioned, I have had wines that have failed to live up to my expectations. I still have some aging longer, but as of now I have yet to make a really good apple wine out of juice. I can't seem to capture that apply flavor I want. I am going to try some sour apple fruit the next time I make apple, and I won't be making anymore until I am up to doing it that way. I would really like to try crabapples but I can't find any here so far.

I also made an apple-black cherry that was an experiment and that too has failed to live up to expectations so far.

All my other wines have been fine and won raves from people who drank them. Yet I still am questing after a certain mouthfeel that I have been unable to get so far, so there is plenty enough tinkering ahead to keep me intrigued.

 

[cpfan]

So, are we just that *good*, or is it simply human nature to dwell on the positive and ignore or forget the negative?

At this time of year I spend a lot of time following baseball. The chats and forums and comments to posts can be overwhelming negative. It is often hard to find a positive.

So personally, I do not think that it is "human nature to dwell on the positive".

As a kit maker, I think that my wine making results have been quite positive. The folks who have tried my wines have liked them, and I know that several have started making wine as a result of the tasting.

Steve

 

[TJsBasement]

I just haven't done enough yet, of my first 3 batches, 1 kit, one SP batch and a gallon of fruit juice, the kit was good and about gone now, the fruit juice has not been tasted so its up in the air still and my first batch of pee got completely jacked up by me with wine conditioner. I would have to guess that just from reading this site prevents a whole world of bone head moves, could have stopped me from using the conditioner had I just looked. If you don't know what wine conditioner is you should probly just keep it that way.

 

[shen]

Lousy Chardonay

All of my wines to date have been very good, however I made a Chardonnay this year from California juice. I Started it in Oct. of 2011. TA was .68% and used 71B-1122 yeast as I was told that that would also help with about 30% MLF. I added some medium toasted french oak chips in the bulk aging stage, cold stabilized, and filtered. I bottled it last week, yet I'm not sure it will ever taste good. It's very harsh at this point. I'm going to leave it bottle age for a few years with hopes it will mellow out and at least become drinkable.

It's definitely not my favorite.

 

[Deezil]

It's all in my WMT wine log, personally..
The wine log on the forum has more notes than my real physical wine log

Every little mistake i've made, thought i've pondered... Most of its in there..
My first batch was an SO2 nightmare, but because it was a big batch, i still worked it into a success... Other than that, i just have wines that havent finished dry for one reason or another..

I think part of it comes down to the community here & if you're a winemaker and you make it here, with a problem, theres generally someone on here that has some tidbit or gold nugget of information that'll help you bring your wine around.. There's a broad range of winemakers here, and i think we all benefit from the wide range of input.. Sometimes the faults are too big to correct, and we can only hope to mitigate - but those are usually first-try's or chalked up to a lesson learned

Would be interesting to learn how many of the 'bad' wines were made before/during finding the WMT forum & how many 'bad'/undrinkable/lost wines came after (excluding those occassional 'Go for it, and let us know what happens!'-untreaded-waters)

 

[Runningwolf]

Bart, If you were to read through the entire forum going years back I think you would see it different. I for one am willing to share horror stories and things gone wrong in my cellar along with a host of other people. We post experimental wines and try to post through out the making of it. I have dumped two that I've talked about. Did you hear about the carboys loaded up on a pedestal table?

Bart with all that said, I think you are onto a great thread. Whats gone wrong? My wine room nightmare. What I would never do again. Pick your topic or another one and go ahead and start it. It's your idea and a good one.

 

[seth8530]

Wine room nightmare? Did your table break?

 

[Runningwolf]

Wine room nightmare? Did your table break?

Oh it wasn't me that it happened to.

 

[Julie]

I agree with Dan, I think most on here have shared their bad experiences, I know I have posted up a few.

 

[digitaleye]

Well Bartman, I think you're right! I'm guilty of not posting about my failures so here goes. Since its currently unfolding as I write I may as well share We generally make larger batches usually between 30 and 60 gallons and we almost always age in-barrel so de-gassing isn't usually an issue. Well, this past harvest we had more Syrah juice than we needed and we decided to take some pressed-off juice and make 6 gal of rose'. All went well and the wine turned out reasonably well. So much so that I labeled it as a "Holiday Rose' " and gave it out as gifts over the Holidays. Well (again), those folks that enjoyed it early had a decent rose' wine. Those that waited a bit had a slightly fizzy but still somewhat OK rose' wine (get where I'm going here). Those that waited longer, and as it got hotter here in SoCal, ended up with blasted out corks and rose' all over the floor. One of my own (last bottle:-( and two others reported blowing so far!!!! So remember properly de-gas your wine!!!!

 

[Bartman]

I didn't mean to suggest that anyone is 'hiding' their mistakes or pretending that their wine turned out better than it did, but that it seems like there a lot more good-to-great wines produced and talked about than there are disasters, more than ought to be in all likelihood. But as I think about it, perhaps that is one of the strengths of this forum is the unrelenting support and positivity, regardless of experience level or foolishness of the perceived 'error' made, which is good and occasionally not so good. Sometimes the truth hurts, and it is necessary to bring that out directly. In fact, I don't expect I will ever post a label here for comment because I know it will yield lots of compliments, which is not constructive for me. Constructive criticism can be a very fine line, and subject to interpretation, so it can easily lead to hurt feelings, but I believe a hard truth is better than a soft lie any day.

 

[Midwest Vintner]

I would say my success rate is as follows (counting a generally descent wine as good)
Good = 100+ batches
Bad = ~5 batches

Most notable was a watermelon wine that got too hot during fermentation. It could be used to ward off spirits and anything alive would stay far away (except maybe flies)! LOL

1 set of bottle bombs.......

I think the other few were mostly very slow fermentations that caused off flavors that never went away or bacteria contamination of some sort.

 

[dangerdave]

32 batches (six gallons each), two that turned out questionable, which I have shared and highlighted my mistakes. They were both strawberry! So, lesson learned. Strawberry (for me) = trouble. I have to say, though, that having access to so many people who made mistakes before me has reduced my failure rate significantly.

I make good wine consistantly because so many have failed before me.

Thanks everyone, for your failures.

I also have a very sturdy table for my wines, thanks to that one specific table failure...

 

[Wade E]

I made the joes ancient orange mead and also used too much cloves anx strayed from the directions and used wine yeast. This came out so horrible. Becareful when using cloves as a little really goes s long way!!!!!!

 

[keena]

Well I got about 7 batches goin now, but have yet to finish one... ZERO failures so far! Lol (probly just jynxed all my wine)

 

[joea132]

Oh god where to start....

Made peach wine and added too much sugar. Its been a year and a half and still too much heat.

Made apple cider last year and wanted to bottle carb it. I also wanted it to be crystal clear so i filtered it. I filtered out all the yeast and now it won't carbonate.

Bought frozen petite sirah must and let the airlock dry out. $100 down the drain...

There are more I'm sure but thats what comes to mind right of the bat.

 

[wood1954]

i wish

Some of my wines are good, better than i realized i could make at home. However I have made less than stellar wines because i was too impatient. This also left quite a yeasty taste to the wine. Most of my earlier wines have sediment in them. I usually added so much acid that on several wines more than 2 glasses is all i can handle, i worry about my tooth enamel dissolving. The kit wines taste somewhat vegetative, drinkable but..., Some of my wines seem to have produced too much acetic acid. Some wines that i thought were bad, people ask for more. So far definitely a mixed bag. It seems juice from concentrate makes for pretty mediocre wine. All my fresh fruit wines are quite good, except for the acid levels on some. I must be doing something right tho, because i have a wine tasting coming up featuring all my wines and the people coming want me to start a bottle on premise operation.

 

[TJsBasement]

I may have just added one to the junk list, had a 1 gallon jug and went against popular advice and used a solid stopper instead of an airlock. I got a minute today and was going to bottle it up, this batch finished fermenting Feb 9 and was in its second glass carboy so it was about ready. This past friday something happened with the AC, the wine warmed up and popped the top, I'm thinking the stopper been off sense maybe friday afternoon and its now sunday afternoon, the bad news is with just starting out and still learning I was a bit intimidated with the use of sulfites and have only added what the original recipes called for, ya I know bad call. This one gallon batch has really helped show me a bunch, I'll be getting a so2 meter, only use airlocks and stop putting any wine where it will get temperate fluctuations.