What's in your glass tonight?

[Hazelemere]

This is a retaste. Here are my comments:

Chenin Blanc Cyser Pyment 2021-2022

This is Brehm frozen California Chenin Blanc juice mixed with homegrown organic apples ground, pressed and chaptalized with unpasteurized blueberry blossom honey i.e. no water.

Here are my comments:

Appearance - clear, pale gold

Smell - good complex nose from all components

Tannin - good from russet apples

Acid - good from Chenin Blanc and russet apples. My wife would hate this. She would find it too acidic. It is perfect for me. Tastes like really good dry Vouvray.

Flavour - my palate all the way. Bone dry, fragrant table wine with a really good aftertaste. This would kill IMHO as champagne.

Bottom line - If you have a white wine that is too acidic consider blending it with apple wine (2nd choice) or cyser - apple juice with unpasteurized honey (1st choice NO QUESTION)

retaste:

Chenin Blanc Cyser Pyment 2021-2022

This is Brehm frozen California Chenin Blanc juice mixed with homegrown organic apples ground, pressed and chaptalized with unpasteurized blueberry blossom honey i.e. no water.

Here are my comments:

Appearance - clear, pale gold

Smell - good complex nose from all components

Tannin - fine

Acid - good from Chenin Blanc and russet apples. My wife would hate this. She would find it too acidic. It is perfect for me. Tastes like really good dry Vouvray.

Flavour - I like my white wines dry, tasty and fragrant with a long finish. This is all of that. For my palate - first class. For my wife "How can you drink this stuff? EEW!!!!!!!!!" I have one left and of course it isn't hers. I grew up tasting really good South African Chenin Blanc because my father liked it. This is a Chenin Blanc fusion with apples and honey. I would make this again in a heartbeat!

I'm going to try to remember to save the last bottle for the soulmate of the person I went to university with and graduated with in 1971 who I have been friends with forever. She is a serious wine lover, with my palate and a really nice person. I really like her. I'll give her my best Chardonnay when I visit her in 2 weeks this year (she loves Chardonnay) and will try to visit her again in the next 3 years to give her the last bottle of this wine plus a killer 2023 Chardonnay Muscat blend (80/20) from Sheridan Chardonnay and my organic homegrown German Muscats (Siegerrebe and Ortega) fermented with D47 Chardonnay and 71B Muscat. That blend in the carboy kills!!!! The Muscat really improves the Sheridan Chardonnay IMHO. I want her to feel my love/respect for her. She is an absolute class act IMHO and deserves respect. Apparently she can't cook or doesn't enjoy it so I will try to cook for her and her mate....prawn linguine if I can source the ingredients in Hamilton, Ontario.

 

[Hazelemere]

retaste:

Chenin Blanc Cyser Pyment 2021-2022

This is Brehm frozen California Chenin Blanc juice mixed with homegrown organic apples ground, pressed and chaptalized with unpasteurized blueberry blossom honey i.e. no water.

Here are my comments:

Appearance - clear, pale gold

Smell - good complex nose from all components

Tannin - fine

Acid - good from Chenin Blanc and russet apples. My wife would hate this. She would find it too acidic. It is perfect for me. Tastes like really good dry Vouvray.

Flavour - I like my white wines dry, tasty and fragrant with a long finish. This is all of that. For my palate - first class. For my wife "How can you drink this stuff? EEW!!!!!!!!!" I have one left and of course it isn't hers. I grew up tasting really good South African Chenin Blanc because my father liked it. This is a Chenin Blanc fusion with apples and honey. I would make this again in a heartbeat!

I'm going to try to remember to save the last bottle for the soulmate of the person I went to university with and graduated with in 1971 who I have been friends with forever. She is a serious wine lover, with my palate and a really nice person. I really like her. I'll give her my best Chardonnay when I visit her in 2 weeks this year (she loves Chardonnay) and will try to visit her again in the next 3 years to give her the last bottle of this wine plus a killer 2023 Chardonnay Muscat blend (80/20) from Sheridan Chardonnay and my organic homegrown German Muscats (Siegerrebe and Ortega) fermented with D47 Chardonnay and 71B Muscat. That blend in the carboy kills!!!! The Muscat really improves the Sheridan Chardonnay IMHO. I want her to feel my love/respect for her. She is an absolute class act IMHO and deserves respect. Apparently she can't cook or doesn't enjoy it so I will try to cook for her and her mate....prawn linguine if I can source the ingredients in Hamilton, Ontario.

new blend in a glass 50/50 this wine Chenin Blanc Cyser Pyment with Russet Ambrosia apple blend:

Here are my comments:

Colour - yellow

Smell - really good nose from the honey, russets and ambrosia

Tannin - good from the russet skins

Acid - perfect for an apple wine

Flavour- rich, fragrant complex, tasty apple wine. Making this again is a no brainer. The Chenin Blanc is a bonus but second run white wine as a substitute can also work. I've done it lots of times. I have 3 apple trees and a Moonglow pear tree (very crisp when ripe) that I use for wine and have access to really good unpasteurized honey. My wife likes all of the apple wines with or without honey. The key IMHO to making really good apple wine is to not add any water to it i.e. buy an apple grinder and use it with a grape press e.g. a pneumatic bladder press. PS If you access to crisp non mushy pears (Bartletts are mushy) such as Moonglow, Anjous (the best IMHO) and possibly Bosc then use those also. I put all of my Moonglow pears into my apple wine. If you grow apples and/or crisp pears and have a decent grinder and press with or without access to unpasteurized honey you'll always get a decent wine. If you grow white wine grapes or buy white wine grapes make second run and cut it into the apple with or without the honey.

Good luck amigos!

 

[jswordy]

This stuff. It's a 2018 and I have six bottles that were justly buried in my cellar. Very meh, and fortunately suitable for drinking from a plastic cup, since that is all I can find given the state of my kitchen presently. Rated 86 or 87 on CellarTracker, a very generous rating IMO. It does contain alcohol, though, which soothes my aching kitchen demolition knees, even as "The New York Times" rails on and on about how it is a "known carcinogen." That kind of news makes me so worried, I need a drink!

 

[wineh]

Another bargain wine worth drinking. Plums raspberries and currants on the nose, cocoa, raspberries and lots of currants on the palate. Well extracted, great legs. 15%.

 

[Hazelemere]

Apple Edelzwicker 2021-2022

This is homegrown organic apple juice from ground and pressed apples (russet, king, cox) mixed with homegrown organic grape skins and 1st run juice sediment with pectic enzyme and re-pressed (includes Siegerrebe, Ortega, Reichensteiner and Madeleine Angevine). Here are my comments on this wine:

Appearance - clear, lemon yellow

Smell - good, rich, intense, fragrant

Tannin - good

Acid - good

Flavour - this is rich and tasty with a good finish. I'll absolutely make it again as an everyday house white wine. This is a perfect way to use apples and 2nd run white wine from grapes with no water added, no sugar added to the 2nd run (Edelzwicker) and sugar added to the apple juice with pectic enzyme and bentonite treated mid ferment on all of the pressed juice from apple pulp, grape skins and grape juice sediment..

retaste based on the previous post from me about apple wines with/without Chenin Blanc while using the Chenin Blanc Cyser Pyment in prawn linguine:

Here are my comments:

Apple Edelzwicker 2021-2022

This is homegrown organic apple juice from ground and pressed apples (russet, king, cox) mixed with homegrown organic grape skins and 1st run juice sediment with pectic enzyme and re-pressed (includes Siegerrebe, Ortega, Reichensteiner and Madeleine Angevine). Here are my comments on this wine:

Appearance - clear, lemon yellow

Smell - good, rich, intense, fragrant beautiful nose

Tannin - perfect (this is 2-3 year old apple/ 2nd run vinifera grape wine. I taste tannin in the finish from the Russet apple skins ground and pressed)

Acid - perfect (my palate but my wife likes it too)

Flavour - this is rich and tasty with no signs of aging, with a really good finish. I'll absolutely make it again as an everyday house white wine. This is a perfect way to use apples and 2nd run white wine from grapes with no water added, no sugar added to the 2nd run (Edelzwicker) and sugar added to the apple juice with pectic enzyme and bentonite treated mid ferment on all of the pressed juice from apple pulp, grape skins and grape juice sediment.. If you grow or buy white wine grapes, grow and/or buy apples, this is seriously good and apparently will age. The advantage of adding 2nd run white wine to apples is that the acid improves without needing to add extra acid e.g. citric. For instance if I grew any white Minnesota, New York or French American hybrids e.g. Seyval Blanc or Aurora, or Tidal Bay or Vidal or Traminette....the list goes on I would make this wine e.g. blend your second run white hybrids and/or vinifera with apples (especially Russets) to make really good everyday table wines that will age.

 

[winemaker81]

This one is a Laithwaite purchase -- I had it in quarterly shipment a couple of years ago, really liked it, so I purchased a case. It's now 4.5 years old and is aging very nicely. I have 3 bottles left and I stretching them out.

 

[Hazelemere]

Estate Muscat Dry Auslese 2023

This is 100% homegrown organic muscat from 20 parts Siegerrebe 10 parts Ortega and 10 parts Reichensteiner at SG 1.092 unchaptalized. Siegerrebe - Ortega were fermented with 71B. Reichensteiner was fermented with V-13. This is poured from a bottle in my cooler. A lot of it was blended into my son in law's medium toast American oaked Washington Sheridan Vineyard Chardonnay to make it more tropical. That blend is in carboys made with 3 different yeasts D47, V13 and 71B. They are all tasty and different. Better yet they are all separate. We may save the Chardonnay 2023 in our cooler in a carboy to add more 2024 Muscat to it. Sheridan Chardonnay smells like buttered popcorn but we are fussy having made fantastic Chardonnays from Carneros Sangiacomo Vineyard juice 2 years in a row. If you can buy Carneros or even Sonoma Chardonnay and love tropical fruit bomb wines, you are in for a treat.

Appearance: lemon yellow, colour is perfect (i.e. no oxidation at any stage of processing)

Smell - really good intense classic muscat nose (the Siegerrebe and Ortega both have Gewurtztraminer in their family tree)

Tannin - perfect, a little bit of tannin in the aftertaste which should allow it to age.

Acid - perfect for me.

Flavour - this is really rich and interesting, with a long finish. Classic Muscat! My son in law loves it. Ausleses are usually sweet but this is bone dry at 22.0 Brix at harvest. I'll have it on my birthday in November with clam vongole, lobster tails, crab or oysters or a combo thereof e.g. crab linguine or lobster mac and cheese. Anyone here ever made lobster mac and cheese or oyster chowder? Maybe even halibut or steelhead.

Afterthought - I had to cull damaged grapes out of the Ortega and Reichensteiner. This took hours and hours but I did it. The Siegerrebe were in beautiful condition and didn't need to be cleaned. All of the grapes were dry i.e. no rain at all for least a month. Sometimes the grape god Bacchus is with you and this was one of those years. I'll try to make it this year so we can make a stellar Chardonnay Muscat blend. The very slight tannin in the aftertaste may be due to damaged grape taint during culling. The wine is really tasty so I'm not concerned. It probably won't last more than a few years unless I get a similar or better one in 2024. Bud burst on Siegerrebe and Ortega is early-normal this year, so harvest should be in mid to late September to beat the October rains. The grapes on this wine were picked on September 9. Ortega was picked at SG 1.093, Siegerrebe at SG 1.092. I just ordered 20 yellow jacket wasp trap refills so I can try to catch as many queens as possible. Last year I probably caught 4000 wasps including the black and white ones. The wasp traps that I use that have sex pheromones only work on the yellow jackets. I also put out Kraft strawberry jam jars on top of my vineyard posts. Wasps adore Muscats i.e. my vineyard is Club Med for wasps. They damage grapes by gorging on them when they are ripe. The flavour on this wine is very similar to really good California Muscat which you can buy from Brehm. I only have 11 left because it is so popular and good right now. I will try to leave it alone until my birthday and/or 2024 harvest.

I HAVE A QUESTION FOR EVERYONE HERE.......HAVE YOU EVER MADE A WINE THAT WAS SO GOOD THAT YOU COULDN'T KEEP IT IN STORAGE BECAUSE EVERYONE WANTED TO DRINK IT OR YOU DID OR GAVE IT AWAY OR A COMBINATION THEREOF. IF SO WHAT WAS IT? AND WHAT DID YOU LEARN ABOUT WINEMAKING IN THE EXPERIENCE OF MAKING IT OR HAVING PEOPLE TASTE IT. In my case intention and effort in winemaking and grape growing are everything. You can certainly do winemaking "paint by numbers" but for me the challenge is to try to create REAL MAGIC whenever possible. The wine i am describing is the best Siegerrebe and/or Ortega that I have tasted in 11 years. I could not have made it as a commercial winemaker due to the need for culling which is a massive advantage of serious amateurs and sometimes unavailable to commercial winemakers .....you can be the Van Gogh of your winemaking! Van Gogh never stopped experimenting with brushes, knives and paints.

I love you all and wish you the best of luck with your wines in 2024. Never stop experimenting with your winemaking!

This will be my last posting until lates summer/fall.

I'm going in for brachytherapy (radioactive iodine seeds) for my prostate cancer - stage 2 in mid May.

In the meantime I'm travelling to Ontario to drop my best wines off to some serious soulmates.........last one and my favourite wine of all time Framboise 2023.

Namaste to all you wild things!

Klaus

PS. This is a seriously good website!

 

[jswordy]

Another really, really great experiment in aging, the 2018 Brickmason Zinfandel blend. A $16 bottle when I bought the case. Very nice and rounded after 6 years in cellar. I believe this is the last bottle. A pity. The plastic cup is required by our kitchen circumstances.

 

[ChuckD]

.HAVE YOU EVER MADE A WINE THAT WAS SO GOOD THAT YOU COULDN'T KEEP IT IN STORAGE BECAUSE EVERYONE WANTED TO DRINK IT OR YOU DID OR GAVE IT AWAY

One of my first wines (2020) was a wild grape wine. I’m sure most of you would think it ok at best but for the entire fermentation I had little hope it would be drinkable. After more than a year in bulk it had improved to OK. A year in the bottle and it was getting good . Now three years later it is one of my wife’s favorites. Unfortunately we will probably never know how good it can be. We have one bottle left which will be saved for our anniversary this summer.

Best of luck with your treatment and recovery Klaus.

 

[Hazelemere]

One of my first wines (2020) was a wild grape wine. I’m sure most of you would think it ok at best but for the entire fermentation I had little hope it would be drinkable. After more than a year in bulk it had improved to OK. A year in the bottle and it was getting good . Now three years later it is one of my wife’s favorites. Unfortunately we will probably never know how god it can be. We have one bottle left which will be saved for our anniversary this summer.

Best of luck with your treatment and recovery Klaus.

thank you

 

[winemaker81]

One of my first wines (2020) was a wild grape wine. I’m sure most of you would think it ok at best but for the entire fermentation I had little hope it would be drinkable. After more than a year in bulk it had improved to OK. A year in the bottle and it was getting good . Now three years later it is one of my wife’s favorites. Unfortunately we will probably never know how good it can be. We have one bottle left which will be saved for our anniversary this summer.

Something to consider is that every wine we make is unique -- it's a once-in-a-lifetime thing that will never be duplicated. Sure, we may come close, but we'll never duplicate it.

So savor each one, and remember that it's important to drink the last bottle before it declines. At some point every wine is a memory -- make it a good one.

 

[jswordy]

thank you

I agree. And yes, many of my wines that are not "appropriate" to "true wine standards" have resulted in rave reviews among my friends. It is amazing! All the best with your recovery.

 

[Hazelemere]

One of my first wines (2020) was a wild grape wine. I’m sure most of you would think it ok at best but for the entire fermentation I had little hope it would be drinkable. After more than a year in bulk it had improved to OK. A year in the bottle and it was getting good . Now three years later it is one of my wife’s favorites. Unfortunately we will probably never know how good it can be. We have one bottle left which will be saved for our anniversary this summer.

Best of luck with your treatment and recovery Klaus.

thank you

 

[Boatboy24]

I'm going in for brachytherapy (radioactive iodine seeds) for my prostate cancer - stage 2 in mid May.

Hoping your outcome is the very best.

 

[Hazelemere]

Hoping your outcome is the very best.

thank you

 

[David Violante]

Best of luck Klaus!

 

[sour_grapes]

This will be my last posting until lates summer/fall.

I'm going in for brachytherapy (radioactive iodine seeds) for my prostate cancer - stage 2 in mid May.

In the meantime I'm travelling to Ontario to drop my best wines off to some serious soulmates.........last one and my favourite wine of all time Framboise 2023.

Namaste to all you wild things!

Klaus

PS. This is a seriously good website!

Best of luck on your recovery journey, Klaus!

 

[wineh]

Meh. This is not the wine that online reviews say it is. I'll agree there's a hint of mocha and currants on the nose, and blackberries and currants on the palate, but only "just". I'm not looking for more. 13. 5%.

 

[Hazelemere]

I'm tasting a blend of homegrown Regent Black Iris 2023 which is Regent grapes hand destemmed and uncrushed, wild black cherries, wild blackberries and dried elderberries from a bottle.

Here are my comments on this wine:

Appearance - clear, deep purple

Smell - really interesting, wild cherries are dominant but you can smell the other components

Tannin - good

Acid - good

Flavour - as a house red or cooking wine this is fine. It has a long finish with a really interesting smell. I would make it again to improve Regent. This year I may try pressing some of my Regent as a Rose having never ever made a Rose from fresh crushed and pressed red wine grapes. I may try the same thing with some of my homegrown Marechal Foch i.e. a Rose on 71B yeast to get the acid as low as I can without chemical adjustment.

 

[Sage]

'18 cab, it pretty good now, I have a stash, it will be interesting to see it's progress.

My son loves Cab. It will be interesting to get his rating on the next visit.