Growing grapes and making wine in Bellevue
Posted in gardening, rhubarb wine on May 29th, 2008
This time last year, I was trying to make up for lost time, “better late than never!” I thought as I belatedly weeded, watered, and fertilized. I didn’t want spindly plants this year, so I tended my rhubarb in March. The payoff came in May when I harvested 1 lb 14.5 oz (865 g), putting […]
Posted in competitions and events on May 1st, 2008
As I said in my previous post on shipping homemade wine, one of my readers and I are experimenting by shipping our wines to each other. He shipped two bottles of tomato wine, and they arrived in great shape - no breaks, no leaks. I sent back two bottles of mead. I hope they arrive […]
Posted in winemaking on Apr 14th, 2008
I just received this very impressive sample kit from the Oak Solutions Group. There’s a lot to experiment with: different types of oak, in different forms, with different levels of toast. I hope to be trying it all out, and writing about it, over the next year. To get one for yourself, follow this link, […]
Posted in climate & weather, gardening on Apr 2nd, 2008
This is not what I expect my backyard to look like in Spring! I start paying close attention to the weather this time of year, because I’m starting my garden and a lot of what I grow will end up in a primary fermenter. How’s the weather looking thus far? It felt cold to me […]
Posted in commercial wine on Mar 3rd, 2008
The Lady of the House has a sweet tooth, so we don’t always see eye to eye when it comes to wine. This sweet rhubarb wine from Lynfred Winery was a big hit with her, but it was also one of the rare sweet wines that was well balanced enough for me - we both […]
Posted in peapod burgundy on Feb 20th, 2008
This blog is about making wine, so I don’t talk about my vegetable garden very much. My gardening and winemaking overlap in some ways like rhubarb wine, oregano wine, tomato wine, and the one-pint (500 ml) batch of wine from my own grapes. Well there’s going to be some more overlap this year, because I’m […]
Posted in enology, mead, measurement & testing, winemaking on Feb 8th, 2008
I talked about five of my meads yesterday, and how I might decide if they were ready to bottle. I looked at clarity and specific gravity (SG) because I didn’t want the mead throwing off sediment or fermenting in the bottle. I tasted, probably the most important test of any wine or mead, and I […]
Posted in enology, mead, measurement & testing, storage and aging, tasting, winemaking on Feb 7th, 2008
I looked in on five meads yesterday to see if they were ready to bottle. I was looking for clarity, I tasted them to see if they were pleasant to drink, and I measured the specific gravity (SG), pH, and titratable acidity (TA).
Name
SG
pH
TA (g/L)
2004 Plain Mead
1.001
3.05
5
2005 Apple Mead
0.995
3.39
5.2
2006 Experiment (boiled)
1.000
3.27
6
2006 Experiment (no heat)
1.000
3.29
5.3
2006 Grape Mead
1.000
3.51
5+
Ready […]
Posted in tasting on Feb 1st, 2008
Which wines are right for Valentine’s Day? The ones you sip with chocolate, of course! I have some ideas about that, but it might be better to consult an expert. There’s none better than wine writer Natalie MacLean, who describes wine as,
liquid sensuality: Its heady bouquet stimulates the appetite and its velvet caress soothes that […]
Ok, it hasn’t got a lot to do with making wine, but I’ve been waiting a long time for tonight’s episode of Lost. I made a wine from Old Orchard Concord grape concentrate, yep the kind you buy in the grocery store, and labeled it in honor of the show. This sort of wine will […]