Wine competitions, at what cost?

[AZMDTed]

It's time to share bottles with the rest of us now

 

[cgallamo]

@4Score and I were talking about these wines today. Both the double gold Barbera and the gold Mourvèdre were problematic wines, which we aired our dirty laundry on he first few pages of this thread.

Both had a case of H2S. It really shows to not give up on your wine when they are struggling.

Thank you for linking this! I replied to that thread on my experience the H2S issue. We need to get to the bottom of that!

Are you going with Andante yeast going forward? Seems after you won gold and @4Score won best of variety with another yeast it may be worth the H2S risk to get the best wine.

 

[Kraffty]

Congratulations to both of you. There is some real talent here.
Mike

 

[4score]

Thank you for linking this! I replied to that thread on my experience the H2S issue. We need to get to the bottom of that!

Are you going with Andante yeast going forward? Seems after you won gold and @4Score won best of variety with another yeast it may be worth the H2S risk to get the best wine.

Interesting question - it does get you thinking. We have some Syrah in the barrel from 2016 that was done with Andante yeast and it's coming out very nice. So I'm not sure what we'd be losing. I'm sure using the D254 in combination with D80 did add some depth and complexity to the Barbera, but that H2S issue was a real pain in the rear. We had some high fermentation temps that may have contributed. Andante is good up to 95 F and has zero chance of H2S. I like those odds especially if the flavor and attribute profile of the strain is still solid.