2020 Meritage Plus
October 2020
I’m great at complicating things. My intention was to produce 2 wines this fall: 1st run Merlot-heavy Bordeaux blend that includes Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Malbec, and Petit Verdot — and a 2nd run wine using the pomace from the 1st run.
Then Lorraine & I toured the Biltmore Estate, and in the wine tasting I tried a wine that is a mixture of Bordeaux and Rhone grapes + Zinfandel. That got me thinking. So … I ended up substituting 4 lugs of Zinfandel for 4 lugs of Merlot. Still gonna make 2 wines, a 1st and 2nd run …
During pressing I got a hare-brained idea and put free run wine (wine drained from the pomace without pressing) of both Merlot and the Vinifera Blend in the 54 liter demijohn, with the intention this goes in barrel #1. That wine is called Meritage.
Then there is this wine … the pressings from both Merlot and the Vinifera Blend, plus all the Zinfandel were combined. Since the other wine is “Meritage”, and this one is a similar blend plus Zinfandel, I dubbed it “Meritage Plus”.
Meritage — this is a name coined by the Meritage Association in the late 80’s to provide non-Bordeaux wineries with a way to identify their wines as a Bordeaux-style blend, without infringing on the “Bordeaux” copyright & trademark.
This wine is the pressings of 4 batches, which I’ve condensed into this log. As I’m keeping 1 gallon of each of those wines, those logs remain available.
I bottled 1 gallon of the unoaked blend to compare against in the future.
In February 2022, Eric & I bottled the main batch.
Ingredients
| Grape | Merlot 1: 144# Merlot from Lanza Vineyards, Suisun Valley, CA, American fermentation oak, SG 1.102
Merlot 2: 144# Merlot from Lanza Vineyards, Suisun Valley, CA, French fermentation oak, SG 1.102 Vinifera Blend: 36# each of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Malbec, and Petit Verdot. French fermentation oak, SG 1.100 Zinfandel: 144# Old Vine Zinfandel from Lodi, CA, American fermentation oak, SG 1.090 |
| Maceration Enzyme | 6.5 total tsp Scottzyme Color Pro |
| Fermentation Oak | 2 lb shredded French oak, medium toast
1 lb shredded American oak, medium toast |
| Yeast | 3 packages Red Star Premier Rouge |
| Nutrient | 12 tsp Fermax + 6 tsp Fermax each |
| Sulfite | potassium metabisulfite added at various points (see below) |
| Aging Oak | 5 oz medium toast Hungarian oak cubes in the barrel |
Method
| This first section is an amalgamation of the starting of the 2020 Merlot, Vinifera Blend, and Zinfandel wines. 1 gallon of each of these wines is preserved separately so I’ll have 5 bottles of each available for later comparison. | 10/10/2020 |
| Crushed & destemmed the grapes. Grapes at 52 F, have to warm up to 65 F before inoculation.
Added Scottzyme Color Pro for improved color extraction and 1 lb fermentation oak. |
10/10/2020 SG see above |
| Temperature rose to 67 F in the afternoon. Added 12 tsp Fermax and yeast to each fermenter.
Average SG is 1.100 |
10/11/2020 SG see above |
| Added 6 tsp Fermax to each fermenter. | 10/14/2020 SG 1.058 to 1.060 |
| Medium pressed the pomace of the Merlot 1, Merlot 2, and Vinifera Blend (free run went into Meritage blend). Medium pressed the Zinfandel. | 10/20/2020 SG 0.997 |
| Racked, filled barrel with excess in smaller containers. | 11/20/2020 SG 0.995 |
| Racked smaller containers, prepping to rack barrel. Homogenized all smaller containers. This produced 3 gallons of topup wine. | 02/25/2021 SG 0.995 |
| Racked the barrel and mixed in the topup wine to homogenize the wine. Added 3/4 tsp K-meta. Racked back into the barrel + topup jugs. | 03/07/2021 SG 0.995 |
| Added 3/4 tsp K-meta. | 06/05/2021 SG 0.995 |
| Added 3/4 tsp K-meta. | 09/06/2021 SG 0.995 |
| Bottled the reserved gallon of unoaked wine, producing 5 bottles. | 09/26/2021 SG 0.995 |
| Added 3/4 tsp K-meta. | 12/10/2021 SG 0.995 |
| Racked the barrel. Added 1 tsp K-meta and 12 oz glycerin, and bottled. | 02/12/2022 SG 0.995 |
Notes
| Yield | 5 bottles unoaked wine 68 bottles of barrel aged wine |
| Alcohol | 14.3% |
| 02/12/2022 | At bottling time, the wine has a fruitiness that differs from the Meritage, due to the Zinfandel. Eric and I are very pleased. |
| 02/25/2024 | As is my current habit, two glasses were poured:
Unaerated: Fruity up front, the Zinfandel is prominent with a berry flavor. As soon as it’s swallowed, that disappears and the flavor is solid tannin. It’s mellow, not harsh, but totally dominating. Aerated: Used duck aerator. This is very different — the berry flavor is definitely blackberry. It slides into tannin, but the tannin is less dominant — it’s cooperative with the berry, then the berry fades. I tried something odd — I poured equal amounts of both wines together. This is not good — the oak in the finish is harsh. Very weird. The wine is 3.33 years old at this point — I’m going to ration the remaining 1.5 cases as I want to try this one at the 5 year mark. |
| – | – |
| – | – |
6 Responses
[…] Meritage Plus – The second barrel contains everything else, and is roughly 40% Merlot, 20% Vinifera Blend, and 40% Merlot. This wine is tracked in a separate log. […]
[…] Meritage Plus – The second barrel contains everything else, and is roughly 40% Merlot, 20% Vinifera Blend, and 40% Merlot. This wine is tracked in a separate log. […]
[…] Meritage Plus – The second barrel contains everything else, and is roughly 40% Merlot, 20% Vinifera Blend, and 40% Merlot. This wine is tracked in a separate log. […]
[…] Meritage Plus – The second barrel contains everything else, and is roughly 40% Merlot, 20% Vinifera Blend, and 40% Merlot. This wine is tracked in a separate log. […]
[…] The pressings from the Merlot and Vinifera blend, plus all the Zinfandel, goes in barrel #2, which is Meritage Plus. […]
[…] Meritage Plus – The second barrel contains everything else, and is roughly 40% Merlot, 20% Vinifera Blend, and 40% Zinfandel. This wine is tracked in a separate log. […]