Wednesday, July 1, 2009

On Newsstands Tomorrow!!

I’ve never been interested much in getting in the local news, but with our recent competition successes and overall fun making wine at home maybe I should. Margot facilitated contacting several local media outlets and the Derry News will have an article on the front page of the lifestyles section in tomorrow’s edition.

My early release copy brought me great joy as the pictures and the article were larger and displayed more prominently than I expected. It is a great article and should be a great way to spread the word about the fun we are having and how it represents locally made and grown, a wonderful NH tradition. I will post an online link when it becomes available.

Cheers!

--Jason

4 comments:

JoshMaz said...

Hey, congratulations! That is something to be excited about.

Chalktalk said...

Saw your article, congrats!

I've been making wine in NH for a few years as well...you have to love this time of year when it seem like every week there is something new from afield ready to ferment!

Would love to hear about your experience with strawberries...I'm 0-2 so far :(

Congratulations again!

Todd, Derry

Jason Phelps said...

Todd,

This is the third year for us making Strawberry wine and so far we have had good luck. This year we made one batch as we had in the past two years (frozen berries) but this week we started a fresh batch with berries from Sunnycrest in Londonderry. So far it is more pungent in aroma and deeper in color, but I won't know how that will translate into the finished product for a couple of weeks.

What was your experience?

Jason

Chalktalk said...

Hey Jason, just finished racking my '09 Blueberry and thought I would check back on your blog! So sorry I did not follow up on this post :(

My strawberry wine results were not very inspiring for my first batch of wine (been doing beer for 4-5 years).

Recipe was simple; 15lbs Strawberries from J&F Frams, 3lbs honey, sugar to 1.090 and the usual suspects of pectic enzyme, yeast nutrient, tannin and Red Star Cotes' des Blancs yeast.

Primary fermentation was active and robust on the fruit for 1 week. At first racking an 'off' odor became apparent...kind of like musty fruit..not pleasant..

Continued racking and bottling at the 8 week time frame did nothing to the odor..the wine itself tasted just OK, a little 'hot' as I didn't stabilize (12%+), although the 'nose' was enough to turn you off.

I have stored a few bottles hoping that it would age better. I know its not really recomended for fruit wines although worth a shot. Mixed with sparkling water over ice, it was very nice although not my overall intention :)

Everyone loves my Blueberry so that's a staple every summer, 12 gallons this year. What is your typical batch size?

Experimented with Cranberry with moderat success and looking forward to my first apple this fall!

Looking forward to hearing back!

Best regards, Todd