2014 Tempranillo
April 2014 – This kit was 30% off at American Brewmaster as they are eliminating the old label for WineXpert. Works for me!
Note on progress records: Most of the steps in a kit are identical, so I have a template for my progress notes. If a step is missing the date and SG, then it hasn’t happened yet, OR I have not updated my site yet. When filling in notes for a step I update the existing text, if necessary, and add additional notes, if necessary.
[This note was from my original web site. The new site (as of October 2018) is a different format, but I’m still using a general template so early on, the page might contain items that are not filled in, or may be later deleted if that item is not used.]
Ingredients
| Kit | WineXpert Selection International with Grape Skin Tempranillo kit |
| Bentonite | yes |
| Yeast | 2x Lalvin Bourgovin RC212 yeast (included in kit) |
| Sulfite | yes |
| Sorbate | yes |
| Kieselsol | yes |
| Chitosan | yes |
Method
| Put 1/2 gallon hot water in my new 8 gallon fermenter, stirred in bentonite using powered stirring rod.
Added grape concentrate, rinsed bag with water and added to fermenter. Topped up to 6 gallons with water. Stirred with rod and checked SG. Added two packets French oak chips and two packets toasted oak dust. [Yes, this is a LOT of oak, but there is more.] Stirred again. This kit includes 3 packages of oak: 30 g Toasted Oak splinters, 30 g French oak powder, and 30 g of oak cubes. The cubes are added at the second racking. Stretched the straining bag over a large stainless steel bowl, placing bowl on top of ends to hold it. The bag is big and stretchy. Poured grape skins into straining bag, catching liquid in bowl. Rinsed bag with a small amount of water and added to bowl. Tied the bag and added to fermenter with liquid in bowl. Sprinkled yeast on top. Note: I have no idea why this kit included 2 packets of yeast. It may be that it was a mistake during packing, but I added both anyway. |
04/30/2014 SG 1.082 |
| Racked the wine. Squeezed the juice out of the skins and added the juice back to the wine. | 05/06/2014 SG 1.008 |
| Stirred up sediment and racked to a 7 gallon fermenter. Using powered stirring rod, added the metabisuliphite & sorbate, then the chitosan. Racked back to carboy and bottle. Added the oak cubes. | 05/26/2014 SG 0.994 |
| Racked the wine. | 06/21/2014 SG 0.994 |
| Bottled the wine. | 01/22/2016 SG 0.994 |
Notes
| Yield | 28 bottles |
| Alcohol | 12.0% |
| 01/22/2016 | At bottling I was concerned that the wine had some level of oxidation. However, the aroma and flavor after 1.5 years in the carboy was fine. If anything, this one will need to age another year before it’s drinkable. |
| 07/04/2017 | At bottling I smelled oxidation. I always trust my nose … but this time it was wrong. Must have been something else that I smelled.
Oxidation never manifested itself in the wine. Last bottle is gone today … I suspect it could have aged another few years, but such was not to be! |