What's in your glass tonight?

[VinesnBines]

This is my 2024 Foch, barrel tasting. The last topping was three weeks ago. I’m trying to get all my barrels on the same schedule and this is the outlier.

It went into the barrel on October 28, 2024. I’ve topped the barrel four times with 2024 Foch. .

The color is gorgeous, deep purple; aroma is fantastic, dark fruit, tobacco and just a little earthy.

This batch has great potential. I’m going to bottle it as a single varietal l.

 

[Hazelemere]

retaste from a 1/2 bottle in my cooler. Here are my tasting notes:

Appearance - clear deep lemon yellow

Smell - very fragrant, complex nose that lingers

Tannin - good

Acid - good

Flavour - this is better than a house wine, absolutely delicious with a really good aftertaste. I can smell it after I swallow it after a couple of minutes. This was made with D47 yeast which gives it the long finish. I score it 9+ out of 10 and will store it as a premium white wine to see how it ages. Surprisingly my own grapes which were destemmed and culled at low brix SG 1.073 are in this together with low brix Fresco Chilean Viognier juice in a pail at SG 1.083, plus organic homegrown Russet and Cox juice plus Okanagan Macintosh juice (all apples ground and pressed for juice and chaptalized with unpasteurized blueberry blossom honey to ~ SG 1.085). Apple + honey = cyser, Grape + honey = pyment. Cyser + Pyment = White Fusion.

Consider white fusions i.e. cyser + pyment. This wine kills!

Happy New Year to all of you

Klaus

retaste of "White Fusion": this our white house wine (cyser/pyment)

Appearance - clear deep lemon yellow, no fizz

Smell - very fragrant, complex nose that lingers

Tannin - good

Acid - good

Flavour - this is a delicious house wine with a really good aftertaste. My wife really likes it. The Fresco Chilean Viognier juice really seems to have improved it. I would make it again in a heartbeat.

 

[winemaker81]

Last fall we bottled our 2023 "Chianti", which is Sangiovese juice buckets, fermented with pomace from CS, CF, and Merlot, and aged in a neutral barrel for a year. It came out very nice.

We bottled 7 cases, at which point we ran out of bottles. The remainder was poured into a bucket, along with sludge from the barrel. We bottled at my son's house, so I took the bucket home, put it in a 12 liter carboy, cleared it for 2 weeks, and bottled it.

This one is a bit different from the main batch. It's oakier (from the wine at the bottom of the barrel) yet fruity. Unfortunately, there were only 15 bottles (13 remaining).



My last statement is obviously a winemaker's POV. Normal humans don't consider 15 bottles to be a problem, well, except in terms of "where do I store that much wine?".

A few years back a friend excitedly showed me the 5 bottle rack on his kitchen counter. He had 5 bottles of wine.

If I had 5 cases of wine I'd consider myself "out of wine". It's a different POV ...

 

[ChuckD]

Last fall we bottled our 2023 "Chianti", which is Sangiovese juice buckets, fermented with pomace from CS, CF, and Merlot, and aged in a neutral barrel for a year. It came out very nice.

We bottled 7 cases, at which point we ran out of bottles. The remainder was poured into a bucket, along with sludge from the barrel. We bottled at my son's house, so I took the bucket home, put it in a 12 liter carboy, cleared it for 2 weeks, and bottled it.

This one is a bit different from the main batch. It's oakier (from the wine at the bottom of the barrel) yet fruity. Unfortunately, there were only 15 bottles (13 remaining).

View attachment 120354

My last statement is obviously a winemaker's POV. Normal humans don't consider 15 bottles to be a problem, well, except in terms of "where do I store that much wine?".

A few years back a friend excitedly showed me the 5 bottle rack on his kitchen counter. He had 5 bottles of wine.

If I had 5 cases of wine I'd consider myself "out of wine". It's a different POV ...

That label needs a plate of fava beans and liver

 

[winemaker81]

That label needs a plate of fava beans and liver

I lean towards feta, aged provolone, bread, and a selection of olives ... maybe brie en croute!