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Wine in 3... 2... 1...
Mar. 27th, 2005 06:38 pmThe wine had stopped fermenting by last weekend, so I racked it off the lees and spent the next three days degassing it. Wednesday night I added the stabilizers and clarifiers, and left it to sit for a few days. Last night it was remarkably clear, and by this afternoon it was downright crystalline, so I figured that it was time to move on to the next step.
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atara and I sterilized three dozen bottles.
( They look like an alien structure )
Between the sterilizer pump on the bottle tree, and the brass fixture on the tap, sterilizing the bottles only took about fifteen minutes. I remember back to my beer-making days where cleaning and prepping the bottles took a significant part of the day. There is definitely something to be said for having the right equipment for the job. Next was the task of racking the wine a final time. I set the carboy up on the table and couldn't resist snapping a picture of the final product.
( I doubht that it would clarify much more than this. )
The bottling and corking stage went far easier than I had expected. Once again, I had spent the extra couple of dollars for a bottle filler, and it made the process fast, painless and clean. I wish I'd bucked up for all this equipment back when I was making beer. The kit promised to make 30 bottles of wine, but in the end we only got 29 2/3 bottles out of it. We put the last bottle in the fridge and shared it after dinner. It is very light, and quite sweet, with an underlying tartness from the green apple. It has a very slightly yeasty and sulphurous aroma, but neither of those translate to the flavour. Overall it is a very pleasant wine. I am pleased - especially for a first effort.
I'd say that the first batch of Chez Plonq (not quite) Private Reserve Riesling is a success. It should only get better after a week or two in the bottles.
( Yum! )
Once again, the final readings for specific gravity fell exactly in the mid-point dictated by the recipe. I guess that I must have done everything just about right. Out of curiousity I took an alcohol reading from the leftover wine after bottling. It clocks in at 10% on the nose. While it's not the 12-13% that I had expected, it's not bad either!
First
atara and I sterilized three dozen bottles.( They look like an alien structure )
Between the sterilizer pump on the bottle tree, and the brass fixture on the tap, sterilizing the bottles only took about fifteen minutes. I remember back to my beer-making days where cleaning and prepping the bottles took a significant part of the day. There is definitely something to be said for having the right equipment for the job. Next was the task of racking the wine a final time. I set the carboy up on the table and couldn't resist snapping a picture of the final product.
( I doubht that it would clarify much more than this. )
The bottling and corking stage went far easier than I had expected. Once again, I had spent the extra couple of dollars for a bottle filler, and it made the process fast, painless and clean. I wish I'd bucked up for all this equipment back when I was making beer. The kit promised to make 30 bottles of wine, but in the end we only got 29 2/3 bottles out of it. We put the last bottle in the fridge and shared it after dinner. It is very light, and quite sweet, with an underlying tartness from the green apple. It has a very slightly yeasty and sulphurous aroma, but neither of those translate to the flavour. Overall it is a very pleasant wine. I am pleased - especially for a first effort.
I'd say that the first batch of Chez Plonq (not quite) Private Reserve Riesling is a success. It should only get better after a week or two in the bottles.
( Yum! )
Once again, the final readings for specific gravity fell exactly in the mid-point dictated by the recipe. I guess that I must have done everything just about right. Out of curiousity I took an alcohol reading from the leftover wine after bottling. It clocks in at 10% on the nose. While it's not the 12-13% that I had expected, it's not bad either!
