Making Wine, a good $50 Wine

[snowman]

I want to know if its possible to make a good bottle of wine at home. I mean a GOOD, $50 bottle of wine. Say CakeBread Cellars, Silver Oak, Joseph Phelps, Heitz Marthas Vinyard quality wine. Specifically Cabs. I mean a 92 to 96 point wine.

I see juice for $90 a box, but will it make good wine? I cannot find anyone who will give a straight answer to this question. Most of the home made stuff I have tasted cannot compare to a 2 buck chuck.

Is it possible to make a good wine at home???

[JavaBrewer]

No.

I've never made wine but have consumed several vinyards of it. I say if it was possible to make a really good bottle of red at home there would be thousands of people doing it. There is a lot more into making good wine than just the juice.

[snowman]

I am not certain. I suspect that the juice may be THE key.

This is my worst nightmare as if the juice is THE key, then no one is going to sell their best juice for others to make wine out of.

[Don Plumley]

The grapes are 80% of the equation. You can only get great wine from great grapes. And then you can ruin them in a heartbeat with bad winemaking. The real problem of home winemaking is the quantity is so small that minute amounts of contamination can come into play and things can also go out of whack (TA, Ph) way too fast for them to be corrected. Then you have the barrel problem. A standard Burgundy barrel is 60 gallons. While there are smaller barrels, the surface area to amount of wine is out of whack. And with only one barrel, you can't work with the different ages of barrels required to blend. Don't even talk about oak additives...

So no, it would be monumentally difficult to make a great wine in small quantity at home.

I did the work and decided to make 200 cases this year...and that's at the very lower limit of what's practical. It will hopefully be a very, very nice, but very, very expensive bottle of Pinot Noir.

Harvest and Crush pics - I'm a proud daddy!

You might want to check out Crush Pad -- they seem to be having pretty good luck. Not Silver Oak (over-rated, BTW), but not bad either.

[JavaBrewer]

Only 5/12 remaining of my 89 Silver Oak Napa Valley

[Don Plumley]

At least it didn't catch on fire...

I will say this - In deference to Silver Oak, Heitz, et al: Cabernet Grapes are easy to grow. Finding someone to part with a few vines of good Cab to press and make wine from is not that difficult (if you live here anyway). But my earlier point still holds - it's really hard to work in small quantities. You can't control aging and don't have enough material for final blend (it's not always 100% Cab, but it is always 100% Pinot Noir).

I'm not a Parker fan - so as long as you are chasing 92+ pt wines, you will pay for them. But there are many small wineries making outstanding wines -- finding them is rewarding work!

[HardDrive]

Your post seems to indicate that 2 buck Chuck is some sort of measuring point by which other wines can be judged. Yikes.


But your right, most homemade wine is not good. I have had a fair amount of home made white that simply taste like a dry champagne. Its young, high sugar content, and lacks any sort of depth, but its maginally better than Boones Farm. I swear my step fathers home brew is 40 proof.....

[Don Plumley]

I think he meant that most home wine was worse that TBC, which is a yardstick...

Most home wine does not benefit from any aging, certainly not in oak. Or if it does get any aging, it's getting oak powders or oak chips, so it tastes like gnawing on a tree....

Back to TBC, I'm not a Franzia fan, but anything that gets American's drinking wine at all or wine out of a bottle that doesn't say "Hearty Burgundy" is a positive move (at least now that it can't say "Napa"). Last year was the first time that Wine consumption surpassed Beer consumption. That's a great thing! But in the big picture, it's largely a country still scared of demon alcohol.

[imcarthur]

Yes, you CAN make good $50 / bottle wines at home.

Get in the car & go to a wine store & buy some good $35 - $40 wines. Some Tuscans, Riojas, Burgundys, Cabs etc. Do a bit of research to know good years & producers.

Then, put them in a wine cellar & don't touch them for 5 years. Then you will have a bunch of good $50 wines . . .

The vast majority of wines that you can buy in stores today (& restaurants unfortunately) need more time.

Ian

[Milu]

Not forgetting that California winemakers have some of the best labs and chemists to ensure consistency.

[Don Plumley]

Ian - yes, many wines benefit from some time laying down, but honestly, the stat for wine life after being purchased is something in minutes. People in general buy a bottle and drink it. One of the reasons French wines, in general, benefit if not require aging is due to chaptalization (adding raw sugar to the pressed juice to increase the alcohol potential due to under-ripened fruit).

Here in California (chaptalization is technically illegal in the States), our problem is too good of a growing climate -- we produce very, very ripe fruit. As a result, and also influenced by Parker, the industry is producing very high alcohol wines - 15-17%. Even my Pinot hit over 30% RS producing 15% alcohol. Fortunately the fruit is complex enough so we are not tasting the alcohol which can't be said for lots of high alcohol zins, for example.

The wines you mentioned, Tuscans, Riojas, Bugundies, plus big CA cabs and add in my current favorite, Priorat, tend to benefit from time in the bottle for the tannins to calm down. But we've seen that while Burgundies benefit from 10 years of rest and keep getting better, most of the CA stuff starts peaking out at 7 or 8 years and then starts going downhill. I don't know why this is, though I have lots of theories about age of vineyards, etc. Face it, in CA we've been making wine for 100 years, in Europe they've been making wine, well, forever by comparison.

Milu - Not sure how to take your comment. Certainly the huge volume producers are manipulating a lot of things to hit a consistent taste profile. But this is not wine I buy. And there is this crazy service that will tell you how to modify your wine (tannis, acids, etc.) to hit certain Parker scores. But speaking on behalf of the many craft winemakers that believe in the craft, we let the grapes do what they do and express the unique nature of each block and each year. So I'm not sure I like being lumped into your "California winemakers" statement if I read it the way I think you meant.

[Vipergrün]

Don, what are you expecting your Pinot to go for? I fell in love with a nice Owen Roe Sharecropper Pinot from Oregon and would be intrested in picking up some of yours. Your comments abour Silver Oak crack me up. Out here in Colorado, it's all the rage from people in the "know"...

[Milu]

Don:

I was referring to the big producers. The same happens in Europe but the Californians are the real masters in the wine lab. Because some wines are low in alcohol it is added seperately as I believe is antifreeze (glycol?) to smooth it within set limits - get it wrong, as has happened, and the customers get ill. I prefer more traditional winemaking!

[imcarthur]

Your comment on Calif Cabs is interesting. I didn't know that they were reasonably short-lived. Maybe the grapes are too spoiled growing up in CA. Hahaha.

As many, I started using Wine Spectator & Parker as a bible until I realized that they like a certain style - big, bold high alcohol reds - as you noted - and they were all that got the raves. Nothing wrong with that except the sameness of it. I don't buy Calif Cabs for the same reason although Meritages are good & my choice when I buy American at restaurants.

I've become very selective. Spain: Rioja - Reservas & Gran Reservas. Ribera del Duero. Priorats when affordable. From Italy: Barolos, Barbarescos, Gattinara (a real fav), some Super Tuscans & another particular fav - Brunello di Montalcino. France: Burgundy (when affordable & good years). A sprinkling of Sauternes 1/2 bottles. And every year I buy some Bordeaux futures. I never buy cases, just 2 to 3 bottles of each to lay down.

I had a wonderful Brunello on Sunday - '95 Poggio Antico. Yum yum.

Good luck with your Pinot. I've had some nice Oregon pinots. They are so 'in' right now . . .

Ian

[Don Plumley]

Milu - Understood, sorry for being so sensitive about it. I've heard the glycol story, always thought it was an urban myth, or at least a very old practice that has been abandoned/illegal in France. But they do add sugar and it requires that the wine age to take the edge off.

Ian - well, the oldest vines might be 150 years. But with phylloxera, vineyards are constantly being replanted. And yes, they are spoiled. Vines need to suffer to produce excellent fruit. The best vineyards in France are practically planted in rocks, have lousy weather -- but produce wonderful, flavorful berries.

You might want to give some Sonoma Cabs and blends a try. I don't drink hardly any Napa stuff (for the past 5 years...) anymore. Generally over priced and underwhelming. I went to a Brunello di Montalcino industry tasting a couple of weeks ago, that was so disappointing too. Maybe they were too young.

Nothing replaces White Burgundy for me. I loathe 95% of CA Chardonnay. One of our project ideas is to try our best to replicate a White Burgundy, and one idea is to pick early.

Brad - it's too early to tell. It will mainly be sold to a few high-end restaurants and to a mailing list. I'd guess around $75 retail... It's such small production and from a proven vineyard that we will likely go right into allocation.

I don't mean to slam Silver Oak. It's the peak of a cult wine, more power to them.

Fun subject - almost as much fun to talk about as it is to consume!

[JavaBrewer]

Speaking of cult wine what's going on with Frogs Leap these days? Back in the early 90's they made some good Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay. I've been out of touch and our wine budget was slashed dramatically when we started having kids...

[Moses]

Funny that Don mentions the high residual sugar problem with California wine. Years ago an international viticulture society determined that the most favorable place in the world to grow cabernet grapes (weather, soil, etc.) was Marin county. Warm, not hot. Cool morning fog. Of course there are no commercial wineries in Marin, just houses.

Maybe it's time to bulldoze Marin County?

[Moses]

This reminds me of something very sad. I only have one bottle left of 1990 Stonestreet Legacy. I think I'm going to cry...

I was at a birthday party last year where we had a blind taste testing. Opus, Screaming Eagle, Silver Oak, Caymus and Stonestreet. The Stonestreet Legacy won, and it was by far the most affordable. I really didn't see what the Screaming Eagle fuss was all about. Oh, well.

[imcarthur]

Originally posted by Don Plumley
I went to a Brunello di Montalcino industry tasting a couple of weeks ago, that was so disappointing too. Maybe they were too young.

Brunellos like time. Lots of it. You can drink in 5 - 7 yrs (in their youth) & then they get awkward again until 10+.

I loathe 95% of CA Chardonnay.

You are not alone. Some of the Italian chards are very good but the Aussies are over-oaked just like CA. Sauvignon Blanc - usually Italian - is my typical white wine choice. I've tried some good white Bugundies, but I don't know enough about them. I have a couple of '99 Saint-Aubin - Colin - that I'll dive into soon.

Fun subject - almost as much fun to talk about as it is to consume!

I'll second that.

Ian

[snowman]

For all you white wine drinkers, I personally do not relish white wine, but NY state whites are second to none and are a much better buy than anything, anywhere. NY state red wine STINKS to high heaven, period. NY state white, any $10 bottle of chardonnay will beat ANY non NYS white wine any where any time. Hunt vineyards has a chard that will knock the socks off any calif white wine, and its about $10. I could name a dozen others from the finger lakes region. Great Western and Gold Seal used to make Champaign better than Dom Perignon at 1/10 the price. Now its roughly equivalent for 1/10 the price. Thank Taylor for that.