Tasting Notes: Burdell Cellars 2012 Gibbs Grenache

2012 Gibbs Grenache is Burdell Cellars' first "grape-to-glass" wine, and we're really proud of how it turned out. If you missed the posts about its production, we wrote about the grape-crushing (which we did in September 2012), the separation and racking (October 2012), and the bottling (December 2012), so take a look if you're interested.

We were pretty impressed with the flavor when we did a small tasting during bottling, and we imagined the wine would be ready to drink quickly relative to other reds because of its faint tannins and already-developed fruit flavors. So when we uncorked a bottle three months later at the beginning of March 2013, we expected very good things.

The flavor profile hasn't changed a great deal since last time, with red fruit still the predominant nose and taste. Commonly mentioned fruit flavors included raspberry and blackberry, with strawberry, currant, and pomegranate also coming through sometimes. The tannin character is faint light but noticeable, giving the wine just a little structure but not drying it out too much. And the finish is still pleasantly rich, with slight chocolate and spice flavors emerging this time.

Comparing to a prototypical Grenache, ours has the same light color (for a red, that is--it was best described as "ruby" in contrast to the deep purple of "bigger" reds) and relatively high alcohol (we estimated it at 14.5%). The dominant flavors are mostly the same, but ours is relatively more acidic that most Grenaches tend to be.

The sediment is still a problem, but we were able to pour four generous glasses from a bottle and discarded maybe a third of a glass of highly sedimented dregs. Filtration through cheesecloth or a coffee filter probably would have helped.

Since we first tasted it back in December, our Grenache has only gotten better, and for our first "real" vintage, the mere fact that we made wine instead of vinegar is quite an accomplishment. As always, we'd be happy to arrange a tasting if you're interested! We hope you'll find it an agreeable and relaxing wine that brings you to your lowest energy state.

Grenache and Plum Wine: Bottling

When last we left our Grenache, back in October, it was sitting in a carboy and slowly clarifying. Over a few months, we monitored its pH and residual sugar content, and once everything had stabilized, we sped up the clarification process by adding bentonite. Oddly, the addition of what is essentially dirt to the wine helps to clarify it, as it assists in precipitating suspended solids.

Our yield ended up being four bottles of rose...

... and about twenty bottles of red.

As you can see, the wine didn't clarify as much as we would have liked it to, but that's not an awful problem. Standing the wine up for a few days before drinking--but not enough to dry out the cork--should promote settling of the solids that remain, and if it remains a problem, decanting or filtering are good options. After we let our tasting sample settle for about an hour, here's what it looked like:

having a nice cherry-red color appropriate to a lighter red wine. Of course, we took the opportunity to taste it, and while it's clearly young (and still a touch gritty!), it's already obvious how this wine might surpass our Carnot Cabernet. The decision not to oak the wine was a good one, as it let the red-fruit strawberry and raspberry flavors through, and it finished with a rich, almost port-like flavor. Tannins are weak, and it will probably be ready to drink delightfully quickly. Until then, our official mascot Gryphy will stand guard over the bottles.

We've also recently bottled our side project, the Strictly Plum-tonic mead and wine. Here's Kierston pouring it from a jug into a pot suitable for settling and siphoning...

...and here's what it looked like.

Finally, here's the mead in its tasting glass, exhibiting a golden color reminiscent of both honey and the plums we used to make the mead.

The Plum-tonic Mead is already wonderfully complex, with a powerful flavor of wildflower that gradually relaxes into a sweet and alcoholic finish, similar to a fortified wine.