Sage & pistachio follow-up

Strained and sweetened and filtered the liqueurs we're targeting for the June 13 party.

The sage / lemon is a beautiful, clear yellow. Very attractive. Very lemon scented. Really didn't need filtering.

The pistachio was a real hassle. I realized I chopped the nuts too fine when I started it, but decided to go forward anyway. Took only a couple of days to develop into 80% green mud and a little clear-floating alcohol on top. Ran it through a cheesecloth strain first, and squeezed out what I could. Then a paper towel. Then coffee filters. The last stage must have taken an hour and multiple filters, as each would get clogged with nut-dust. And while it all was happening, impatience set in and I added the proscribed amount of syrup without figuring what booze-loss I had because of all the filtering. La. Finished product id a greeny yellow, clear but not sparkling like its sage sibling. Will taste in a month.

Sage liqueur for June 13 2009 party

And why not. The amaro won't be nearly ready, and this might be a little bitter - a balance to the anisette.

• 14 sage leaves
• 2 cloves
• 1.5 cups dry white wine
• 1.25 cups vodka
• skin of one lemon, no pith

Combine the above and let set for 2 weeks.
Strain and filter.
Combine with

• 1 cup simple syrup

Let age for 4 to 8 more weeks weeks.
That makes it a little tight. The minimum aging, 4 weeks, puts us at May 29. Party day gives us 6 weeks. (Maybe it's tme to start a quicker aging nut liqueur.)

I'm using a 12.5% Italian pinot grigio, and a 40% (Tito's) vodka. And I think that gives a final product of about 18.3% alcohol.

Anisette for the June 13, 2009 party

Just started a 750 ml btch of anisette for the party. Same herb mix as the first attempt, but I'm moving away from K1 - or about 2 cup K1 and 1 cup Tito's Hand Made.

What other after-wine booze shall we make?

Date set for 2009 wine & puttanesca party

and, image maybe set, too. June 13 - the second Saturday in June. The back side text lists all the wine-makers, the tradition, the times &c.

S&L 2008 wine finally oaked

This morning we added 6 Barrel Mill spirals to the tank - 4 medium toast American oak, 2 medium toad French oak.

Will leave them in until we bottle, and I don't think we have any plans to bottle until the tank might be needed again for the the next vintage. Will draw this June's party wine directly from the tank.

Anisette, take 2

Yesterday filtered the alcohol (maybe a half dozen passes through cheese cloth) and added the simple syrup. It all has a yellow tinge from the herbs - makes me think that commercial anisette must be made from oils and extracts rather than from infusions.

Smells delicious. Looks completely integrated this morning. Will taste in the next day or so. Recipe did not call for further aging. Just about filled a 375 ml bottle.

Anisette, take 1

Well, I've been jonesing for an anisette, and we didn't have any in the house, so:

Per Dona & Mel Meilach in Homemade Liquors, page 83:

• 2/3 tbsp anise seed
• 1/2 tsp fennel seed
• 1/2 tsp coriander seed
• 1.5 cup vodka

Mortar the seeds, and put into the vodka for 1 week, shaking daily, for one week. Then strain and add

• 1/2 cup simple syrup

No other aging needed. I figure the final produce will be about 30% alcohol - I used 40% alcohol Kettle One for the booze.

S&L 2nd racking of 2008 wine

Took us longer to get to this than I realized - 1st racking was back on Jan. 4.

We racked the three 5 gallon carboys and the one 3 galon carboy all together into the 100 liter steel tank, and will oak it all there. Hopefully we'll choose & order the oak in the next day or two. Certain of medium toast (I think we want to leave it in until bottling, but we're not likely to bottle until summer or later.) But Barrel Mill spirals or Stavin cubes or staves? American or French or Hungarian? (I can't imagine myself distinguishing between these three, but maybe the better palates in the group can.)

Wine was very clean, color is right-on, a little tart. Pretty leggy: Lori thinks a higher alc. content than I'm guessing, but it's all guessing since we chapped late. Heading to someplace good.

Feb. 2009 Amari, step 4

Step 4 complete. Filtered the amaro through cheese cloth and stoppered. Tasted it off my fingers - it's pretty raw. There's a reason it wants 8 months. Thickness and viscosity of the liquor was just about right on, though. Open on December 4, 2009 - now that's a nice Xmas gift!

Feb. 2009 Amari, step 3

Step 3 completed. I've strained the herbs from the sugar / vermouth mixture, and mixed the liquor with the grain alcohol tincture. This will sit for a day or two, and then it gets strained, corked, and shelved until November or December of 2009 - it'll make a nice Xmas gift to myself, eh?

The combined drink is now 36.8% alcohol. (250 ml of 75.5% grain alcohol + 500 ml 17.5% vermouth.) The color is a yellow / amber, and very milky right now, but I'm guessing the latter is from all of the suspended particles.

And, a first amaro label

The height of self indulgence. Maybe the bitterest herb in the Feb. amaro is centaury - supposedly used by Centaur Chiron to treat his own wound from that nasty poisonous arrow of Hercules. That didn't work out so well, but the herb got named. So, why not, Centaury Amaro. The image is by Donato Creti, "The Education of Achilles by Chiron" 1714 Oil on canvas Musei Civici d'Arte Antica, Bologna.

Oh, hell, later that same afternoon - here's another:

Feb. 2009 Amari, step 2

The grain alcohol has been strained, and the herbs that were in it have been transferred to the vermouth / sugar mixture. The alcohol is a red brown color (lower left of the image). Can't guess whether the vermouth will retain the milkiness that's in the photo here - it did not have that before adding the herbs.

We'll be away next week when the step 3 should happen, so this steeping step will last a day or two longer than called for.

Obama Sauvignon labels for B & L

Okiedoke. B asked if I could cook these up. Took me a while to get my head into it. Here are two variations on a theme, b&w. Might be nice to color the wreaths. Even hand color them after printing. (click for full sized images)

Amaro me, Dr. Memory

Started on the Amaro recipe at about.com. The hard to get herbs all came from Aphrodisia, and the grain alcohol and vermouth from Slope Cellars. Since the recipe is silent on amounts for the roots, I used 5 grams f each, and where I had dried herbs rather than fresh, I used a teaspoon. And where I has leaves instead of root, I winged it. So:

• Lemon balm 1 tsp
• 5 leaves fresh sage
  
• 10 leaves fresh rosemary
• Centaury plant 1 tsp. dried
• 15 juniper berries
• 5 cloves, check
• 1/2 inch cinnamon stick
  
• Orris root 5g.
• Calmus root 5g.
• Gentian root 5 g.
• Blessed thistle I have is dried leaves, not root, and I am using 2 tsp
• Milk thistle 1 tsp dried
  

Step 1 is complete. Sugar is dissolving in vermouth, herbs are steeping in grain alcohol. More work a couple of times in the next week or two, then 8 months of waiting.

2007 labels

B has asked for me to post the 2007 labels. Here are most of them - there are others that it would be hard to imagine fitting onto a bottle. All jpeg or gif, all web-safe colors. When I print these I do them on plain paper, usually from a text document with the images in a table. Word or zoho or whatever.

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Obama Sauvignon

Laura and I bottled the first of our three cboys--yield of 25 bottles. We'll bottle the other two cboys this weekend. We tasted it, and I tasted it before the bottling with Steve and Lori. Pretty good. Great color, and a nice array of notes--chocolate, pepper, and a little bit of plum. I said faint cherry to Laura--who responded correctly, plum. It's intriguing to think of how it will drink in a year or two--at this point it's just a little more than three months old.

Aged of Re-Zin

I've been wanting to do this for a while. Took 3 liters of the 2006 Zin-Alicante, unbottled it, put it together in a jug with a bit more of the Barrel Mill medium toast oak, a bit of meta, and put an airlock on it. Half wanting to just plain experiment with more oaking, and half wanting to have some of that vintage with less fizz. And it'll give me a good reason to make a new label and a bad pun.

Peter first-racks his 2008 Cab. S.

Peter came by and first-racked his 2008. We both tasted it - but Peter has a sinus infection and couldn't tell anything. We should taste his & S&L's, or even better, when B & Laura bottle, taste all three. I thught P's wine tasted a little more berryish than ours did a few weeks ago - but really we need to go head to head. Remember, Peter's has a lower alcohol content than S&L's and B&L's.

We topped off the racking with the jug that S&L had in addition to their carboys from their first racking - so at this point there's 2 full cbs of Sclafani wine, and the second one has about 3 liters of mixed topper.

Onward and upward.

First rack

Just a note to say Laura and I racked Tuesday before last, 1.13. There was quite a bit of sediment but it was pretty well behaved. It stayed where it belonged and we were able to siphon off most of the wine. We tasted each of the three cboys, and they were triplets. There's a little fizz at this point, and the the taste is quite deep and dark for a wine so young. Pepper, chocolate? Probably a little of both, and some sour cherry. Hard to say much more at this point--it needs the clarification of oak.

We added a dark roast infusion spiral to each cboy last Friday and we will take it out in a day or two and then bottle. We wanted medium roast, but the people at PIwines told us that leaving the dark roast in for a week or so should have the same effect.

Maraschino - Jan. 2009

I'm not going to cross-post all the stuff from the personal blog, but I'll track our Maraschino effort here, and any other fortified drink we try to make.

The Maraschino was assembled on Jan. 4 - images below.

Two weeks later, after turning the drink now and then, the oils looks like they have integrated, the orange peel is saturated.

S&L 1st racking of 2008 wine

Lori and I racked our 4 carboys today (one of which goes to Peter). A couple of hours with clean-up. Drew everything off very cleanly, maybe could have been a bit more aggressive, but I don't think it would have made too much difference. We filled three 5-gal carboys, one 3-gal carboy, and a jug that's 3 or 3 liters - I'll check. We were shy in that jug and topped it off with a Rhone blend. Given how clean everything looks, I'll be surprised if we use all of the jug to top off at the next racking.

Taste? Yes. Color is very, and I think the nose is already bigger than last year's finished wine - and maybe the finished 2006 wine, too. Taste is still pretty fruity. If I had more energy or brain cells it would probably be good to test the total acid: maybe I can make that happen.

We added K₂S₂O₅ , about 3/4 teaspoon per 5-gal, which I think translates to 45 parts per million, and we were pretty liberal about aerating the wine during the siphoning.

We didn't rack Peter's two CBs - Yo, Peter, you need to give it an hour.

And here are some pics:

Cellar archeology, 001 - cross post

I'm cross-posting this from my personal blog. Might be nice here.
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Hey, kids, we're dedicated to making the cellar more usable / less creepy-scary in 2009. Not exactly a resolution, more like a survival tactic.

So! Cellar Archeology entry 001!
There's a grape carton that a lot of our supplies are in - B's had it since I don't know when and it made it's way over to out cellar on September of 2006. It's got all sorts of stuff in it, some new and useful, some old and useful, some corroded metal implements that are just begging to experiment with your blood, some empty containers and some full but spoiled. I've decided to get rid of some of the older jazz, but am using Cellar Archeology to document them.

1. One half filled 500 cc jar of formerly liquid food grade enamel yellow paint, O'sullivan Paint Co., purchased some time in the past from Presque Isle Wine Cellars. Last year we bought a fresh jar of the same. Still liquid. It's what we paint the iron bottom piece of our press with. The current term of art is Gondola Enamel. Available in black, red, white, and yellow.
2. 4 oz. plastic container of formerly powdered sodium metabisulfate, packaged by Crosby & Baker, and - judging by the $1.75 price sticker - purchased at Party Creations. Who'd a thunk? We haven't used sodium metabisulfite for cleaning these past three years - we use potassium metabisulfite. Probably why this sat around until it solidified.
3. Plastic container, empty, which formerly held 50 Campden tablets. Another form of sodium meta. Price tag says it was purchased at L.J Lapide, Inc., $2.49. Mrs. Lapide is who the group has traditionally bought it's (CA) grapes from - until this past year when we bought LI grapes directly from the grower.
4. Cracked, dirty, empty plastic container. Skanky. 120 cc of nothing you want to put your tongue near.
5. This I like, and if I wasn't dedicated to cleaning out the cellar, I'd keep it, just as it is. 10 oz. Kerr "self sealing" mason jar, once filled with peach butter from Centennial Farms, Augusta, MO 63332 (Send for our catalog), and re-used to hold tartaric acid, with a sticker over the original label and on the lid. Rust on the lid, residue inside the jar. A thing of beauty. Who ate the peach butter?
   

Last of the 2007 production ready for tasting

Six weeks since Peter's 2007 cbs were oaked.
He should give it a taste and decide whether to leave in the existing oak, add new, or pull it.

Corks and chips

Hi,

Laura and I are going to rack soon, and, depending on what we find, we may want to add wood chips. I'm thinking it's a way of bringing the content of the cboys up to the rim. I'm also thinking that even if we have to rack one last time before bottling, there's no harm in introducing the wood at this point.

We should also take a look at corks and other supplies before we place the order. Do you guys want to go through the supplies and place the order, or do you want us to come join you--perhaps one evening this week?

Best,
Bernardo and Laura

Fresh Air interview with Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher

Our west coast buddy JP sent us this link to Terry Gross interview of Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher, who write the Tasting column at Wall Street Journal wine columnists. Very nice.

U.C. Davis wine scoring system

I've mentioned a few times that the UC Davis system, as described by Alison Crowe in her book, seems sane and accessible.

Here's an on-line description of it at Finias. There's also a 20 point scoring sheet here. I really find this method a lot more approachable than a lot of what I read about.

CB migration

We moved B&L's cbs across the street last evening (day 38), tasting one of them first. Tasting comments?

Tasting the 2006 Zin~Alicante

Just an FYI - opened a bottle of the 2006 Zinfandel / Alicante blend. From the label (which I remember making), it could have gone into the bottle as early as the beginning of June, 2007.

I decided before opening it I would decant it. A quick taste confirmed why - fizzy. But 10 minutes later, not so and very nice. Very cherry. Color is super - thank you to the black A.B. grape. No idea whether it's tasting differently from a year ago. We do have a completely unoaked (naked) bottle left (1), but we don't have any that went through a a longer oaking. Am half tempted to take 5 bottles, put them in a gallon jug and do the deed - maybe with the leftover spirals from Peter's 2007 cbs.

2008 day 37, 28th since pressing

Quiet. Occasional bubble in that one Pace / Dawson volcano - really makes you wonder why it's so much gassier than its friends.

Having my first taste of the Cheatle / Lewis cd that's a mix of free run and press -
great color -
still very fruity, sharp berries, and not very complex nose
a tad tart and maybe, I can't tell, a tab hot (but that's probably worry and not actual tasting)
but already very drinkable
Obviously need to get Lori or someone else with an actual palette to give it a go. When we do, we should compare it to Peter's unchapitized wine to see about that hotness.

It's begging for oak.

Girl in the stars Cabernet

Been fooling with lots of Library of Congress images. This one's from a 1928 stereo card.

Day 27, relative quiessence

Much calmer down there - the staring to bubble ratio has gone way up. Even the Pace Dawson volcano cb.

Here's a couple of pics. Left, Bernardo & Laura on press day. Right, bubblers on day 27.

The guy on the left doesn't wear glasses...

... so I must be the guy on the right.Image at Library of Congress.

A few other images: Sicilians at a bar; Wine Song; chorizo, eggs, bread and wine; kosher wine inspection;

Fab Cab (Magog) label

Day 22, 2008

Infrequent bubbles in most of the cbs; still power-bubbling in that one B&L cb. No other changes of note. Some floating seeds and schmutz in all, but not much.

22 days total, 15th day since pressing, at least 2 weeks until first racking unless anyone wants to go faster.

Costs, 2008

I've kept spreadsheets on our costs the last couple of years.

Here's a link to 2008 costs. I'll put the same link in the permanent links section in the right margin.

I use the same sheet to track our joint costs and my private splurges - only the joint costs get calculated into the cost-per-bottle projection. Right now I've put a pretty random number out there for projected per-bottle costs. Anyone remember the real dollars we paid for the grapes?

Take 2 on victory label

Take 2 (on the right) is mo better. Less busy. Easier on the eye. The wine tastes better.

Super Crusher!

Crusher vs Crusher-Destemmer vs Destemmer-Crusher. Makes the head swim. Daniel Pambianchi weighs in at Winemaker Mag.

Vessels

Well, S&L are chatting about a small barrel. Seems like so much work & maintenance, and a 15 gal. barrel sounds like it may be too sharp and evaporate too much, but... It's fun to think about.

Wikipedia article on winemaking

2008 label, victory

Another great LOC image, a little depression, a couple of wars, and Barry's victory.