when good wines gone bad

[joeswine]

Amarone in the flow

THE PROCESS CONTINUES.... ADDING THE RAISINS TO THE PRIMARY IS IN DESIGN TO BECOME MORE OF A PARTNERSHIP IN THE WINES BALANCE IF YOU ADD THE RAISINS IN THE SECONDARY THE IT BECOMES A BACKGROUND ELEMENT TO THE MIX AND TO SOME A PREFERENCE THE CHOICE IS YOURS ,DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCE???

 

[geek]

Joe,

it looks like you bottle quickly after secondary, you don't bulk age at all?

 

[joeswine]

AMARONE King OF THE ITALIAN REDS

HERE'S my theory, if the wine is still then the only thing that aging in the carboy with do is sit there, but if I bottle it, then when I chose to I can sneak a bottle to see what has transpired in it's growth if anything with out disrupting the rest ,GOT IT!

 

[Gr8p]

Love the pics and step by step how to Very helpful

Question : why not put raisins in nylon bag instead during primary? Wouldn't it make transfer easier?

I do mostly fresh fruit wines from recipes. Do u plan to do any of those in near future?

 

[joeswine]

In the bag

THE reason I allow them to float in the primary is to give them enough room to do their thing unrestricted and beside there is plenty of space for the yeast and oxygen to do their thing also, with the hand strainer the recovery isn't all that much work ,and isn't the essence of wine making is crafting by hand your wine as much as possible??
these are some of the fruit fpacs I use in my wines all the time if and when I make a all fruit wine the best results for me have been from walkers fruit farm and their juices always spot on and user friendly. no stress on the outcome.

 

[joeswine]

AMARONE King OF THE ITALIAN REDS

process moving forward......

 

[joeswine]

muscato queen of Italian whites

muscato is a very pleasant tasting white wine lush,fruity,and delightfully sweet with juicy peach and tropical fruit flavors and light in body,just a fun wine nothing to get to complex about. FOLLOW the process and enjoy the fruits of your labor.................................

White Moscato​

Here’s the process:
Add bentonite to the primary fermenter with ½ gallon warm water and stir it up until dissolved
Open up the large juice bag and dump it into the primary bucket
See the "musk" left over? Rinse that out w/ a little water. You don’t want to waste this, it’s extra yeast food and flavor!
Stir up everything in the bucket until well mixed up, then take your Specific Gravity (SG) reading. Ours reads 1.070.
Sprinkle the yeast on top and let sit, don’t stir. We are using Lalvin 1118. Moscato typically does not have oak. We are adding oak tannins and white California Sun-Maid raisins into the secondary to build up the mouth feel. (This we will show in pictures and text later on in the process.)
Now you cover the bucket with a towel so that your yeast can breath but so that dust and debris do not fall into your bucket. (If you have small children, I recommend putting a lid on it w/ a hole so that it can breath. Children and buckets of liquid do not mix.)
Now that we are done our primary fermentation and our Moscato is dry (our SG read 1.012, sorry I did not take a picture. FYI: This reading was right on target with the manufacture- Winexpert. We are right where we need to be) it is time for secondary fermentation.
Notice all the white, rehydrated raisins floating on top? We are going to strain them off the top and then rack this moscato down to a 6 gallon carboy.
Now it’s time for stabilizing. The kit came with a packet of potassium sorbate, K-Meta, and Chitosan for clearing. Add the packets of sorbate and K-met first, then the clearing agent. Then give your carboy a good stir.
Next, we add nitrogen gas to the carboy. (This is not necessary but I do it as a precaution. ) Now the hard part.. waiting..
As always, clean up your carboy right away so that it doesn’t get funky.
Stay tuned. The next post for this Winexpert Moscato kit is to check to see how clear it is. If it needs more clearing, We will apply more Super Kleer as required. (My preference of clearing agents.) Once it’s clear then it’s time for the F-Pak that came with the kit. Once it is clear and the F-pak is applied then we bottle, cork, and label. Again, the post for this (with pictures) is forth-coming. Cheers!

 

[joeswine]

muscato queen of Italian whites

THE FLOW CONTINUES...................

 

[geek]

nice work Joe. I did a Moscato from RJS, picked the RJS because it is a 12L kit vs. the Winexpert which is 10L.


It turned out great.

Will remember adding white raisins the next time I make it.

 

[Simpsini]

Joe

Would you recommend adding whiite raisins to a Sauvignon Blanc? I'm about to start a Vintners Reserve Sauvignon Blanc Wine Kit.

Dave

 

[joeswine]

reply

GEEK muscato is a well received wine any time ,chilled with cheese and fruit. AND A GOOD CRUSTED BREAD. THIS one was on the sweeter side for a desert wine.

SIMPSINI,NO RAISINS,BUT WHAT I WOULD ADD IS THE ZEST OF A SMALL GRAPEFRUIT ONE MONTH BEFORE FINAL CLEARING THIS WILL MAKE IT POP!

 

[Simpsini]

Joe

Thanks for the grapefruit POP. I would have never thought of that.

BTW: this week I'm bottling my WE Selection Chilean Cabernet Savignon. I tried it to night and it was very clear and tasted very good. Happy New Year!

Dave

 

[joeswine]

AMARONE King OF THE ITALIAN REDS

THIS ones for vacuum pumpman...her are the basic tweaks for my style of AMARONE, follow the thought pattern.......

Wineexpert Amarone​

*UPDATED*​

Here is our kit that we received from Wineexpert. This kit is a Wineexpert Selection Series Amarone. This kit has the following included. (This list is a little different from the usual kit that you receive. This is a top of the line kit.)

The box includes the following:
· Large bag of juice
· Grape skin pack (You can actually see that there are grape skins in it!)
· 2 packs of Lavin RC-212
· 2 Chaptalisation Packs (bags of sugar)
· Package #2 (bentonite)
· Package #3 (Metabisulphite)
· Package #4 (Sorbate)
· Package #5 (Chitosan-(Fining Agent)
· Mesh Straining Bag
· 3 Packages of European Hungarian Oak
Just for reference, I’m sure everyone knows by now if they have been following the posts, that you will need certain equipment to make this kit. For the newbies, I’m going to put it below so you know what you need:
· Primary Fermenter (minimum 30 Litres/7.9 US gallons capacity)
· Long stirring spoon (Plastic or stainless steel)
· Measuring cup
· Hydrometer and test jar
· Thermometer
· Wine thief
· Siphon rod and hose
· Carboy (6 US gallon capacity)
· Bung and Air lock
· Solid Bung (if you are bulk aging)
· Unscented winemaking detergent for cleaning (we recommend Onestep or any other oxygenating cleaner, including Kmet....JUST NOT BLEACH!)
· Metabisulphite Powder for sanitizing
· 30 wine bottles, thirty corks , thirty seals
· Corking machine (there are various types, we use an italian floor corker.)
The Process:
· As always, sanitize anything that comes in contact with the wine. Including yourself. J
· Add half gallon of warm water to the primary fermenting bucket with the bentonite packet and stir until dissolved.
· Add the large juice package. (Be careful, it’s heavy!) Rinse this out with a little bit of spring water to make sure you get it all.
· Next, we added the smaller “grape skin packet”. It’s lumpy so you also want to rinse the bag out w/ water also, to get all the grape skins.
· Now, we take the SG reading. We’re at 1.10.
· Next, we added the smaller “grape skin packet”. It’s lumpy so you also want to rinse the bag out w/ water also, to get all the grape skins.
· Now, here comes all that Hungarian oak! We are adding 3 packets of Hungarian powdered oak (wow!).
· Here comes the fun part. YEAST! 2 packets of RC-212 yeast. Cover with a towel and wait 5-7 days, gently punching down the grape skins.
Secondary Fermentation:
Now that we fermented dry (SG reading is 1.010), now it’s time to rack it.
Notice the grape skins on top? This is the cap that formed from the grape skin packet that was provided in the Wineexpert Amarone Kit, along with the addition of California Raisins (that I added to add more body).
We racked this down to a carboy but it is pretty gassy. I’m going to let this settle out for a few days and degas some on its own. Over the weekend, I will force-gas it (If I have to) by giving it a good old-fashioned stir. Once I feel that it’s de-gassed enough, I will stabilize it with the potassium sorbate packet, K-Met Packet, and packet of Chitosan (clearing agent).

UPDATE:​

We finished bottling our super-awesome, Winexpert Selection International Amarone Kit. We are quite happy with the results. Our end result is a dark, inky-color, rich, full bodied, wine. It has a spicy-earthy, sour cherry aroma, dried fruit, bitter almond, from the huge volume of tannins.

For a kit wine that started just 2 1/2 months ago, the results are quite impressive. (We started this kit on August 22, 2013. We bottled tonight, 10/24/2013. After doing this kit, we would def. recommend this one for any true Italian red-wine drinker.

We would like to thank Winexpert for giving us the opportunity to present one of their finest wine kits they have available. We would definitely recommend this kit to the novice and experienced winemakers alike as it truly is exceptional.

We are looking forward to our next tutorial now that this one is complete. Please give us feedback and recommendations of what type of wine you would like to learn how to make.

 

[joeswine]

AMARONE King OF THE ITALIAN REDS

just a couple of items more for the sauce......

 

[geek]

Joe,

you don't use the nylon bag supplied to put the grape skins and raisins in it?

 

[joeswine]

Amarone in the flow

the reason I don't is to give them all the surface area of the wine to work with at least that makes sense to me??,,

 

[geek]

I've done it that way too, many times, for the same reason.

With Amarone, have you seen a difference if adding the raisins in primary versus secondary, or you always add them in primary for this varietal?

I have one Mosti Mondiali Impressions kit coming soon, it brings both the grape skins pack and raisins.

 

[joeswine]

adding to the mix

Geek, think of it this way ,if I add raisins to the primary it then becomes a partnerships with the base wine and one wine. Adding to the whole.
If I add it to the secondary then it becomes a background enhancement and helps built structure as well .
CAN you see the difference????

 

[vacuumpumpman]

I had the pleasure to be able to talk to Joe – several weeks back. It was a very pleasurable conversation as he was more than helpful ! I told him my background – I never made a kit before. I was brought up under the influence if you have access to fresh juice or grapes why pay the money for something that costs more – the kits are for those who don’t have the pleasures that we have. Joe started to tell me that the kits were much better than the juice I would get from buckets and all. He talked all about the ph being right on and you don’t have to age it prior to be drinkable. I must say I was very hesitant and did not jump in with both feet – he then mentioned that you can buy a cheaper kit and do some tweaks to it – so it will taste like a real expensive bottle of wine.
He asked for my address and shipped a bottle of Amarone 2013 to get my opinion on it. It sat for a couple of weeks until we finally opened it over this past weekend. This is exactly what I wrote to him after opening the bottle –
We had the pleasure of drinking your Amarone tonight - let me say it was one of the best wines I ever had !

Perfect bouquet, mouth feel and taste - ph felt perfect.

Yes I know why you do kits now !!

Please tell me which kit this was done from and what tweaks you did to it if any.

I would of thought that this sat for at least 2 years prior to going into the bottle - until I looked at the date on the bottle

Very impressed !!

Thanks Steve


I would like to say thanks you again Joe for opening my eyes to something that I would not have done on my own - in several weeks I will be following this thread - word for word

 

[olusteebus]

I am making two kits now under Joes tutelage. Looking forward to the results.