Old Frozen Must

[justinb]

Im ready to make my first batch of wine from frozen must. Brehm has 2013 cab sauv, which I know was a great year in California from the drought. Im hesitant because its been in the freezer since 2013. ... I wouldnt eat anything from my freezer from 2013. Do you think it will still be good?

My other dilemma is that they strongly recommend making a blend. 10 gal of cab sauv with 5 gal petit verdot. Thats a lot of p verdot. Does anyone have experience with this? Am I better off blending with frozen musts?

 

[Johnd]

Im ready to make my first batch of wine from frozen must. Brehm has 2013 cab sauv, which I know was a great year in California from the drought. Im hesitant because its been in the freezer since 2013. ... I wouldnt eat anything from my freezer from 2013. Do you think it will still be good?

My other dilemma is that they strongly recommend making a blend. 10 gal of cab sauv with 5 gal petit verdot. Thats a lot of p verdot. Does anyone have experience with this? Am I better off blending with frozen musts?

I made a frozen '12 from Brehm last year, no problems at all. The wine is moving right along and tasting quite nice.

 

[stickman]

Twice I made wine from Brehm's past vintages 3yrs old without issues or complaints. The wine has been very good in fact.

 

[brewbush]

Im ready to make my first batch of wine from frozen must. Brehm has 2013 cab sauv, which I know was a great year in California from the drought. Im hesitant because its been in the freezer since 2013. ... I wouldnt eat anything from my freezer from 2013. Do you think it will still be good?

My other dilemma is that they strongly recommend making a blend. 10 gal of cab sauv with 5 gal petit verdot. Thats a lot of p verdot. Does anyone have experience with this? Am I better off blending with frozen musts?

If you can, ferment them separately, then blend sometime after MLF is completed. I also agree it might be heavy with the PV. Plus you can use the remaining PV for adding to another batch of wine for blending.

 

[stickman]

I would ferment all 3 pails together, the blend requires no acid adjustments and the larger batch will achieve higher temperatures without needing additional heat etc.

 

[justinb]

Thanks for the reassurance. Do you think I'm better off blending at all? Why can't I just do a straight cab sauv? Does blending in this way decrease the margin of error?

 

[Johnd]

Thanks for the reassurance. Do you think I'm better off blending at all? Why can't I just do a straight cab sauv? Does blending in this way decrease the margin of error?

It just depends upon the particular grape musts you are talking about. For instance, blending a cab with high Brix and high pH with a merlot that's on the lowish side Brix, and low pH, can yield a perfectly paired match with Brix and pH right where you'd like them to be, blending in this case is good.

If you had two or three musts, all with low pH's, that's a less desirable blend, as you may need to adjust the pH. Same applies with Brix as well as TA........