Sunday, September 12, 2010

Sparkling Concord base wine racked

Real quick note tonight. Just got done racking the sparkling Concord base wine after primary alcoholic fermentation. I'm liking this a lot and maybe I'm on to something here. Granted, it's a very young wine, but it tastes like a spritzy bubbler with extremely little foxy flavor. Lovely dark pink color. Nose smells like a sparkling wine. It's definitely very tart and needs some sugar to balance the acid, but so far so good.

Is this what Concord wine was meant to be? For the non-wine historians, sparkling Catawba was the wine that first put America on the winemaking map back in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Catawba is a cousin of Concord, so I wouldn't be too surprised to learn that they behave similarly enologically. Still got to get some Champagne bottles and start the secondary fermentation, but I'm actually liking this now.

Still have to do some more experimentation, but perhaps I've stumbled across a good use for Concord grapes!

Cheers,
Noel

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