Wine and Grandkids
Happy Sunday! Been a very busy month or so since my last entry, but I will try to be more punctual going forward. The great news is that baby Sophie is home, huge thanks to all the excellent NICU staff who walked with Eric and Christine every step of the way. Sophie is now up to 6 pounds, is eating and sleeping well, and is getting into her routine. Big brother Hunter is very solicitous of his little sister, looking forward to watching her grow.
On the wine front, I have been a little slack but jumped back into things this weekend. I racked and stabilized everything that has been bulk aging, and got the beetroot and the sweet potato in the bottle. The beetroot was a little disappointing, not sure why I expected more out of it but it is really rather pedestrian. The bold purple color has faded to more of a burnt orange, and the taste is a little thin, although it has lost most of the earthy taste. I'll give it a few months to settle down from the bottle shock and see where it is then. The sweet potato was closer to expectations. It is also a little light as far as mouthfeel goes, but I back sweetened it with 1/2 cup of light brown sugar, and I think it will have a good flavor as a chilled back porch wine, or maybe a fall fire pit wine. It still has a nice rust-orange color and tastes somewhat like a off-dry white blend. I don't think either of them will be wines I am in a hurry to make again, but the sweet potato will be higher up the list than the beetroot.
It's summertime in the south, which means peaches are abundant. My peach wine is far and away the most requested by family and friends who have had the good fortune to merit a bottle, and as my supply from the last batch is getting a little low I decided I needed to start another batch. Peach juice lacks the body to stand well on it's own, so this wine has a chardonnay base to give it structure and peaches to add the flavor. Like most fruit wines, it's also fairly quick to make, I will likely have it in the bottle by labor day.
I'm also contemplating some additional dessert wines. I am a big fan of port-style wines, and though they are primarily thought of as dessert wines I can sip them all day long. Well, a lot of the day maybe. They are much higher gravity than standard wines, and while my tolerance is still about what it was in my younger days my recovery time requirement is quite a bit longer! Port-style wines are traditionally fortified with brandy, although there are now yeast with enough alcohol tolerance to ferment fruit to the 18-22% ABV typical for that style wine. True "Port" wine comes from Portugal, specifically the Douro Valley region. Back in the day, long before climate controlled ships or air travel, wines from this region were fortified with brandy to protect and preserve the wine during the long journey on the sea. Port wine is usually very sweet, but the sweetness balances out the higher alcohol content nicely. Since the brandy is added midway through the fermentation process, there is still a fair amount of natural sugar present that hasn't yet been consumed by the yeast. The alcohol in the brandy kills the yeast cells, preserving the natural sugars. No sugar is added to true port; the sweet taste comes from the pure unfermented natural sugar present in the ripe grapes that make port wine. Modern dessert wines, especially those made with fruits other than grapes, do have sugar added, both at the beginning of the fermentation process and on the back end, as fruits other than grapes just don't have enough natural sugar to even make wine, much less a port-style dessert wine. More on dessert wines next time. Have a good week!