Other peoples wines

[Ajmassa]

I like that label @Ajmassa

Thanks Jim. Always fun designing a label. Bravado was a Super Tuscan so tried for a traditional Tuscan look. I had these printed up by Noontime labels. @Noontime . Great for a small batches. Larger volumes it becomes expensive for me and hard to justify. I really need to figure out how to print them out myself. Been lazy with it and using those metallic sharpies.

 

[Ajmassa]

We finally opened and enjoyed a 2016 Bravado from @Ajmassa . He graciously gave it to us a coupla years ago, and we were letting it get some age on it. It was lovely. I felt it really punched above its weight.

Color: Very clear. Light garnet. I honestly thought it may be a little thin or light, based on the color.
Nose: hints of stewed fruit.
Initial taste: Whoa! Bright, vibrant taste. Excellent mouthfeel. Pleasing amount of tannin. Bright fruit flavors mid-palate, with cherry dominating. Not thin at all, very robust.
Finish: The finish turned darker, black cherry, bordering on cough syrup. A bit of leather.
Slightly bitter aftertaste, but not at all unpleasant.

Nice job, Anthony! Non Excidet. (<-- private comment )

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That’s a helluva review! Bravado was the first eclipse kit I did. I found it improved greatly with a proper decanting. I never tasted the other comparable super Tuscan kits but I’d say all in all the bravado was a solid wine. Maybe not as bold as I anticipated but it seems like some age treated it well based on your account. I give out a lot of wine. I wish it was ALL to other winemakers

Speaking of Non Excidet, we used to be given cases of empty bottles from the St Francis deSales priests, the “Jesuits”. We would use them for our homemade wine on the condition we hooked them up with a fair share. The bottles had “Altar Wine” labels and screw caps. Always thought it was kinda cool to have our d*** red in altar wine bottles. And to know a portion was used by the priests. Can’t confirm if it ever made it to the altar tho!

 

[sour_grapes]

That’s a helluva review! Bravado was the first eclipse kit I did. I found it improved greatly with a proper decanting. I never tasted the other comparable super Tuscan kits but I’d say all in all the bravado was a solid wine. Maybe not as bold as I anticipated but it seems like some age treated it well based on your account. I give out a lot of wine. I wish it was ALL to other winemakers

Ha ha!

I did save some, but I didn't notice much change after decanting. Maybe at this age it no longer needs it.

Speaking of Non Excidet, we used to be given cases of empty bottles from the St Francis deSales priests, the “Jesuits”. We would use them for our homemade wine on the condition we hooked them up with a fair share. The bottles had “Altar Wine” labels and screw caps. Always thought it was kinda cool to have our d*** red in altar wine bottles. And to know a portion was used by the priests. Can’t confirm if it ever made it to the altar tho!

Nice! So, can you clarify: Did the Oblates refer to the empty bottles themselves as "Jesuits"? If so, that is hilarious.

 

[Ajmassa]

Nice! So, can you clarify: Did the Oblates refer to the empty bottles themselves as "Jesuits"? If so, that is hilarious.

yeah. It was their running joke. They did it for a lot of years too. My older brother played alto sax in the school band which was ran by one of the priests who got hip to the homemade wine real quick. And would send over a case of “jesuits” that needed to be filled with the Holy Spirit lol.
I have a handful of brothers so those cases were coming in from ‘95 till ‘09 when my youngest bro graduated.

 

[ceeaton]

Was running out of beer (oh no) and decided to do something better for my blood sugars (doctors appt coming up soon), so I decided to go to the basement to get a bottle of red wine. I've met a few from this forum and we exchange wines, but I always seem to pass them by for some reason, not for quality issues, but I normally drink beer and wine is an afterthought at times.

Found a 2015 bottle that @Boatboy24 Jim gave me. I was thinking that it might still be too heavy on the tannins because of the Cab Sauv and Petite Sirah components. Opened the bottle around noon and let it get some air for a few hours, then popped in the fridge and got it down to about 58 degrees. Poured a glass and let it air out for another hour or so.

Let me tell you, got down to the last 1/8 of the glass and I still couldn't see any light through the bottom. Inky red with a nice mouthfeel, wonderful dark fruit nose, initial hint of raspberry quickly followed by blackberry and I think date or unsweetened prunes. A bit of a raisin aftertaste. This wasn't a wine for the timid, it hit your taste buds in a powerful way. I just hope Jim kept a few bottles because the tannins weren't as noticeable as I thought they would be. Quite a nice surprise and an enjoyable wine, though if you finished the bottle it might take most of the next day to recover, so I'll leave some for tomorrow, the next day and maybe the day after that. Very smooth with no fermentation defects I can detect, a wine that is probably better than most commercial wines you can buy.

Very nice effort on your part Jim! Thank you for sharing!

Sorry for the label defect, I think it was a battle scar from pouring it.

Edit: The plastic round container is for putting over the wine glass. As soon as I brought out the wine I had a parade of fruit flies lining up to have a taste. I guess I'm a bad host as I said "no way, my wine".

 

[Boatboy24]

Thanks Craig. Dad and I did three different blends that year. There was one blend we both liked and for that we used most of the wine for that (Cab, Syrah, and Petit Sirah, IIRC). From the remnants, we made some of Dad's favorite, and some of mine. That was my dad's favorite, and to be honest, I think his blend turned out better than mine after just a little aging. Glad you enjoyed it.

 

[ceeaton]

I just poured a second glass, it is getting better and better as the hops are washed from my taste buds. Thank you again!

 

[Boatboy24]

I forwarded your comments to my father. I think his ego may be inflating just a bit. His response made some odd reference to a Wine Spectator 97 point score.

 

[sour_grapes]

got down to the last 1/8 of the glass bottle

TIFIFY.

 

[geek]

TIFIFY.

I may be too old for some acronyms....

 

[cmason1957]

I may be too old for some acronyms....

There, I Fixed It for You can be abbreviated as TIFIFY

 

[sour_grapes]

I may be too old for some acronyms....

Ooooh, don't they have Google where you live?

 

[geek]

Ooooh, don't they have Google where you live?

they're reporting an outage...lol

 

[Boatboy24]

they're reporting an outage...lol

With everyone working from home, responses to search queries are sometimes delayed.

 

[ceeaton]

I get instant ones from my teenagers, if they ever get out of bed, LOL.

 

[cmason1957]

With everyone working from home, responses to search queries are sometimes delayed.

Sounds like you need a better internet provider.

I get instant ones from my teenagers, if they ever get out of bed, LOL.

Ah yes, I really wish, now that I am much older, that I knew half as much as I thought I did, back when I was young enough to know everything.

 

[Boatboy24]

Last spring, @jgmann67 did a French Rose kit which inspired me to do the same kit. Today, I opened a bottle of his, and a bottle of mine to do a side by side compare. Our processes were largely the same, but I think our end goals and outcomes were just a little different. We both added some cooked down strawberries to up the fruit elements. And I think we both added some FT Blanc Soft in primary. Both wines in bottle and glass are very close in color, though Jim's is a hair darker than mine. Jim's is a 'fatter', fruitier wine and is very pleasant to drink. I didn't test SG, but imagine that the 'fat' and fruit is coming from a higher level of residual sugar. Bottom line, these both turned out well, though the style is a little different. Excellent work, Jim - really enjoyable Rose.

 

[joeswine]

Yes strawberry is a good influence
My next rose' will have a tough of red plum.

 

[jgmann67]

Last spring, @jgmann67 did a French Rose kit which inspired me to do the same kit. Today, I opened a bottle of his, and a bottle of mine to do a side by side compare. Our processes were largely the same, but I think our end goals and outcomes were just a little different. We both added some cooked down strawberries to up the fruit elements. And I think we both added some FT Blanc Soft in primary. Both wines in bottle and glass are very close in color, though Jim's is a hair darker than mine. Jim's is a 'fatter', fruitier wine and is very pleasant to drink. I didn't test SG, but imagine that the 'fat' and fruit is coming from a higher level of residual sugar. Bottom line, these both turned out well, though the style is a little different. Excellent work, Jim - really enjoyable Rose.

I did not add any tannin to the wine. I did backsweeten with about 320ml of simple syrup. IIRC it put my SG up around 1.002. I made this kit again this year. At my wife’s request, I left the stewed strawberry fpac out. We did some trials and ended up with about the same backsweetening (300ml) as the first effort.

The new rose went in the bottle a week ago. I did not add any more Kmeta or any Sorbate. I’m going to leave it be for a couple more weeks before I open a bottle to sample.

We had your Rose some time ago. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Very well crafted, refreshing taste. It was just a more “petite” version of mine.

 

[jgmann67]

Just a quick update. We opened a few bottles of the Rose last weekend. We went to the Garth Brooks Drive In Concert at our local drive in movie theater and decided to bring some Rose to share with the crew (about 12 other Garth fans). The wine is very young, but it still got raves from everyone who tried it. It's a little sweeter than I remember. But, my wife says she likes it better... and, end of day, that's all that matters.