If you’ve been reading this blog, you probably know that after getting better each year, our third attempt at winemaking went horribly wrong. It actually started out extremely promising. Then it went in the barrels and. . .ick. A nasty musty aftertaste. Now I think we’re catching the first clue to what caused this.
We’ve been scrupulously clean, which they say is the key. Wash everything down thoroughly with sulfite water before every contact with the wine. That leaves our hands and hair dry as dust, but so far so good.
Now we find out we were storing the barrels in absolutely the worst way you can possibly do it. Filled with water to keep them swollen and tight. Then washed out with sulfite water before the wine went in. Turns out that’s never enough. All those nasty wine-killing molds can hide in the cracks just waiting to spoil your wine.
Turns out, according to these guys and others, we should have thoroughly cleaned the barrels and stored them dry after burning a sulfer wick in them. Only just before we were to use them should we have rehydrated them and added a sulfite cleaning solution and cleaned them. Arrrg. Stupid mistake and the Syrah is paying for it. Well, live and learn.
On a lighter note. Our Mountain Lion, Joaquin, seems to be back. Out in the pasture, I found a gigantic cat footprint near some pretty deep impressions of deer footprints (which meant those deer were running fast!) I like the idea of a mountain lion, but I hope he maintains his taste for venison and never starts yearning for goats or horses or terriers.
Hello! I thought maybe Cowboys would like some Christmas fun too. Check out MerryPages.com which is a Christmas blog that also features a database of Christmas movies and music with lyrics. Feel free to check it out! 🙂 Merry Christmas!
Enjoyed your story about the barrel. Yup, did the same thing myself once. One new barrel down the drain (hey, it makes a really good decorative piece next to our garage, and we made a swell table out of the first French Oak barrel we purchased after it spoiled). But don’t give up! You can also make really good wine in “beer barrels” — and, what’s nice about those 15 gallon puppies is that they’re easy to handle — and no cracks to get “infected” with bacteria, microbes, etc. Our blog is at http://www.winemakersjournal.blogspot.com Hope you’ll come and share your experiences with our group … and, starting a group on Facebook (also called “Winemakers Journal”) so we can share our horror stories, and [hopefully!] avoid those mistakes. Cheers!