Getting Serious - Made Rose Blend

In my last post I wrote about a plan for the final blending and cellar work for the 2009 wines. So it was into the cellar last week to get to work.

The first wine I worked on was the Rose' blend. I planned to use a 4 to 1 ration of the "press" Pinot Grigio to Zinfandel. This blend tasted very good in late June when I made a trial blend and tested it with my WGWNN friends.

So I blended 10 gallons of the "press" Pinot Grigio and 2 gallons with the Zinfandel. This Rose blend went into 6.5 and 5 gallon carboys and a few bottles left over to sample....

I was surprised when I tasted the blend; it was just not as good as I remembered it from the trial in June... it did not have the same Raspberry/strawberry fruit flavor, and it had more tannin in the finish. What happened????

My guess is that one of the carboys of the "press" Pinot Grigio had more tannin than the other, and that the final ML fermentations changed the flavors of the Pinot Grigio and Zinfandel

slightly. While it was a perfectly acceptable blend, it was just not as good and lively as my trial blend.

One of the procedures I try to follow, is to blend all containers of a wine together to get a uniform wine. e.g. You don't want one carboy to taste different than another... so I guess I forgot my rule and got caught....

So in an attempt to get back some fruit and mask some of the tannins, I added a small amount of Malvasia and a little more Zinfandel. I also added a small amount of tartaric acid to bump the acid slightly to make up for the lost of acid from the ML fermentation. {1 gallon Malvasia and 1/2 Gallon Zinfandel to the 12 gallons of Rose blend, and 1 teaspoon tartaric acid.}

The Malvasia and Zinfandel additions got the Rose blend back closer to my trial blend from June.

I shared a sample of the final Rose blend with my wine making friends Mike and Holly and Joe and Sandy last night and I think it's going to be a very good wine....

I'll probably give the blend a week or so to meld and bottle it to enjoy the rest of the summer.

Here's the label I intend to use for the Rose'. The artwork for the label was created by Joni Tanis. The colors in the drawing are a perfect match for the Rose'.

{Yes, this is the proper orientation for the label... I wanted a long label for a clear Bordeaux style bottle...}

Time to get Serious!

OK, the weather has warmed up and the wines are going through their final fermentations...How's that you ask? Well I find that the Malo Latic {ML} fermentation may not really finish until the wine warms up in hot weather.....

I do have an air conditioner in the wine cellar, but the temperature in the cellar may reach into the 70s when the outside temp is in the 90s...and that's the kick the wines need to finish ML and the reason I wait till late summer to bottle.

You can tell that the wines are going through the final ML by observing the fermentation locks: e.g. the wine will push up into the lock, and there will be some CO2 bubbles along the edges of the wine when poured into a glass.

Also at this time, I need to make my final blending decisions, Mix the blends, add fining agents, and do acid adjustments. Blending now will allow me to rack the wines in July/August and bottle a couple of weeks later.

So, time to get serious. All the trial blending and early tastings must come to a close and I need to make the final decisions. So out to the cellar for final tastings and inventory.

The inventory is critical piece of the blending decision, as it is important to have full containers when finished. e.g. a make a blend of 50% wine A and 50% wine B works great using 5 gallon carboys of each wine that goes back into the 2 -5 gallon carboys, e .g. full containers. Factional percentage blending, e.g. 33% this and 12% that and 55% other, leads to problems filling containers.

My 2009 wine Inventory:

• 10 gallons of the "Tre Palme" blend {mentioned in my last post. }The wine is stable and waiting to be bottled.


• 10 gallons of Pinot Grigio (PG) "press" wine. slightly pink from harder pressing, a different wine from the regular "free run" Pinot Grigio.


• 14.5 gallons Sauvignon Blanc (SB).


• 8 gallons "free run" Pinot Grigio (PG)


• 12 gallons Malvasia.


• 17 gallons Zinfandel (Zin)


• 17 gallons Nebbiolo

I tasted all the wines again, did another couple of trial blends and some taste tests with my WGWNN {Wine Group With No Name} friends and came up with this plan:

Make a "Harvest Festival" blend of 50% SB and 50% Malvasia. I made this blend in 2007 and liked it a lot. The floral orange blossom nose of the Malvasia and its richness tone down the grassiness and high alcohol of the SB. Make 13 gallons {2-6.5 gallon carboys} of the blend.

This will leave a 5 gallon carboy of the Malvasia to bottle on its own, and a 3 gallon and 5 gallon carboys of the SB to bottle on their own.

Bottle the "non-press" PG without blending. It is a nice wine on it's own, not that complex, but nice pear nose, very clean, and with good acid.

I'm finding that I like Rose' wine more these days, and the warm weather has me thinking of sitting in the shade with a nice chilled Rose'..... But I didn't make one you say! A trial blend of 4 parts "press" PG and 1 part Zin produced a nice Rose' wine...Nice color, clean, good acid and some nice stawberry/raspberry flavors from the Zin. {We should talk about how Rose is made sometime...}

I "tested" this Rose' blend on my WGWNN friends and it seemed to be a hit.

Use all the "press" PG {10 gallons} and 2.5 gallons Zin to make 12.5 gallons Rose'. I will probably put this into a 5 gallon carboy and a 6.5 gallon carboy, and bottle the rest {5 bottles}

This leaves about 9.5 gallons Zin. This Zin is a light, low{er} alcohol wine with good fruit and acid. The perfect "picnic" wine according to my WGWNN friends. Bottle this by itself.

And that leaves the Nebbiolo.... Quite a story behind this wine and I'm not sure what I want to do with it yet. I may want to hold over some for possible blending for next year. For now, bottle 1 case for tasting and evaluation. That leave 14 gallons in a stainless steel beer keg.

So after bottling I'll have:

4 cases "Tre Palme" blend {equal parts, SB, PG and Malvasia}

4 cases "Harvest Festival" blend {equal parts SB and Malvasia}

5 cases "Rose" blend {the "press" PG and some Zin.}

2.5 Cases PG

2 cases Malvasia

2 cases SB

4 cases Zin

1 case Nebbiolo and 14 gallon in stainless steel

Whew! Glad I got that figured out..... Now I just need to do it! So it is time for a few days of cellar work!