Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Different Pieces Of Wine 'Lego' ....

Today I began to try and build a rose.
My client created a nice one last year. And they'd like to have the same profile again this year.
It's full of fruit, very simple and, for all intents and purposes, not a rose but a blush-type wine.
Well-chilled, it flies out the door of the tasting room all summer.
Only problem is: I don't have the same components as were used last year.
Nailing the colour was easy. The Merlot-Chard base was a sort of pale peach and I introduced about 15% Syrah/Merlot hardpress that hadn't seen any barrel time. But there was a floral element missing from the nose. Checking the records from last year revealed about a 5% dose of Optima; something we didn't get this year. So I substituted a bit of Gewurtz. That lifted the nose nicely but also introduced a slight bitterness. The whole thing wasn't sweet enough so a little white magic was mixed in and voila! - close enough!
This all happened on the lab bench, as all blending brainstorms first should.
I'll bottle up a few samples and run it past the palates that be later in the month.

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