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There haven't been many updates to The Cork And Cap for a while. However, I think we might just get it going again!

In the meantime, you can follow The Cork and Cap on Twitter at http://Twitter.com/TheCorkAndCap. Cheers, and happy 2012!

Muscat Love

Sokol Blosser with one of its best wines: 2009 Willamette Valley Early Muscat. A great day thanks to Jackie's membership party, Dobbes Family Estate tasting room, and awesome weather. This is another reason why I love Oregon! (Thanks to Melissa for the cool photo.)

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.

Syrahs Shiraz for the Oscars

To celebrate the Oscars, Jackie hosted a party at her house with a blind wine tasting theme of Syrahs or Shirazs.  So we all brought different wines and ranked the wines we thought tasted best.  

The places of Syrahs/Shirazs represented right to left in pic Australia (A-Yellowtail 2008), Chile (B-RaYun 2008), Argentina (C-Gouguehaheim 2008), Southern Oregon (Dobbes Syrah V-2006), California (Virgin 2007).

The winner of the blind tasting test was Napo! 5 out of 5 of the wines. Runner up with 3 of 5 was the rest of the crew (Jackie, Mercedes, Andy, Katrina,n Melissa). The top 3 surprises of wines were Aussie, Oregon, n Cali. A majority's heart or should I say taste buds drew to the believed Yellowtail which brought back fond memories of Jazz in the park in WI.

What could add to the night of tasting wine and Oscar bingo?  That would be a food bounty!!  There was plenty to graze on with yummy spinach dip in bread bowl, chicken puffs, carmelized onion puffs, crab roll ups, meatballs, and numerous dipping veggies, chips, pretzels, and bread to eat the cheesy fondue. For dessert, it was round two of fondue with chocolate.  The wine and chocolate fondue was especially tasty with pretzels, marshmallows, bananas, pound cake, n Jaxie doodles.  The Oscar night finished on all high notes with plenty of first time Oscar winners and everyone's belly full of wine and eats.  Toast to the hostess with the mostest and a great night of Oscars!!

We, We Chenin Chardonnay

New Years Eve was filled with great conversations, potinis, and drinks in Milwaukee, WI. The night was not limited on the variety of drinks flowing to ring in the New Year with old fashions, micro brews, Irish whiskeys to cosmos. However, a celebration is not a celebration until there is wine being enjoyed and this was no different. Kate brought two great bottles of white wine and led the charge on drinking wine. So Dawn and I could not resist. We put down the cocktails to partake in the ritual of a wine tasting.
Recalling all of our fond memories of wine tasting together in Oregon, we decided our tasting would be the Tariquet Chenin Chardonnay.

So with generous pours in each glass, we started our tasting. Soon the bottle was empty but we were energized for the rest of the evening. Here is a short summary of our notes.
Dawn: All I have to say it is GOOD! Plus it doesn't taste like warm lambursco. (All of us LOL)
Kate: Smooths over the rough edges of the Chardonnay. Super drinkable, good food pairing especially with the potinis.
Melissa: Smooth, buttery. A great wine for the beach and would be great with some yummy seafood.

Some additional information on the wine.
Producer: Domaine du Tariquet
Region: Côtes de Gascogne
Country: France
Great balanced wine with 75% Chenin and 25% Chardonnay. The contrast between the mineral notes of the Chenin and the richness of the Chardonnay results in a fresh, clean and delicious wine. An ideal wine for the summer or as aperitif. A 2007 wine at $10.99, we all give it two thumbs up and recommend it as great Chardonnay option.

Stick to coffee and alcohol

This is one of my favorites from Engrish.com. It's available as stickers, clothing, mugs, etc. And truer words have never been said.

LINK
Engrish.com

Saw 'Sideways' again

Mercedes and I watched the movie "Sideways" again. We originally saw the moving in 2004 or 2005 before moving out to Oregon. Although we found the movie enjoyable then, I think we could identify more with the wine aspects of the movie this time. Of course, much of it was dramatized, but it was still better the second time around.

The movie made us realize how passionate we are about wine (and beer, for that matter), and that when you're wrapped up in the world of fine wines and great beers, you tend to forget that not everyone on the planet is as passionate about these beverages as you are. It also made me think about how many memories and experiences are tied to our wine and beer adventures.

Oh yeah, the movie also made us think about all that great Oregon Pinot Noir.

A big bottle

On the left is a standard-sized Champagne bottle. Yes, that is a huge bottle of French wine. This was at a Hanukkah party a couple of weeks ago.

Double time wine making.

With wine on the mind or maybe from siphoning the blackberry wine, I was motivated to get two other batches of wine started today. The kitchen was ready or should I say messy so the next phase of wine processing was not a big deal. I have been collecting numerous fruits and freezing them this summer for a day like this. One of the batches is an Asian pear /apple wine and the other a fig wine. Yes that is right Fig. I find making wine from fruit you collect is part of the fun. So each wine has its story on the origins of how I got the fruit.

First wine. Asian pear/apple wine. I had made this type of wine before and figured I would get started with something I was familiar with. I was able to get free Asian pears from volunteering with the Portland Fruit tree project. I came away with around 14lbs of pears and a knot on the top of the head from getting hit by one. No concussion but a nasty knot of the top of the head. I could not pass up enjoying some fresh pears. Needless to say I was 4lbs less of pears. I decided to add 3 frozen apple juice concentrates for the wine. I boiled some water and sugar, put the puree of fruit in the straining bag, and rest of ingredients. Now, the wine is sitting happy for its 24 resting period.

Second wine. Making the brother wine-the fig wine. Figs - where do you get them? I asked myself that too but found out from a neighbor that there was a fig tree just down the street in a vacant lot right along Jenkins St. I went two times to harvest the figs. Bringing along a rake, I was able to pull down the ones that were hanging out of arms length. So if you were driving along Jenkins sometime and saw someone along the road/ditch with a rake going at the fig tree it was probably me. Not a bad harvest with over 8 lbs of figs. On to making of the fig wine. I had no clue of how to make this wine so a quick Google search left me with over a couple hundred recipes to pick from. With a quick glance at the first couple of websites, I was able to pick a recipe that I had all the ingredients for and was off to the races. Luckily, I had frozen the figs already cooked down crushed and mashed so I had one less step to do. Making the fig wine was actually very similar to making other wine steps. Only difference was the ingredient amounts were a little different but the basic principles of wine making was there. Now the fig wine sits next to the pear/apple wine in the kitchen ready for their yeast party tomorrow. In around 4 months the wines should be ready. The beginning of next year there will be 3 yummy wines to try out.

Blackberry Wine

With the excitement of wine harvest in Oregon, it was only fitting Jackie and I dust off our wine making skills and try our hand at making a homemade wine again. What do you get when you combine wild Oregon Blackberries and wild Wisconsin grape juice? A delicious Blackberry wine that is. Yum Yum. It all began on October 10th. We sanitized all the equipment, put the crushed blackberries in the straining bag, poured all the grape juice in, and dropped the rest of ingredients into the pail. It was ready for its 24 hour rest. The first fermentation stage or when the real party started with the yeast was on October 11th. Another two weeks went by with the yeast still enjoying the warm party atmosphere of the hot water closet. On the 3oth, the party ended. Sadly for the yeast but happy for the winemakers. This brings us to today. The wine made it to its final resting place till next year and before the big individual bottling. Another two months of resting for clarity and flavor development. We are looking around the beginning of New Year to try the wine and possibly bottle. The estimation of alcohol is around 11%-12%. As another experiment at that time, we are going to take part of the wine and make a port.

In the Carboy: Double Altbier

My latest batch of beer: A Double Altbier. The beer doesn't use much grain to start with, so it really didn't take much to make it a double.

So far, the beer's been fairly inactive, with only a light layer of foam on the top. However, in the last couple of days, it's become slightly foamier.

New Glarus Wisconsin Belgian Red

Mercedes and I just split a bottle of New Glarus Wisconsin Belgian Red. I'm a firm believer in the fact that this beverage is God's gift to alcohol. Holy hell is it good.

Labor Day Tastings

Ah, Labor Day weekend. That last weekend before—well, uh—nothing for me, really. However, it was a good excuse to visit a couple of Oregon wineries with friends.

Mercedes, Melissa, Nathan, and I went to a couple a new places, the first of which being Plum Hill. This winery, located off of Old Hwy 47, offered a variety of wines. Their Müller-Thurgau was tasty. Also of note was the Thistle Pinot Noir, although not made by Plum Hill.

Next stop was Patton Valley Vineyards. Patton Valley only offers Pinot, and they were tasting four bottles. My favorite was their West Block bottle. Patton Valley—gotta remember that for future Pinot tasting!

Next it was on to the usual places, of which Cana's Feast was first. Along with the usual tastings was a 2003 Bordeaux, which was very good. They were also tasting their 2008 Rose, although I'm not sure we hadn't had that before (could've been the '07, t00).

Finally, it was to Dobbes Family Estate for the grand finale. There we got to taste the usual delicousness that is Dobbes (that includes the always-great food offerings). To our surprise, Dobbes is going to be offering a Port for the first time. This Port, which we were lucky enough to have, courtesy of Joe himself, is 100% Syrah, fortified with Dobbes own brandy. It was very good, and I look forward to purchasing some of that in the future!

Although it was a rainy tasting day, it was (as usual) a great day to taste.

LINKS
Plum Hill Vineyards
Patton Valley Vineyards
Cana's Feast Winery
Dobbes Family Estate

Welcome to The Cork and Cap

Welcome to The Cork and Cap! This is a place where friends will share their wine and beer adventures. Here you'll find the latest great wine or beer purchase, a trip to wine country, or a report on the latest brewery. It's all about wine, beer, and friends. Cheers!