My Chilean Order

[JohnT]

Well, my local is now accepting orders for this year's Chilean grapes. I am going with 48 1/2 lugs of cabernet and 8 1/2 lugs of merlot. The plan is to field blend them and I figure that this should yield a good 300 liters at a minimum.

The expected arrival date is sometime around the first week of May.

 

[stickman]

Sounds good to me, I also typically blend in the fermentation vat, I don't think there is a bad blend of Cab and Merlot. A little Malbec in the blend is also really nice. I have my 2015 Cab and Petite Verdot blend in the Flextank, you now have me thinking I have to pull a sample for QC.......

 

[ceeaton]

... I am going with 48 1/2 lugs of cabernet and 8 1/2 lugs of merlot. The plan is to field blend them and I figure that this should yield a good 300 liters at a minimum. ...

John, exactly how many fermenters do you fill up? I'm assuming you use brutes or something of that size.

 

[sdelli]

Wow.... 15% is a pretty aggressive blend... I always blend at the end to be sure the taste is what I want.... No gamble.

 

[sour_grapes]

Wow.... 15% is a pretty aggressive blend... I always blend at the end to be sure the taste is what I want.... No gamble.

Just curious: Do you think there is a bad Cab-to-Merlot ratio? I have always been of the opinion that you cannot go wrong anywhere along the Left Bank-to-Right Bank continuum.

 

[dcbrown73]

Just curious: Do you think there is a bad Cab-to-Merlot ratio? I have always been of the opinion that you cannot go wrong anywhere along the Left Bank-to-Right Bank continuum.

Yeah, that lingo will lose a n00b like myself in a hurry.

 

[Floandgary]

Yeah, that lingo will lose a n00b like myself in a hurry.

Too late,,,, you're hooked!! You will be getting these little tidbits from now on.. Do a Wiki for Bordeaux Wine

 

[sdelli]

Just curious: Do you think there is a bad Cab-to-Merlot ratio? I have always been of the opinion that you cannot go wrong anywhere along the Left Bank-to-Right Bank continuum.

I cannot say there is a bad ratio..... Just a bigger gamble when you take an aggressive ratio in the blind. A percent or two one way or the other makes big differences! Why not blend to taste after it has found it's place to settle....

 

[stickman]

I won't argue that blending after fermentation makes sense and provides more control, but I think field blending is different altogether. I'm not sure that a couple of percent difference in a field blend is the same as a couple of percent post fermentation. My perception is that the changes that take place during fermentation are different when grapes are blended upfront, not better or worse necessarily, just different. Depending on tannin, color, PH etc. anything can happen, could be better or could be worse, but winemaking is always a gamble.

 

[sour_grapes]

I cannot say there is a bad ratio..... Just a bigger gamble when you take an aggressive ratio in the blind. A percent or two one way or the other makes big differences! Why not blend to taste after it has found it's place to settle....

Well this is hard to argue against, of course.

Personally, I tend to blithely blend Cab and Merlot. When entertaining guests at a NON-wine-centric event, if a number of people are drinking red wine, I will take a half-gallon pitcher and glug in one bottle of cheap-but-decent Merlot, and another of cheap-but-decent Cab. (in both cases, wines are in the $9-12 range.) The result is generally pleasing (and disappearing)!

 

[JohnT]

I field blend simply because keeping the two wine separate is too much of a PITA. If I had more space and, more importantly, more fermentation/storage vessels, then I would probably go with blending after fermentation.

I have had great results with this proportion when it come to Chilean grapes.