120 bottles of wine on the wall...

I am finally getting around to blogging about my wine making adventures. My sister is getting married in October and she asked if I would make wine as the favors for everyone attending the wedding. Me, being the loving sister that I am, said, no problem, I'd love to...and then I realized what I signed onto. 120 bottles, labeling and coordinating transporting. Because yeah, I live in Oregon and my sister lives in Wisconsin. Hang on tight, it's a bumpy ride!

We decided to make lighter, sweeter, more fruity wine. Those attending her wedding may not be the wine snobs like my friends (I swear, all you have to say is 'Pinot' and all of our hearts start racing!) so we wanted something that would please the majority of the attendees. So we settled on a Pomegranate Zinfandel, Peach Chardonnay and a Mango Citrus Symphony (white wine). And for the first time, I made three batches at the same time. Each one had their own personalities and they kind of became my children who lived on my kitchen floor for three months. I even nicknamed each one based on their personalities. Pomegranate Zin became Pudgy Paula Z (Paula for short), Peach Chardonnay became Baby Peach and Mango Citrus Symphony became McNinny.

Before I begin my little story, I want to first give a huge THANK YOU to my dear friends who were with me for most of the way: Melissa, you just rock! Katrina is now the 'queen racker' in all the land. And Justin was definitely the elbow grease in the operation! A big, big thank you for all your time and effort...and for all your celebration as we accomplished each step along the way. You made it so much fun!

Ok, so let's get started. I had to borrow some equipment from fellow brewers (beer and wine) to get my three-batch operation running. When I usually get a batch going, it's a cinch...and I figured, well, if you multiply it by 3, what's the big deal? Hmm... I do not have any pictures of this step because I thought I could handle it all by myself. I usually put the chemicals plus water in a 6 gallon bucket, add the juice, stir, top with yeast and let it party in the corner for a while. But since I asked my friends for carboys, not buckets, I had to pour all the dried chemicals plus about 2 gallons of juice and 4 gallons of water through a 2" diameter hole....needless to say it was a headache. I decided to mix up the batches and then siphon it into the carboys instead. McNinny didn't start off well. When I siphoned her into a carboy, I didn't realize that it had only a 5 gallon capacity, so it went all over the floor. I think it scarred her because she became so apprehensive throughout the entire process; never sure of herself and ready to take the leap into the next phase. Baby Peach was fantastic. She blended together and did what she needed to do perfectly! And Pudgy Paula was kind of a glutton. She just couldn't get enough. I had to about 5 gallons of water to balance out her sugar content and it almost overflowed a 6 gallon carboy. Needless to say, she was going to make her presence known just by shear mass!

So for two weeks the kids partied in the corner, feasting on sugar and off-gassing like a geriatric crowd at a chili dinner. It was a very cold January in Portland so I had to raise my heat to keep the party going (Steph, you will be receiving my utility bill...j/k). At two weeks, it was time to measure sugar levels. For the amount of gurgling that was happening, I was sure the I was a great parent and host and they ate more than their share of sugar. But levels were not quite there....another week of party time. I measured again and the sugar levels had gone down but still were not where they quite needed to be. We racked Baby Peach and Paula to filter them out a bit...another week of party time.

Finally we just said, enough, you are done! The sugar levels were still a tad high but it meant that they would be a little sweeter and lower alcohol levels. Considering the group it was serving, this was fine. So we added in more chemicals to stabilize them...no more gas allowed. We do not need corks popping!

We let them nap for another two weeks. In the meantime, I needed to prep bottles. Through some bribery, I rallied my friends to help scrape labels off of 12 cases of bottles in two parties. Thank you to Nathan, Katrina and Justin for the use of your bathtubs! All I have to say is eww.... And to Melissa, Mercedes and Andy to helping out as well. They are pros at scraping glue! We got 6 cases done in an hour! We do hire out our services for a price (usually Mexican and vodka does the trick!) There was one fatality in the process. I broke Melissa's bottle brush while trying to clean the insides. I'll replace it, I promise!

Filtering was the next adventure to be had. In this process, you need to run all the wine through two sets of tubing and eventually into a little contraption that holds the filter where it spits out the beautifully clear wine. Paula and Baby Peach were real troopers. They went through once and looked beautiful! I was so proud of them! But again, McNinny was apprehensive. We didn't rack her like we did the others during sugar eating process and she has just been more sensitive than the other two. So I filtered her two more times. She took forever to filter, just trickling through the filter contraption...but finally, she was ready!

Last weekend was the big weekend of bottling. What a whirlwind! We started by bottling Baby Peach. She was a sure winner and had a great track record of being such an easy going child. I controlled the wine going into the bottle while RinaRacker 'the racking queen' pumped the wine from the bucket. Nathan was in charge of topping off all bottles so they were consistent. I bought these corks that had trees on them. Since the wedding was in Oct, I thought we'd try to be festive with trees, instead of cheesy Italian words or grapes. Melissa had a heck of a time getting them soft enough. If they aren't soft, they won't go into the bottle cleanly and it looks like you're bottling moonshine...not exactly wedding drink of choice. But she and Justin mad it work and they turned out fabulous. Because I didn't have all the bottles sanitized, we had to constantly change out which batch was bottled until we had enough bottles ready. In the end, and about 5 hrs later, we had 7 cases of wine ready for the wedding. I am so proud of us! Pudgy Paul really came through with 3 cases while Baby Peach and McNinny each had 2 cases.

And how did they taste? Of course, fantastic! Pudgy Paula Zin has a rich sweetness that ends with a zippy spiciness that makes you smile. Baby Peach is always a winner. She is like sweet nectar that balances out the dry chardonnay beautifully. And McNinny? Did she pull it off? I think so. I think she is little more complex than Baby Peach. She is also sweet at first but the citrus comes and socks you in the back of the mouth just to say 'hi'. Definitely a fun wine!

But 7 cases does not equal 120 bottles does it? Sigh, no it doesn't. So I will be making another two batches; one Pomegranate Zinfandel and one Peach Chardonnay. Alas, the Mango Citrus Symphony has been discontinued...maybe on the account of her apprehension to do her thing and become wine with the confidence you need? I wonder? But she is tasty and I hope she does make a comeback in the future. She is worth another look.

So stay tuned for the last two cases! It was a lot of fun.