What's in your glass tonight?

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They're not in my glass at the moment, but they will be in upcoming days. A very nice gift from Mrs. WM81.

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I'm hard to buy for, as I don't need much that I don't already have. I like consumables, because I don't have to find a place to store them.

My dad was like this and it sometimes irritated me ... until I got to the age where he was at that time! 🤣

"When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years."
-- Mark Twain
 
retaste of 100% homegrown organic Regent 2023:

Appearance - purple ink

Smell - good nose, a bit cold out of the cooler in a bottle but the smell is fine and lingers.

Tannin- good

Acid - good

Flavour - This is very interesting and should improve as it ages. It has tannin in the aftertaste which is good. I'd rate this as good-very good. I've never rated a home made red as very good until now. This one is.

retaste of 100% homegrown organic Regent 2023:

Appearance - purple ink

Smell - good nose, a bit cold out of the cooler in a bottle but the smell is fine and lingers, red currants, prunes and black cherries

Tannin- good

Acid - good

Flavour - This is very interesting and should improve as it ages. It has tannin in the aftertaste which is good. I'd rate this as good-very good. I've never rated a home made red as very good until now. This one is on that path.
 
Cyser 2023

retaste:

Appearance - clear yellow gold, very slightly petillant

Smell - honey smell is dominant, complex interesting nose:

Tannin - good from the russet apples

Acid - good

Flavour - intense cyser. very pleasant. I've made this year's cyser from homegrown Cox apples (for the first time ever) plus unpasteurized blueberry blossom honey plus a blend of 4 homegrown white wine grape varieties to make a Cyser Pyment, and then used the russets with my son in law's Okanagan Macintosh apples to make an apple wine. He made a Macintosh cyser with the same honey that I used.

retaste of Cyser 2023

Appearance - clear gold

Smell - good complex nose, honey smell is dominant above the russet apple smell, slight pleasant creaminess and nuttiness (e.g. cashews)

Tannin- good

Acid - good

Flavour - This is very rich and tasty, mostly from fresh organic homegrown Russet apple juice chaptalized with unpasteurized blueberry blossom honey. No oxidation in spite of its colour as far as I can tell except for a slight pleasant creaminess which lends itself to a sauce with nutmeg, purple sage, lemon thyme and garlic. I think that it could be really good as a cooking wine in something like turkey or chicken tetrazzini with fresh herbs (we still have fresh herbs and no snow in this part of Canada!) and cremini mushrooms. I'm going over to my daughter's tomorrow for boxing day Xmas dinner with the entire family (11 in total). If I'm lucky enough to get the turkey carcass, I'll use that to make the tetrazzini with linguine the following day. If I don't, I'll cook my own turkey or a chicken to use the carcass the same way. If I make a big batch, I'll leave out the cream and parmesan on some of it so I can freeze it. I'll use this when I saute onions so they don't burn, together with bell peppers, broccoli, celery, garlic, tomatoes, fresh purple sage, fresh lemon thyme, fresh garlic, nutmeg, lemon pepper and turkey or chicken carcass bits with cream and parmesan cheese with linguine. I'll season my own chicken or turkey with Chinese 5 spice and stuff either with onions, chopped apples and/or mandarins and celery.

Hope that you are all having a wonderful Xmas

Klaus
 
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Xmas New Years Turkey Tetrazzini

Find a white wine that you have made that is slightly old - especially slightly or majorly creamy or nutty. Homemade sherry is fine also. You can even use an old homemade rose.

Pour yourself a glass and put on some of your favourite music.

Close the kitchen doors.

Shake your booty.

Chop 2 medium or 1 large onion very fine and saute in olive oil.

Add your wine in bits every time the onions dry out or start to burn.

Add 2 cups of chopped celery and/or chopped broccoli or any other green vegetable that you like including frozen vegetables like green beens or even zucchini. Even frozen peas, peas and carrots or corn. Add your wine in bits so the vegetables don't burn. Stir the mix up.

Add 1 1/2 to 2 chopped and diced yellow, orange or red bell peppers. If you only have green, e.g. frozen then use green.

Add 1 pound of cleaned, diced mushrooms. I like Creminis or Portabellas. White mushrooms are fine. You can use 1 or 2 canned sliced mushrooms if you don't have fresh.

Add 3 or 4 minced garlic cloves + 3 diced tomatoes (I like romas). If you don't have fresh garlic you can use garlic powder.

If your wine glass is empty top it up!

Add your spices - I like purple sage, lemon thyme and nutmeg but you can use Italian seasoning and nutmeg or even add chopped nuts e.g. cashews from a coffee grinder (or leave the nuts out)

Slowly dice stripped scraps from your turkey carcass. Try to get about 3/4 to 1 pound of turkey.

Add your turkey to your pan of vegetables and spices with wine.

Cook the whole mixture until everything is tender and then add some cream with parmesan cheese or Asiago or Romano.

Stir it up and taste it.

Adjust your seasonings anyway you like e.g. tamari, worcestershire, salt or pepper, smoked paprika

Boil a handful of linguine.

Add the linguine to the tetrazzini and mix it.

Serve the turkey tetrazzini linguine

Be happy!

Namaste

Klaus
 
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How do you like it?

It’s hot. I reviewed my notes and remembered this was the kit where I didn’t read the instructions very well. I added the sorbate pack, chapitalization pack, flavoring pack to the wine and THEN racked off the gross lees.

I also was just making the kit as I thought I understood, didn’t even take hydrometer readings. So it never occurred to me that the chapitalization pack might also increase the ABV. So when I did the Pearson Square to calculate the Everclear addition I probably overshot. My notes also show I later topped off the 3g carboy with 50ml of straight Everclear 190.

Whoever coined the phrase “wine is forgiving” probably doesn’t realize how right they are.
 
It’s hot. I reviewed my notes and remembered this was the kit where I didn’t read the instructions very well. I added the sorbate pack, chapitalization pack, flavoring pack to the wine and THEN racked off the gross lees.

I also was just making the kit as I thought I understood, didn’t even take hydrometer readings. So it never occurred to me that the chapitalization pack might also increase the ABV. So when I did the Pearson Square to calculate the Everclear addition I probably overshot. My notes also show I later topped off the 3g carboy with 50ml of straight Everclear 190.

Whoever coined the phrase “wine is forgiving” probably doesn’t realize how right they are.
A lesson!
 
Christmas Eve lunch was salmon in a balsamic glaze, so we served a rose Prosecco and a FWK Blackberry. The Kirkland Prosecco is good. At 2 yo the Blackberry is holding very nicely. The Muscat was somewhat disappointing -- it's a good quality wine, but the flavors are muted. I'd never had a sweet Muscat before, so it was worth trying.

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Christmas dinner was baked ham with sweet potatoes and fresh rolls. Blanc de Blanc goes well with ham, and I opened the FWK Strawberry so my son's girlfriend could try it (given that the bottle is over half gone, it was liked!). The Sauternes was very good!

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My son loves Rye, so I gave him a bottle for Christmas. This one is a bit hot (93 proof) but has a nice flavor. After the wine we had about half an ounce, just to sample. I'd add a small ice cube to a double shot to dilute it just a bit.

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