Finer Wine Kit Novello Pinot Noir

Ericphotoart · Jul 28, 2023

Yes. I followed the instructions. It’s about a week now and I can see some sediment at the bottom of the carboy. I will rack it in about a week and most likely I will bottle it. Aging is not necessary and I intend to drink it this year. But my impression so far? Honestly this is probably the first wine ever that I didn’t taste at racking. I think because I didn’t want to be disappointed or I wanted to build more excitement. I will definitely post my impressions in a few days.

idahorevbob · Jul 29, 2023

Racked the Novello Pinot Noir today. As I said in my OP, I had to add more water to get the OG down. So, I had more than 6 gallons when I racked into the 6 gal carboy. I sampled a bit for quality control (ahem). Tasted pretty good so far. The bit that I kept as "over flow" has a lot of sediment in it so I will let is settle for a few days/weeks and then update my thoughts. However, so far, I'm happy. Cheers all.

Ericphotoart · Aug 14, 2023

I racked my Cabernet Novello the 2nd time today. It improved quite a bit in the last 2 weeks. The first racking after adding C+K left behind quite a lot of sediments. I was surprised that now after additional 2 weeks there was still some sediments. The wine still needs 1 more racking and that's exactly what the instruction says (if there is no filtering). 2 weeks ago the wine was quite harsh and had a slight sulphur (?) odor. I'm not sure if it was that but definitely something I wouldn't like to have in the final wine. Today it's gone. The wine is light/medium body, 12.3% ABV, no tannin that I can taste and probably will be quite a good wine in about 2-3 months. Although it's not intended for aging I will try to bottle it in about 3 weeks and age for about 2 -3 months and consume it during holiday season.

Shurt1073 · Aug 16, 2023

You will know more in a couple of months but my question would be ..... would you buy the Novello's again or stay with Tavolla / Forte?

idahorevbob · Aug 16, 2023

Yes, it's in the carboy and happily "aging" for the two weeks as recommended by the directions.

@Jovimaple - I didn't have the the lid on the fermenter bucket snapped down, but did still have a bubbler in the lid. The lid was just loosely set on the top. The fermentation was massive and forced wine out of the bubbler.

I will be bottling in the next few days as time allows and will give a review. I will say that the quart of extra was sampled by the wife and I and we liked it.....

idahorevbob · Aug 19, 2023

Hello gang! I bottled my FWK Novello Pinot Noir today and, as promised, I will give you my uneducated, subjective thoughts.....

Bottom line....It's very good, very drinkable wine at only 39 days from popping open the package to sipping.

I started the wine on July 10th and bottled today, August 18th.

My only "glitch" (as mentioned in the OP) was that I had a very high OG - I had to add 4.8 gallons of distilled water to get it down to 1.093. That left me with about 6.4 gallons. The instructions say when topped up to 6 gallons the OG should be 1.070 - 1.080. Certainly not a crisis but way off from expected numbers. I have made several FWK Forte kits and the OG was always near what the instructions said to expect.

Fermentation was...energetic...to say the least. With more than 6 gallons in the fermenter the foam leaked out a bit. Made a bit of a mess, but once again, no big deal. I probably should just have filled to 6 gallons and let the OG fall where it may.

I like big dry wines, so I don't normally add packet D with the sorbate and I ferment until I'm sure there is no more yeast alive. For this Novello I followed the directions and added packet D.

Didn't need to top off since I had >6 gallons. So, this is all FWK. It fermented dry to FG of 0.993.

The color and clarity is beautiful. Nose is nice but nothing impressive. Taste is very clean, not sweet. It certainly is not a "big" red wine, which I didn't expect. It lives up to what Mateo says about the Novello line. Quick, easy drinker.

The Novello line will be on my go-to list while I impatiently wait 1 year+ for my bigger reds to age. All-in-all I recommend the Novello as a quick and easy every-day wine.

Hope this is useful for you...