Archive for the ‘Other Musings’ Category

Won’t get into the details – but an interesting, challenging, and tough week. Thanks to my family who where there for me. It meant a lot. More than I can say.

Hey, did I ever mention that I have an awesome 20 year old son named Alex who is a drummer in a Rock ‘n Roll band? Wise, Young & King is their name, and these guys are “GOOD!” That is, if you like the sounds of classic rock – and WY&K write all their own material. I’m listening to one of my favorite songs right now that has a LOT of meaning to me. I think this song was written especially for me sometimes. Or.. especially for “US.” It’s called “Angels Cry.” You can have a listen to it, along with a few other of their songs, here. Tell me what you think. They are all awesome, but of course, I’m especially proud of that drumming sound….

I was going to provide an update on my earlier Maple Wine that I started. My math must have been wrong, when I was checking the SG and adding water – I’ll write more on that when I go over my notes.

This evening, I discovered I had forgotten to add the Isokleer to the Liebfraumilch. I was wondering why it was still cloudy. This was an inexpensive kit wine that I wanted to make and bottle fairly quickly – six weeks to bottle – so I’d have some available for a special event that is/was to occur next weekend. Things are up in the air – we’ll see. Maybe. I don’t know.

I am still undecided as to how I will proceed with the “Special Wine” I’ve been carefully making and taking care of. Trying to decide when I will blend them together to age – or let them age as they are now, and blend later.

I always wished things could be perfect – even though I’m a realist and don’t expect it – but striving for it is good, no? Trying? Hoping? Mediocrity is something I’ve never settled for.

Ok.. back to Wise, Young & King!

Well, I hope she’s right! When I posted the Potato Wine recipe, I quoted Judith Irwin: “The maturation period is important, as this wine improves greatly with keeping.” And yes, this wine is only about six weeks. When I racked it off sediment today, I had a very small taste – and it was mostly a flavor of demerara sugar. The specific gravity today was 1.002 – I was expecting that as when I started it was high at 1.128 based on Irwin’s recipe.

It has cleared quite nicely on it’s own but there remains much trapped gas. I’ll spend some time tomorrow degassing it and then I’ll probably rack in another month, have a taste, probably add potassium sorbate because of the remaining sugar and then let it bulk age for awhile before bottling.

And that’s about all there is to report on the potato wine for now.

I did manage to get out fly fishing today. The afternoon looked as if it was going to turn out fairly decent – partly cloudy. When my “wee man” and I arrived at the small lake we were going to fish, we sat down and had a bite to eat first and then got into fishing. About half an hour, it began to rain. A few minutes later, I had a nice rainbow trout on the end of my line. As soon as that rainbow hit, the rain started to come down in a torrent. Bravely, the wee man stood by with the net while we got soaked. After the fish was netted, David decided he was heading to the car to get out of the rain. I was not long after him but left my gear in the hopes the rain would break and we’d return. It did stop after about half an hour – and I was able to give Colleen a call to let her know I’d caught a fish, knowing she’d be pleased!

We walked back to the water, had a few more casts when the rain started up again. And this time, thunder and lightning not far off. I decided to call it a day, but at least after a long winter, I did hook and land a fish the first time out. The fish will be breakfast.

It’s April Fool’s Day. Did you have any pranks pulled on you? I didn’t! I’m sure if my older sons were around, I’d have been the subject of some foolish prank or three. I can remember the first time I ever heard about April Fool’s Day. I was about four or five years old, and my mother told me something or other – I can’t remember what, but it was outlandish. She then smiled and shouted, “April Fool’s Day!” Then she explained the best she could to a four year old what it meant. I’ve been known to have pulled a few pranks myself on this day in history. And admittedly, I’ve been the victim of quite a few too. When you’ve spent a lot of your life working shiftwork, it can be easy to not remember what day exactly it is.

Anyhow, I’ve been degassing my Zinfandel. It continues to release lots of carbon dioxide when I vigorously stir it for five minutes, a few times a day. This evening, there was not quite as much foaming so I know I’m getting there. I would use the Fizz-X tool, but the carboy is filled to within an inch and a half of the mouth, and I’d have to siphon out some of the wine each time and then pour it back in. It’s been my experience that the Fizz-X tool does not help to release CO2 as fast as some claim. I should try it more often, perhaps.

Primary Fermentation

I’ve got a RJ Spagnols Cru Select Australian Bush Vine Grenache that I started on March 23. Seven days later, the SG is at 0.096. The wine is still in the primary fermenter. The instructions say to rack from the primary to the secondary on Day 14. That’s the longest I’ve seen a kit say to leave wine in a primary. I am thinking the extra time is to get as much extraction from the grape skins. I read somewhere that this also greatly aids with degassing the wine by leaving it in the primary for 14 days. I’m not sure about that. Part of me does not like the idea of leaving the wine in a primary for so long especially when I’ve been taking the lid off and stirring to get the grape skins below the surface every day. We’ll see how it goes, I guess!

Leonard Cohen

What’s Leonard Cohen got to do with winemaking? Not much exactly – but I have always enjoyed Mr. Cohen, and many a bottle of wine has been enjoyed while his songs have played in the background. This evening, CBC Television broadcast a one hour portion of Leonard Cohen Live In London. If we could have, Colleen and I would have watched it together but circumstances did not permit that (I’m in jail as I write this. Kidding). So, I sent Colleen a bottle of the Zinfandel I had made three years ago, we both opened one, and watched Mr. Cohen together at the same time. I guess you could call it almost a “virtual date.” Sometimes, you just do what you have to do, although I would have preferred to sing to her in person along with Mr. Cohen, “I’m Your Man.” I couldn’t really sing it over the telephone because our televisions sets seemed to have a gap of about 2 seconds. I’m quite uncomfortable as it is with my singing voice – I think in my entire adult and teenage life, the only people who have ever heard me sing before are my sons – and that’s mostly to fun Irish Rovers music. Thankfully, Colleen graciously does not laugh at me when I sing “I’m Your Man” to her.

If I get out of jail in time, we’re hoping we can take in Leonard Cohen live, together. In London. Ontario. I don’t think I’ll be able to sneak in a bottle of Zinfandel though.

One reason many people do not learn to truly appreciate wine is because of the appearance of “wine snobbery” that exists in the world of wine. It’s unfortunate as wine can be appreciated in many different ways. When I drink a glass of wine, I don’t always stick my nose into the glass and then stick my nose into the air and with flourishes of my hands, try to come up with grandiose words to describe what I’ve just sensed. Although, it can be fun and interesting to learn how to detect various aromas in wine – but it’s not necessary in order to enjoy it.

Another attitude that sometimes comes across as “wine snobbery” is that which suggests only some types of wine should be eaten with some types of food. While I agree that the right choice of wine will compliment dinner, I also know that sometimes, I can enjoy any type of wine with whatever food I happen to be eating. Interestingly, I came across an essay in the most recent issue (Mar/April 09) of Silver and Gold magazine by Michael Pinkus, entitled “You’re Having What With That?! The ‘myth’ of wine & food pairing.” Mr. Pinkus who is the Founder of Ontario Wine Review suggests that pairing wines with foods originated with pairing regional food with regional wine. But here in North America, we don’t have the same very distinct regional dishes that the Old World, where wine with dinner first originated, has. Pinkus writes in his article,

“However, we still haven’t fully developed “regional cuisine”, beyond what’s local. We’ve become accustomed to a culinary canvas of steak and frites, Kraft Dinner and hamburgers – and what in the world goes with that? For that I will give you my standard answer: Whatever the heck you want!”

Michael Pinkus suggests that we try anything with any wine, and experiment for ourselves. I say that is good advice!

I was glancing at the headlines of one of the local newspapers and noticed one about saving money on your wedding. I had no idea that the average couple, when they got married, spent almost 25 Thousand dollars on their wedding! That’s ridiculous. Apparently more and more couples are realizing how ridiculous it is to fork out that kind of money when really, it’s all about the celebration with friends, not enormously priced flower arrangements that will wither in less than a week, and all the other accouterments that are mostly just decorative.

Another way you can save money on your wedding costs is to consider making your own wine for the event. Depending on how many people will be attending, this could be a huge savings for you, and it’s likely you can make wine that will be comparable to that which would be served if you purchased it from the liquor or wine store. And how much can you save? Well consider that many venues and halls mark up the retail cost of a bottle of wine by double or more, making a ten dollar bottle of wine cost you twenty or more dollars and multiply that by 2 bottles (one red, one white) per table. Then consider that you could make 30 bottles of either red or white wine for around three dollars a bottle. If you have twenty tables at your wedding, that’s a savings of $680.00. I can think of a lot of things I could do with an extra $680.00.

You will of course need to do a little bit of planning. You’ll probably want to start your winemaking well in advance of the big day. If you decide to go with a more expensive ultra-premium wine kit for the red wine, think at least a year in advance to give that wine a chance to develop some maturity and character (if you don’t have a year, you can still use the wine – it just won’t be as great as it has potential for). You will also need to think about where you are going to store the bottles of wine you have made. This may also have a bearing on the type of closure you choose for your wedding wine bottles: Bottles that are sealed with real cork should be stored with the bottles laying down so that the cork does not dry out. The newer synthetic cork closures do not require this way of storage.

You could think about spending some of the extra money you’ve saved on unique bottles for your wine, and even your own custom labels. So not only might you save money on wedding by choosing to make your own wine, you can make the event even more personal by supplying your guests with something you’ve made yourself.

Many of the stores and shops that provide winemaking supplies and a facility for making wine on their premises also offer Wedding Wine Packages and can help you plan ahead and choose the right wine for your wedding day. They will have more information on any legal requirements that you might need to meet in order to provide your own wine at your wedding, and will know more about the venues in your local area that will co-operate with you should you decide to serve your own wine at your wedding.

The sun is shining brightly outside, and the other day I heard geese flying north. Although it’s still below freezing, warmer weather is sure to arrive. We’ve already had a number of days where the temperature rises to above freezing during the day, but drops below at night. Perfect weather for collecting sap from the Maple trees.

I’ve been thinking of purchasing some maple syrup to try making wine from that, but the price of the stuff is getting out of hand! One litre sells for $29.99 retail. When I was a young boy living in what is now industrial and residential but then was maple trees and farms, we had gallons of the stuff from our neighbours. Those were the days! It was fun to see the sap boiling outdoors in big cast iron cauldrons over an open fire that would be kept going 24 hours a day.

My potato wine has the appearance right now of a medium maple syrup. Not very appetizing as far as wines go. But it will clear eventually. I racked it into a 3 gallon carboy yesterday – it had been 7 days since I started it, and the specific gravity was 1.020.

The “Mystery” wine is showing much better fermentation signs now, although I did forget to take an SG reading. I’ll have to do that later today, and crossing fingers that it will be showing a considerably greater fermentation rate that previously.

Ah, the adventures of home winemaking!

More than four years ago, when my “wee man” was less than two years old, he began to play a guessing game that he still plays from time to time today.  It doesn’t hold quite as much fascination for him as it did when he was 18 months old, but he still has fun with it.

He’d fill a glass or some other container with water, and then find different things like marbles, acorns, pieces of wood, crayons – whatever he could get his hands on, and say out loud, “Sink or Float?” Then he’d try to guess what would happen when he dropped whatever item he had into the water – then clap his hands with a big smile on his face when he predicted correctly. Most of the time, he predicted correctly.  He was quite confused though when I showed him how he could make a pin “float” on water – when he dropped the pin, of course it would sink.

Yesterday, I started a RJ Spagnols Winery Series Red Zinfandel.  It came with 5.5 pounds of crushed grape skins which was put into a straining bag included with the kit, and then add to the juice before you pitch the yeast.  When I first added the bag of skins, it dropped to the bottom of the primary fermenter and stayed there for over 12 hours.  I stirred the must earlier today and the bag was still at the bottom.

This evening, I stirred the must again, and this time the bag of skins was floating on the top.  I wished the “wee man” had seen both the fact it had first sunk, and then later floated.  I wonder what he would have thought.

I’m still thinking about it myself, and I’m sure there is an obvious explanation, but I’m too tired to think much about it tonight.