My First Homemade Wine From a Cellar Craft Kit

I've been making wine since 2004 and have used kits from several manufacturers, but Cellar Craft had not been one of them, until recently. At the 2011 WineMaker Magazine annual conference I reconnected with a number of people including Christina Carpenter who represents Cellar Craft from British Columbia. Christina asked if I had use the product before and I quietly admitted that I hadn't. Not losing a good opportunity she offers samples of a series of wines made from their kits, including reds that had been aged long enough to be drinking really well. I found every one of them to be stylistically accurate, aromatic, flavorful and well balanced. My favorites were the Amarone and the Red Mountain Cabernet.

The samples got me thinking that I should try several kits from Cellar Craft and see how outcome compared to the kits wines I had already planned to make. I also considered that as long as my influence resulted in a positive outcome that I could also enter the wines in competition to get even more feedback. Speaking of competition feedback, I recently wrote an blog for the WineMaker Magazine web site about the feedback one can get from wine competitions.

The distinction about the Showcase Collection from Cellar Craft that attracted my attention the most, are the grape packs included with the kits. I know from making juice and grape blends that the concentration of aromas, color and flavors all get a bump from the grape material.

Christina must have been reading my mind, not really since I made my intentions to use their product clear, and graciously offered my two free kits to make and enjoy. She didn’t ask for anything in return, but writing an article about my experience with the product is the least I can do to say thank you. For those of you who make wine from kits I hope this article will help you to better understand the product, and if you haven’t used it before, even consider doing so for yourself.

I got to pick my varieties and I went with my favorites from the tasting, the Amarone and Red Mountain Cabernet.

The first one I made was the Amarone. I have loved being able to make Amarone at home as it is so damned expensive!

I’ll let the pictures do most of the talking. The full instructions for the Showcase Collection Red Wine Kits can be found in Instructions section at Cellar Craft web site. 

( Adding the bentonite to warm water in the clean fermenter. )

( Adding the contents of the juice bag to the fermenter. )

( The muslin bag filled with the contents of the grape pack. The grapes were concentrated and sticky with heady aromas. So cool! )

( The kit contained two packages of oak powder used during the initial fermentation. )

( Right after the yeast was pitched. I realized I didn't take a photo of the active fermentation, so you will have to imagine what it looked like! )

When I racked the wine into the carboy I took a taste as I normally do. I was met with the pleasant aromas and concentrated fruit flavors typical to Amarone so I knew I had something good going on. I can’t wait to see how this wine develops in time.

We’ve since made the Red Mountain Cabernet as well. My wife noted after seeing the concentration of the juice from that kit that she feels like the Cellar Craft product is richer and more concentrated than some of the other products we have used. That may well be true, but I think the best judgment will be in the finished product after a bit of age. I look forward to those days for sure!

I thoroughly enjoyed using this product and am already on the lookout for unique styles of wine that I can make using kits from Cellar Craft. A big thank you is due to Christina and Cellar Craft for giving me the kits and the opportunity to try their product risk free.

Cheers!

Jason

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received one or more of the products or services mentioned above for free in the hope that I would mention it on my blog. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Frank Cooked It Up And We Paired It Up!

( Kath and I enjoying the party. )

Kathy Nelson, the owner of Salon Outlooks in Manchester, definitely knows how to plan a fun event. Combine the talents of two of her clients and the energy of quite a few others and what do you get? A great Italian cooking demonstration and a few good food and wine pairings.

On Friday November 12th Frank Carpentino walked us through a selection of Italian dishes using his philosophy of “no recipes”. Margot and I were given a rough idea of the ingredients that would be in the dishes and were challenged to recommend wines to pair with them. Our challenge included making recommendations that would be available from the local liquor store as well as several from our own collection.

We kept with the Italian theme and recommended the following wines available locally:

• Folonari Soave 2008 - very light body, subtle fruitiness, very dry & crisp
• Ruffino Chianti Classico Aziano 2007 - ripe fruit, earth, very complex for a lighter red
• Martini & Rossi Asti NV - sweet sparkler with great fruit flavors

We added the following wines from the Ancient Fire collection:

• 2009 Pinot Grigio - medium bodied, dry, grilled pear/melon flavors
• 2008 Amarone - full bodied, red fruit and oak, unique aromas
• 2009 Riesling Ice Wine (we don’t have any homemade Italian dessert wine)

Frank has an impressive list of food accomplishments and he easily kept the attention of the audience as he prepared his meals.

( A solid base for a great dish! )

Some of his credits are:

• The development and instruction of a Basic Cooking Program as part of the Derry Adult Education Program.
• The development & instruction of a basic cooking program for school age children
• Prior Head Cook for a Middle School with a population of over 1,000
• Cook for Passaconaway Country Club & Hidden Creek Country Club

Frank started with a salad dressed with an oil and vinegar based dressing. I had hoped the Soave might work here but alas it was too light. The Pinot Grigio worked better, but the dressing did have some character and a good wine pairing would be tough.

Moving from salad to the main course Frank prepared pasta and fresh vegetables, which consisted of onions, peppers, mushrooms and broccoli in a light sauce of tomatoes, butter and white wine. Several of us found the Pinot Grigio worked better than the Chianti making my initial recommendation the winner. The score is all tied up!

The next dish was Frank’s North End Pasta, a tomato based sauce with sausage, onions, peppers and garlic over fettuccini. For this dish either of the red wines would work and which one exactly would be the best would depend on individual taste. The Amarone was the winner creating a nice bump for us coming from the homemade collection.

A shrimp scampi pasta dish came out next. My initial pairing advice was toward the white wines and the Soave primarily. It worked and people agreed. Score one more!

The last dish was chicken, vegetables in a rose (white and red wine) sauce. I didn’t actually eat this one because I was too busy serving wine. I think both of the whites and the Chianti were pairings people enjoyed, but I wouldn’t declare a win here since I didn’t work hard enough on it.

At this point everyone was feeling pretty full, but there was one last dish. Dessert. Cannoli to boot. Frank enlisted help from the audience to get these made and I prepared the ice wine and Asti for accompaniment. Both wines paired well with the lightly sweet dessert, but I think folks enjoyed the wines more on their own. Points for everyone.

This was a hugely rewarding experience for Margot and I. We got another chance to try our hand at food and wine pairing and in the process we created a bunch of smiles. Frank was commanding in the kitchen, with his passion and energy showing through.

Renee thanked us profusely for introducing her to Amarone, a style of wine she had yet to have enjoyed. We received other feedback which was truly humbling. We make wine at home for fun and always enjoy the fact that it brings others happiness when we share it.

Food and beverage pairing is a combination of art and science. I am always willing to to be wrong as long as I learn something in the process. Tonight I did OK, and learned that salad dressing can be a formidable adversary and that the the sauce of an Italian dish really makes the difference, almost without regard to whatever else is in the dish.

(The Outlooks crew with food and wine smiles! )

Cheers!

--Jason

Award Winning Strawberry Wine

After this year's WineMaker Magazine Competition I will have won medals of all types (gold, silver, bronze) for my Viognier, Amarone and Strawberry wines since 2008. My Strawberry wine has been a special project based on a local product I knew I could source.

We talked a lot about Strawberry wine while I was on the conference trip and luckily we brought some to share. I introduced the topic when answering a question about how I processed fruit a whole bunch of times. I said I froze it and then let it defrost so I could crumble it into straining bags, easily extracting pits if needed. Excitement was shared many times at how useful this practical trick is.

The response to the wine was amazing and we thank all of your for it. I never expected this fun hobby would net me such awesome feedback. I wanted to share my recipe for this wine and my thoughts on what this year will hold.

This year will be year four for us making Strawberry wine, and the recipe has never been the same from one year to the next. Here is the list of ingredients for the first batch in 2009 from frozen fruit.

2009 Strawberry Wine

(6 gallons)

1 tbsp Bentonite prepared in hot water

20 lbs sliced strawberries (in straining bags)

1.5 lbs golden raisins (in straining bags)

12 lbs sugar

1/4 tsp KMeta

1.5 tsp Pectic Enzyme

5 tsp Yeast Nutrient

1 tsp wine tannin

10 tsp Acid Blend

1 pkg Lalvin D-47 Yeast

This was the wine I brought to the competition and that won the gold medal. I sulfite the fruit after it defrosts and pitch the yeast 24 hours later. The fermentation process is really like any other, you need to macerate the berry bags twice a day and then when you are done there won't be anything left. It fermented nearly dry and halted easily. I did back-sweeten it with some white grape concentrate but only a few percent total volume. But here is my problem. This was frozen fruit and it didn't look as nice. Here is the second recipe we made from fresh fruit. We know the color and flavor is better here but we over-sweetened it and it lacked balance. Bronze medal though!

2009 Strawberry Wine #2
(6 gallons)

25 lbs sliced strawberries (in straining bags)

12 lbs sugar

1/4 tsp KMeta

1.5 tsp Pectic Enzyme

5 tsp Yeast Nutrient

1 tsp wine tannin

10 tsp Acid Blend

1 pkg Lalvin EC-1118 Yeast

Over two weekend days in June 2009 we picked 38 pounds of berries at Sunnycrest Farms in Londonderry, NH. It was fun and Margot picked on me for making her work. All in good fun!

You will notice a couple of changes right away. No bentonite up front, no golden raisins, more fruit and a different yeast. The fruit broke down to about 31 pounds and 6 was reserved frozen until the wine was complete to be used in a strawberry sugar syrup to flavor the wine. Otherwise I added the routine of adding yeast nutrient 1/3 of the way through. This wine fermented similarly to the past years.

We drank almost all of it, excluding a sweetened version made as a dessert wine that needs some age. Nothing lost in all of it for sure.

For this year I think I will use some amount of white grape juice where I had previously used golden raisins, and leave the fruit quantity the same as the second recipe. I am not sure if I will switch the yeast again, but what I can tell you is that I will use Go-Ferm to rehydrate the yeast and a good nutrient at 1/3 and 2/3 of the way through the ferment.

The sweetening syrup should have one cup of sugar to every 3 cups of fruit or less to start. Some water or white grape juice can be used to liquefy the reserve berries. If you need more sweet then add more plain sugar syrup or white grape juice in a second round. In the end I would expect you might end up adding 5-8 % of the original volume back up to 6 gallons in flavoring, it really depends on how dry the berries ferment. My second batch needed less than 5% fruit and sugar. Without the sweetener the wine is like a very light rose with clear fruit but quite dry.

I hope I can produce another good drinker because we are so low on it we are worried there might be panic! I hope anyone who tries it the best of luck. This can be the best wine with a blue cheese topped salad on a hot day.

If you have questions about this recipe or other wine and food topics just drop me a line at jasonphelps@yahoo.com or leave a comment on this post. I look forward to meeting many of you again and happy winemaking!

--Jason

Weekend Update

Wine stories from the weekend.

The 2008 Strawberry, 2008 Amarone #2 and the 2009 Pinot Grigio paired well with the pig roast crowd. The Strawberry lasted longer than 3 minutes, but not by much. The rich Amarone was excellent with BBQ food.

The 2009 Strawberry and 2008 Viognier well very well received at Phil and Meredith's Pampered Chef party. The dessert synched up well with the Strawberry wine, which didn't last two hours. The 2008 Viognier has matured so well from an underwhelming wine early on. Good thing I haven't been swilling it.

The 2009 Pinot Noir went into the bottle today. It is a bit hot, but will mellow with some age. It is rich and not overly assertive and should age well.

A new batch of Bordeaux blend was started today. Anurag and I talked winemaking as we bottled one and kicked off another. If these are as good as the 2007's are now in 2011, we will all be very happy!

Amarone Update

I returned to Amarone again in 2008 with the award winning 2007 version on my mind. We ended up doing two. I had originally thought two barrels of 50/50 blend, but we held off. The first is a Mosti Mondiale All Juice version with some oak and long aging, almost 1 year. The second version is a Mosti Fresco Fresh Juice product, also with some oak but with two less months of aging.

The 2007 winner had a deep purple color, powerful nose and pronounced banana flavors. It was recognizable from the aroma alone, and did not last long!

The first 2008 batch was tight and focused, but lacked the aromatic punch and flavors of the earlier. It was strong and pleasant to drink so we figure some aging will help. This was bottled in early 2009.

The second 2008 batch is better, with more aromas and the desired banana flavors, albeit not as strong still. The wine is very rich and with some aging will mellow a bit. The high alcohol is there and the wine is very dark. I bottled this on July 19th.

Both wines are going to make for good competition fodder next year and should be drinking well at that time.

Cheers!

-- Jason