2020 Chardonnay
September 2020
In the summer 2020, Patrick asked me to make wine for his wedding reception, scheduled for October 2021. After a fair amount of thought, I made this one and a Cabernet Sauvignon.
Note: This is the first time I’m trying the new formulation of the Winexpert kits. Their new process produces a smaller volume that they claim is the same quality — in the past this would be a 12 liter kit. The jury is still out regarding if this is just a marketing gimmick.
I printed 2 labels for the wine — serious and funny. Patrick & Grace loved both of them, so 25% of the bottles at their wedding reception had the joke label.
Ingredients
| Kit | Winexpert Reserve Australian Chardonnay 6 week/10 liter kit |
| Bentonite | 30 g |
| Fermentation Oak | 45 g medium toast American oak chips 20 g medium toast American oak granular (dust) |
| Yeast | Lalvin EC-1118 |
| Sulfite | as needed |
| Sorbate | N/A |
| Kieselsol | provided in kit |
| Chitosan | provided in kit |
Method
| Added 2 cups hot tap water to the primary fermenter and sprinkled the bentonite on a bit at a time, then stirred until dissolved.
Added contents of grape juice bag. Rinsed it with warm water and added to fermenter. Topped up to 5.75 gallons, as my per usual method. Put oak chips & dust in bag and submerged in the wine. Sprinkled yeast on top. |
09/04/2020 SG 1.090 |
| Racked. Moved to carboy. | 09/11/2020 SG 0.996 |
| Racked. Added kieselsol/chitosan + 1/4 tsp K-meta. Threw away the enclosed K-meta/sorbate pack as sorbate is unnecessary in a dry wine. | 09/16/2020 SG 0.994 |
| Racked. Added 1/4 tsp K-meta. | 09/27/2020 SG 0.994 |
| Added 1/4 tsp K-meta. | 12/25/2020 SG 0.994 |
| Racked, added 1/4 tsp K-meta, bottled. | 04/17/2021 SG 0.994 |
Notes
| Yield | 25 bottles |
| Alcohol | 13.0% |
| 04/17/2021 | At bottling the wine is good. Not as good as the Cabernet Sauvignon we bottled today, but quite good. |
| 10/24/2021 | We served this wine and the 2020 Cabernet Sauvignon at our son’s wedding reception last night. Both wines were a hit. I am highly pleased with the new WE formulization. |
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