when good wines gone bad

[Pumpkinman]

I've been buying from WTSO for some time now, cant beat the prices! I've been trying to sample the wines that I either want to make, or wines that I'm interested in.
If anyone doesn't know what WTSO is, WTSO.com is an online store that focuses on selling wine at 30%-70% off original retail prices. I've purchased more than one bottle of wine that was originally listed for over $60.00 for $24-$30!, this was after spending over $65 for a wine at a local store that we didn't like... Signing up is free, and you will get daily email updates on wine available.
I highly recommend checking it out!

 

[joeswine]

wines

will look into it,thanks.AND THANKS FOR FOLLOWING MY THREADS..................

 

[joeswine]

boat boy 24

Amarone de valpolicellia

a delight for the senses and taste buds ,nothing like it in the wine world,to me,by trying it in this venue you will understand what it should taste like and when you make it you'll see how close you can come to it at home ,,enjoy and thanks for following my threads.

 

[Pumpkinman]

Joe,
I think it is really interesting, the differences between the Old school wineries and the newer wineries or younger vinters, I share your passion for Amarone.
Joe, did you ever get my message back to you about the trade? I haven't followed up, I apologize, I've been fairly busy.

 

[joeswine]

Trader joe' wine

YES AND IT WILL BE OUT TO YOU NEXT WEEK,SORRY FOR THE DELAY, I SENT YOU A EMAIL ,BUT IM NOT THAT GOOD AT THOSE THINGS,if YOU cant' send in return right now not to worry ,just enjoy,and let me know what you think,that's the important part.

 

[Boatboy24]

I've been buying from WTSO for some time now, cant beat the prices! I've been trying to sample the wines that I either want to make, or wines that I'm interested in.
If anyone doesn't know what WTSO is, WTSO.com is an online store that focuses on selling wine at 30%-70% off original retail prices. I've purchased more than one bottle of wine that was originally listed for over $60.00 for $24-$30!, this was after spending over $65 for a wine at a local store that we didn't like... Signing up is free, and you will get daily email updates on wine available.
I highly recommend checking it out!

don't mean to hijack the thread, but I agree. I buy from them regularly. The other nice thing is that they carry stuff I don't generally see in local stores - who have their normal brands and not much else. Like I said, the Amarone I bought was 25 bucks!

 

[Pumpkinman]

Joe,
You rock my friend! I owe you a bottle as soon as they are ready!

I agree about WTSO, great site, I like the idea of being able to keep tasting great wines at great prices!

 

[joeswine]

italian winre tour cont.

Italian wine tour cont...

 

[joeswine]

A little history

ALTHOUGH,vines had been cultivated from the wild grape for millennium,it wasn't until the GREEK colonization that wine-making took off.VITICULTURE was introduced into SICILY and southern Italy by the Mycenaean Greeks,and was well established when the extensive Greek colonization transpired around 800 BC.with the defeat of the Carthaginians by the Romans in the 2nd century BC that Italian wine production began to further flourish.LARGE -SCALE ,Slave RUN PLANTATIONS SPRANG UP IN MANY COASTAL AREAS AND SPREAD TO SUCH AN EXTENT THAT ,IN AD92,emperor Domitian was forced to destroy a great number of vineyards in order to free up fertile land for food production..........to be continued......

remember the thread I rote about wine making in what is now GEORGIA.........wine making has a long and vast history.......................we've just started ours- in time terms!..stay tuned..

 

[joeswine]

Italy continued

History is on it's side, Italy to some of the oldest wine producing regions in the world it hasovertaken France as the largest wine producer. italian wine is exported around the world and also is popular in Italy . Italians( on the world wine consumption is by volume) they like there wine .grapes are grown in every region of the country and there are more than 1 million vineyards under cultivation .

The cultivation of grapes goes back a long way to the second century BC ...................

 

[joeswine]

Change of pace

WERE GOING TO LEAVE THE ITALIAN WINES FOR A WHILE AND TRAVEL DOWN THE DESERT WINE TRAIL..IT SHOULD BE INTERESTING.::


STAY TUNED..............::

 

[joeswine]

Desert wines anyone?

TO SOME WINE PEOPLE DESERT WINES ARE WAY TO SWEET AND THAT'S OK TO EACH HIS OR HER OWN,BUT WHEN YOU LOOK AT THE CATEGORY OF DESERT WINES IT'S NOT REALLY THAT LARGE IN IT'S SELF,BUT THE DESERT WINES ARE UNTO THEM SELF'S A DELIGHT TO THE PALATE AND A TASTE TREAT AS WELL,SO LETS TAKE A LOOK FIRST AT WHAT MAKES A DESERT WINE ,A DESERT WINE!

THERE IS KNOW SIMPLE DEFINITION FOR A DESERT WINE AROUND THE WORLD IT FALLS INTO MANY CLASSIFICATIONS,IN THE UNITED STATES FOR EXAMPLE ANY WINE OVER 14% alcohol by volume ,which includes all fortified wines-and is taxed more highly as a result .this dates back to a time when the united states wine industry only made desert wines by fortification,but such a classifications outdated now that modern yeast and viticulture can produce dry wines over 15%without fortification,yet German desert wines can contain half that amount of alcohol. remember the thread German wines,this ties in,continue.......in the UK a desert wine is considered to be any sweet wine drunk with a meal,as opposed to white fortified wines like sherry drunk before a meal and the red fortified ports or Madeiras drunk after a meal..are you confused yet....most fortified wines are regarded as distinct from desert wines,but some of the less strong fortified white wines,such as Pedro x sherry and muscat De Beaumes-de-venise,are regardas honorary desert wines.........are you thoroughly confused now?

let that soak in for a while and then will continue on types of desert wines......

 

[joeswine]

Natural sweetness

So let's start taking a look at dessert wines and I know there are a lot of you out there who have made them, let's see what it took to get it there, pay attention.

In the absence of other techniques, makers of dessert wine have to produce the sugar in the vineyard. Some grape varieties, such as Muscat, Ortega naturally produce a lot more sugar than others. Prineville conditions have a big effect on ultimate sugar levels – this is felt by leaving the grapes on the vine until they are fully ripe and by greening harvesting and pruning to expose the young grapes to the sun. Green harvesting reduces the number of bunch is one of vine early in the summer, so that they sugar production of the leaves is divided between fewer brunches. Unfortunately you cannot control the sun, but a sunny here can help sugar levels a lot. The semisweet auslese wines and a German wine classification are probably the best examples of this approach, most modern winemakers perceive that their customers want either fully dry or properly sweetened dessert wines, so leave it to nature is currently out of fashion. But most of my Muscats of ancient times properly made this way, including the famous concertina of South Africa.

Capitalization honey was added to wine in Roman times, for sweetness and to increase the final strength of the wine. Perhaps surprisingly today sugar is usually added to boost Alcoa levels of flabby, unripe wines rather than for sweetness, although a degree of capitalization is permitted and wines of many countries. German wines must declare whether their natural or not, in any case, capitalization is banned from the top tiers of German wines.

SUSSRESERVE, the reserve of sweetness is a German technique in which unfermented must (grape juice ) is added to the wine after fermentation. This increases the sweetness of the final wine, and dilutes the alcohol somewhat – in Germany the final wine can contain no more than 50% of reserve by volume.SUSSRESURVE, allows winemakers to fully ferment the wine without having to worry about stopping fermentation before all the sugar has gone. Since sulfites are used to stop fermentation, this technique reduces the uses of sulfites. Seuss reserve is used by other makers of German style wines, particularly in New Zealand.

So you see, there are other ways of back sweetening wine without adding sugar, or at least sugar in its raw state. I've stated before somewhere in this archive of text that sometimes you need to think outside the box because other wine makers who are true winemakers in the industry do this as an everyday affair a professional affair if you would. So back sweetening to dry and adding sugar isn't the only way and if you think about it if you backswing too dry and add the juice of which you are you fermenting from then you're not only adding sugar in the form of grape juice but you're also adding flavor back into the wind and sleet that's why some of the most popular dessert wines in the world are done this way, just a little fruit for thought (forgive the pun) had to use it.

Next take into consideration what type of wines that you're accustomed to calling dessert wines, I know you made some of them so were going to take a look at them... Stay tuned.

Remember – the difference between capitalization and back sweetening........... now you're going to see how it comes into play ............. good talking with you digest this and will continue.

 

[joeswine]

Raising wine

Once again, we're going to take a quick peek back into the history of wine because no we are, we first have to know where we came from, or in this case, where this came from.

In case the ancient Carthage, a sweet wine called passim was made from air dried grapes, and across the Malta channel from the side of Carthage summer wines are still made, called Muscato passito di pantelleria. Such ones were described by the Romans, in northern Italy is home to a number ofpassito wines, where the grapes are dried on straw, or racks, or hung from the rafters. These wines include, then vin santo(into which almond biscuits are traditionally dunked) and the sweet redrecioto della vapolicella(which stands up the chocolate better than most wines) across the Alps, the French make straw wine, rhone andalace, the Spanish start off making a raising wine with Pedro ximenez before fortifying, the Cypriots have their ancient commandaria and there has been recent experiments with the style in South Africa and the US.

Now that was something about, that's real history as far as man could read man has made wine in one form or the other but do see how the last paragraph kind of that feeds on the Ameron style of winemaking, which is, grapes drying out on straw beds until a ready to make the wine.

now that was a lot to digest, I leave you with this. Read it if you will try and understand it and will continue really go onto Noble rot.

 

[joeswine]

Remember the difference

Remember the difference, between backs sweetening and capitalization.

Remember the difference, between metabolic sulfite and potassium sorbate.

Remember the difference, between SG and ABV.

These are things we use every day as winemakers remember the difference.........................

 

[joeswine]

Getting back on track

most 7°C or 19°F before the grapes for ice wine can be picked. As such, temperatures, some of the water in the grapes freeze out, but the sugars and other solids remain dissolved into the remind remaining juice. If the grapes are pressed while frozen, a very concentrated must can result which needs special yeast and

Some of the most famous dessert wines, are made from moldy grapes, this is called noble rot wine, imagine waiting for the grapes to start to go bad to use them, in itself is a chance again. But when it's done right it can make the best dessert wines in the world. Unfortunately, the fungus is very fussy about the conditions required for such noble rot, it is too damp, the same fungus causes the distrust of gray rot. So, winemakers walking fine line between getting it right or not. Typically, noble rot wines were created by accident-with the Hungarians and the Germans have similar stories of how the harvest was delayed for some reason, but the moldy grapes were harvested anyway and the rest was history.

Ice wine, most wine laws require temperatures to be at a long time to ferment. The resulting wines are very sweet, but with lots of balancing acidity. The minuscule yields mean they tend to be very expensive. The most famous ice wines are in German eiswein am from Canada ice wine.

Sometimes you just get lucky, I happen to be with a wine distributor, who not only distributes fresh juice but grapes as well. Knowing these people as well as I do, I was privy to come into their office and overheard a conversation, it went like this, yeah, okay I understand, how much do you have? How will you be delivering it? At what price per gallon? And it will be real?. The conversation was over. I was politely informed that they were in great luck and was able to get a a small tanker full of Canadian ice wine. I looked at the man who was having the conversation with me, and asked him is this fresh squeezed. He said yes. They will be delivering mid-November, then he looked at me and said, do you think this would be too late, I replied no. Just put out a special memo to everybody you have a mailing list and it will be gone. And so it was the delivery, came in and it went just as quickly.. So you see, even the heart of the deep red wine making country, they do have a sweet tooth.

To be continued ............ thanks for hanging in there...............................................

 

[ShawnDTurner]

Joe..this is great information. You should have your own youtube channel

 

[joeswine]

crafting a enexpensive kit


To add color and fruit to the wine, some winemakers will blend their Sangiovese with Cabernet Sauvignon (pictured).


The high acidity and light body characteristics of the Sangiovese grape can present a problem for winemaking. The grape also lacks some of the color-creating phenolic compounds known as acylated anthocyanins.[10] Modern winemakers have devised many techniques trying to find ways to add body and texture to Sangiovese — ranging from using grapes that come from extremely low yielding vines, to adjusting the temperature and length of fermentation and employing extensive oak treatment. One historical technique is the blending of other grape varieties with Sangiovese, in order to complement its attractive qualities and fill in the gaps of some of its weaker points. The Sangiovese-based wines of Chianti have a long tradition of liberally employed blending partners—such as Canaiolo, Ciliegiolo, Mammolo, Colorino and even the white wine grapes like Trebbiano and Malvasia. Since the late 20th century, Bordeaux grapes, most notably Cabernet Sauvignon, have been a favored blending partner though in many Italian DOC/G there is often a restriction on the amount of other varietals that can be blended with Sangiovese: at Chianti the limit for Cabernet is 15%.[3]
Other techniques used to improve the quality of Sangiovese include extending the maceration period from 7–12 days to 3–4 weeks to give the must more time to leach vital phenols out of the grape skins. Transferring the wine during fermentation into new oak barrels for malolactic fermentation gives greater polymerization of the tannins and contributes to a softer, rounder mouthfeel. Additionally, Sangiovese has shown itself to be a "sponge" for soaking up sweet vanilla and other oak compounds from the barrel. For aging the wine, some modern producers will utilize new French oak barrels but there is a tradition of using large, used oak botti barrels that hold five to six hectoliters of wine.is the most important item, sanitizing, sanitize everything the wine comes in contact with, sanitizing,, still required to add water, and my, case I have to add water for I have a well you know it's still go still through the filtration process. The pipes are still copper still leaches off, so I'm going to used already bottled filled water. I don't want anything in my wine that isn't supposed to be. You notice sometimes is read the threads that they have a funny taste in my wine or mineral taste or metallic taste, all of the above or some of that can be attributed to the quality of the water that you using some of it can be attributed if you're making a fruit wine to the fruit, but were not so, I'm using filtered water to give myself the balance of the volum

Okay, what is this all about? I thought it would be interesting to not only to use dialogue in the manufacturing of a kit as well as the photos, I'm going to do a sangiovese wine kit . It's just the basic kit but a kit will none the less.

This kit contains enough concentrate to produce 6 gallons of wine, two small bags of French Oak, and the usual suspects of chemicals potassium sorbate,bentonite, metabolic sulfite and Red Star premier cuvée. As far as finding agents go. We do have a Benoite but we also have Chitosan as a finishing agent.

There are basic steps 1 to 3 and four and step one e. It also asked that the juice is between 72° and 75° do not proceed unless the juice is in this range But Where Using Red Star yeast placental of the package and see with the yeast manufactured prescribes temperature range for its yeast type, let's read this it proves interesting.

Red Star premier cuvée active dry wine yeast preparation, this envelope contains nothing yeast to make up to 5 gallons for best results, dissolve yeast by adding about 1/4 cup of water at about 100 to 105 degrees. After opening, the you should be used within one month and Under refrigeration. Okay take a look at the red stars characteristics for this yeast – the yeast has a good tolerance to ethanol and free sulfur dioxide, and ferments to dryness. So far so good. If very good producer of phenols, urea, and fossil oils. Recommended for Reds, whites and especially champagnes. Reported to perform while re-starting stock fermentation's. It has good characteristics, its fast, clean, and most natural fermenter offered by red Star ferments best between 45 and 95° 5 g for 5 to 6 gallons of wine. So were at 5 g is anything else out there that would be better? Well, there are a couple that had some of the same characteristics.. This would be the best bet, so will stay with this yeast. No change there.

As in most kit wines. It asked you to check your starting specific gravity, we all know what that is right? If not, ask. This is on stage I, all my tools are in place, I read my directions am ready to start.

Stay tuned............ are you ready---------are you newbies with me?

 

[Neviawen]

We're ready! Let's get making wine!! =-)

 

[joeswine]

Sangiovese

A long ways back I discussed the partnerships of wines and how you can defined them,this is the most perfect case in point,go back and read the characteristics of this wine and how it crosses the boundaries of the ITALIAN wine making culture ,read how the wine makers tried to achieve a better mouth feel by crossing different grapes and grapes skins ,or just trying to achieve a different taste all together,we are going to do that by adjusting the kits weaknesses and making it ,,it's strength,not all the time this can be achieved depending on the quality of the kit your using,but what makes this one good to start with is it's- weakness,it's a blank palate to work with ,the last time I did this was with a amarone and after aging it turned out to be a very good tasting wine............