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My names not Cooper, but check me out!

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I have a good friend named Jay Cooper… whose mother was my 2nd grade teacher in elementary school. And yes, they had coopers in their history. With a name like that, you’d better.

But I’m not sure I had any coopers in my family. To the best of my knowledge, my father would be the one most likely connected to some coopers. I inherited all his winemaking equipment back in 2001 and in it was several tools used by the Cooper, one who makes and refurbished barrels. Look at that band-banger next to the bucket of beeswax. I promptly put it all to work. I’ve been making wine since 2000, and this cool little 5-gallon barrel that he had needed a refurbish. It was taken care of and it has become a sentimental thing to me now. These pics just show the process.

Wine Cellar Event Sat. Feb. 21

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On Saturday, we ate, drink and were merry with good friends. Over the last 2 years, I have really been digging the red wines. To me, reds *are* more complex animals and hard to figure out both in the tasting and making. But I drink what I like and it spans from sweet to dry. I look at the craft in the style of wine in reds more so than whites. It seems there’s more tinkering done in the cellar with red wines… and rightly so.

These are NOT all the wines that were available. They were this years, “featured selections.” My idea is to feature a diverse group of wines from sweet to dry and cheap to expensive, both red and white. People liked some, but not all. Seems my homemade peach wasn’t so hot. In fact, it tasted soapy 🙁 – But, I plan to play with it some more. You watch, I may just bring it around. My Plum wine however, was something to get jiggy to.

Here was the official line up, but it didn’t include many wines that were brought… and additional wines that were pulled from the cellar.

Reds

2007 Menage A Trios (a blend) – Folie A Deux
2007 Chianti – Ruffino
2005 Syrah Petite – Stags Leap
2005 Syrah – Columbia Winery
2004 Syrah – Red Bicyclette

Whites

2007 Voignier – Stags Leap
2007 Moscato – Sutter Home
2007 Gewurtztraminer – Chateau St. Michelle
2006 Savignon Blanc – Bogle
2007 Chardonnay – Bogle

Sparking

2005 Champagne – Valley Vineyards

My Homemade

2007 – Concord
2008 – Peach
2008 – Plum
2008 – Strawberry
2007 – Niagra Ice Wine (juice from a kit… real deal stuff)

Thankfully, my wife shares the passion enough to where we’ve sinfully set up a budget for wine-buying. The goal was to put some good stuff in the cellar, but it’s so hard to keep our hands off it! So the cycle repeats. We find ourselves being wine junkies to the extent of grabbing a quick bottle of the shelf to try something new. It’s cool when you find a good $5-10 bottle that you really like. The point of my featured selections is not to wow or woo. It’s to expose everyone to a variety of wines… and particularly, ones I’ve been drinking lately. Around here, we “drink what we like.” If you like it, and it happens to be priced right, remember who introduced you to it 🙂

Wine is fun and finding people who appreciate it the same is a blast. Thanks to all those who contributed something to the wine and food. What a great experience. See you at the next taste.

 

2007 Spring Wine Grape Workshop

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A well-rounded, all-day workshop. We toured the facility, the vineyard, and watched Bruce Bordelon (Purdue University, Ag Dept, Small Fruit Specialist) prune several variety of vines. There was LOTS of wine tasting and trying it various glasses.

It happened at Ertle Cellars in Batesville, Indiana. This cellar and winery is a brand-new, state of the art facility. Energetic and determined winemaker, Brian Ahaus and and Gary Ertle, the seasoned vineyard manager are running a very nice and clean operation with all areas well thought out. I plan to write up more here in the future, so check back.

 

The WinePod

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poddesripA friend sent me the most interesting link and I just had to blog about it. For the winemaking yuppy, try this on for size. A completely contained and integrated vessel for pressing, fermenting and making wine.

For me, the biggest challenge in making a stellar wine lies between tasting, interpreting and making changes. That is, truly understanding what you are tasting, making educated interpretations and ultimately the best decisions in changing the chemistry of the must now for your future award-winning wine. These interpretations are subjective in nature and you will not know how the decisions you make now will affect the wine several years down the road.

I could see using something like this to sharpen such decision-making skills… assuming one could afford it. However, once you own one, why would you need to learn anything since this thing will do it for you. It’s probably not for me, but I love the idea of checking the temperature, pH, brix etc… from work!

The WinePod is a state-of-the-art tool for small lot artisan winemaking. The WinePod integrates fermentation, pressing, and ageing in one elegant unit yet it is simple and easy to use. The WinePod controls the heat of fermentation and maintains appropriate ageing temperature using electronically controlled thermoelectric heating and cooling. Your wine ferments and ages in a variable-capacity stainless steel tank with an integrated wine press. The WinePod collects and transmits fermentation and temperature data wirelessly to your PC where our software offers winemaking guidance and manages your processes and records.

You would think they’d at least make it resemble a barrel? If you haven’t heard of the WinePod yet, you should in the next couple years as it will be marketed to commercial wine makers in 2007. All for now.

Ice Wine: CAN$30,000 for a half-bottle

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Photo above by Ralph Orlowski

Man, ice wine too damned good. And so, I’m actually making a batch of it. That is, I got a kit that has the juice of Riesling grapes that were allowed to freeze on the vine, then harvested pressed. 3-gallons for US$75.

It is a lot of work (with risk of failure) for a vineyard/winery to grow and produce ice wine. The government will not let anyone sell a wine labeled “Ice Wine” unless it has went through the true process. Instead, you may have seen it labeled (Iced Wine). Take a look at the difference in price, but you may still notice it can be higher than the traditional bottle of wine.

Ice wine is here to stay and people are paying big bucks for it. Naturally, I wanted to try it out at home. And I don’t have to wait for the first frost to start it this time 🙂 I’ll follow-up later with updates.

I’ll let the link to below say the rest.

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The queen bee doesn’t decide what happens in a colony. The workers do. They adjust her feeding to make her do what the majority says. The queen can’t feed herself.