It's been one month!

It's been a month since my wine went into the bottles.  According to the kit's instructions, that's when the wine should be ready to drink.  So I opened up a bottle, and...it's really good!  Phew!  I'm glad that all that hard work wasn't for nothing!  It's a fruity Chardonnay type wine, really pleasant, with a touch of minerality.  It really hit the spot after the week I've had, I'm very pleased with it!

I think the next wine I'll tackle will be with another kit, but I'm leaning towards a red, maybe a pinot noir.  I'll have to take a look at the kits and see what the wine store has to offer for my next one!  I'll keep y'all posted!  Cheers!

Wine has been bottled!

I meant to share this a few days ago, but I've been under the weather, unfortunately, so I haven't really been myself.  Monday night I was ok though, and I'd been waiting for my wine to clear, which it was, Monday night!

I tasted it to see how it was, and I must say, it was (is) halfway decent!  Very impressed!

You know the drill by this time...

I siphoned all the wine from the carboy to the bucket for (supposedly) easier bottling.  Then I cleansed, rinsed, and sanitized all 24 of my bottles.  Next time, I will definitely have 30+ bottles, because I had more than 24 bottles-worth of wine.

After all that and before putting the wine in the bottles, I put in the potassium sorbate so that there would be no further fermentation in the bottles.

Then I went to bottling!  And making a couple messes!  Next time, this will happen outside... 

And voila!  We have bottled wine, folks!  I'm still going to need a few more bottles for the remaining wine, but I just haven't felt up to going and getting it yet.  I'll keep those last ones separate just in case something has happened during the time in between.

This has been a pretty cool process and I've absolutely learned from some mistakes.  I will be doing this again once I have some additional supplies (at least one more carboy, a taller table, a couple more bottle squirting cleaner things, enough bottles, etc.), but I really hope this batch is at least drinkable.  We shall see!  It has to stay in the bottles at least a month before attempting to drink, so I'll be drinking it next year (haha).  I'll let you know how it goes!  Cheers!

Wine Maker Certification

I ran across an interesting ad in my Wine Maker magazine today.  There is a Winemaking Certification Program at UC Davis, and I'm very interested in such a program!  I found another that's out of Texas Tech, and it looks like it might be in conjunction with Texas A&M University (Whoop!).  It's mostly online except for a couple classes that are 2.5 days long (I'm guessing maybe over a weekend..?).  It's called the Texas Winemaking Certification Program.  I might wait to see how my first wine turns out before investing too much extra time and money in a certification program, or maybe even my second wine, if the first one isn't any good.

Going to these websites also allowed me to find the Texas Winegrape Network.  I had no idea such a place exisited, but it really doesn't surprise me.  There's so much information on this site, if you (or I), ever needed to know anything about growing wine grapes or vineyards, or just about anything else winemaking-related, that's the place to go!

Day 16!

Still working on clarifying the wine.  I'm so anxious for it to be done!  I really hope it turns out well, but like I've said before, I won't get my hopes up too high for this first pancake!

Day 15!

We're in business, folks!  0.994!  

I'm glad I cleaned and sanitized everything yesterday so I could focus on racking the wine today.  I siphoned the wine from the carboy to the bucket, carefully, trying not to make a mess.  I then brought the carboy up to the tub to wash it, cleanse it, and sanitize it.  I meant to take a pic of all the sediment left in the carboy (there was a lot!), but I totally forgot.  Just trust me, there was quite a bit!  

I cleaned it out with my cleansing brush, sanitized it along with the auto-siphon and tubing, and took them all back down with me.

This process REALLY makes me wish I had another carboy because I would've been done a lot sooner.  Nonetheless, I siphoned all of the wine back into the cleaned and sanitized carboy...all while fighting with the tubing.  I would have put the bucket on the table to let gravity help me, but it was just too heavy.  Plus I needed to save my strength to lift the carboy!  

Once I got all the wine back into the carboy, I was left with quite a large space at the top, and a lot of gas.  I attached my degasser to my power drill and went to degassing and, again, not making a mess or a wine volcano!

I was able to get a lot of the gas out (I hope enough!), then I added the potassium metabisulfite, mixed it up, then added the liquigel and siligel, in their proper order, and mixed a little more.  After adding everything needed, I needed to top off the wine to within 2" of the top of the carboy, which took two bottles of finished white wine, as recommended by the instructions.  

Thanks to these bottles for contributing to the effort!

I mixed a little more just to make sure everything was combined.  

Before I put in the extra wines, I did manage to get a little taste just to see how everything is coming along.  My assessment is that it is still very green, but it absolutely has potential!  

So now there's more waiting, at least 7-10 days to allow the wine to clarify enough to start putting it into bottles, which I still need more of!  I only have about 10, so it sounds like I'll need to start either start drinking or asking for donations!  Or maybe both! :)

Happy wine-making! 🍷

Day 14!

Well, I totally figured that my wine would be done with its primary fermentation by today, but it's not quite ready.  

I cleaned and sanitized everything I could, then went to check on my wine.  

Against the side of my wine thief, it looks like it's ready, but the specific gravity is right at 0.998, which is 0.002 too high.  I'm hoping it just needs one more day to get to 0.996 or lower.  If not, I may have to consult my wine experts and see what I can do!  

Come on, wine!  Hurry up and be ready! :)

Favorite Wineries

One of my favorite places in the world (or at least the parts of the world that I've seen so far), is wine country in California--Napa and Sonoma.  I love the culture, the people, but I dislike how much it costs to visit (BOO).  If I'm ever rich and famous, I will absolutely have a house and a vineyard up in the area somewhere.

Mayo Family Winery - One of my absolute favorites.  They have a tasting room like no other--the Reserve Room.  They employ a chef (Hi, Clayton!), who makes food that compliments wines of the Mayo Family Winery.  It is such a great idea, I'm not sure why more wineries don't take this approach.  Every time I go to Sonoma/Glen Ellen, this is on my list of stops, and I usually like to try new wineries when I go there.  Totally unique and totally worth every penny.

Ferrari-Carano - I love this winery, too.  The tasting room is really nice and I don't think I've ever had a bad wine from this place.  It's also very affordable and the wines compliment all types of food.  You've probably seen their Siena, which is exceptional for such an inexpensive wine.

Benziger Family Winery - I've actually got a vine at this winery!  I probably will never reap the benefits of that vine, but that's ok.  This is one of the first wineries I ever visited when I first started enjoying wine.  I learned about their biodynamic methods when I was in college (and yes, I took a wine-tasting class in college and actually got credit for it!), and it was so interesting that I had to come visit.  I encourage you to go to their site and learn about biodynamic wines, it's a pretty cool idea.

Cakebread Cellars - I think lots of people enjoy this wine.  Each of the wines that I've tasted has such depth and character, they're truly an experience in each bottle.  I tend to hoard these wines because they're just that good and I always want to have some on hand, just in case!  If you ever go to this one, pay the extra money for the reserve tasting.  Absolutely worth it.

I hope you get to visit these wineries and love them as much as I do!  They're very special to me and are part of the reason I was inspired to make my own wine.  I can't wait to go back for a visit.