You Win Some You Lose Some

Congratulations to Michelle Tucker Day, of Boise, Idaho, winner of the first annual Dry Run Winery Free Wine Giveaway! 

With a year of blogging and my first successful wine competition under my belt, there might be an expectation that I can now rest on my laurels, the learning process complete.  But be assured, I still have no idea what I am doing. 

Future vinegar.

Case in point, you know that Corot Noir estate wine I’ve been working on for the last six months and anticipating for the last three years?  Well, I’m pretty sure that’s ruined.  For the last three weeks a nasty aerobic bacteria film has been forming on the top of the carboys, beginning the slow and steady process of converting my young wine to your standard table vinegar.  Ironic, I realize, since much of that wine is aging in a liter bottle that originally contained store-bought balsamic vinegar, but it’s not so much the charming, funny kind of irony, as the gut-wrenching, tear-inducing kind that makes you fall to your knees, look up to the sky and scream out loud “what have I done to deserve this.”

The problem started when I inoculated the must with yeast to launch the fermentation.  I only had two gallons of must, and the yeast comes in packets suitable for five gallon carboys, but I added the whole packet anyway, thinking the more the merrier.  As a result, a process that usually takes one to two weeks was finished in two days.  But two days isn’t enough time to leave the wine on the skins and impart the desired flavors, so I decided to let it sit in extended maceration for another week or so.  When doing so, however, I didn’t realize the importance of completing the maceration in an air-tight environment with the excess oxygen removed.  Net result – the excess oxygen created the ideal environment for bacteria, that bacteria began to grow, and now that it’s in the wine there’s nothing I can do to remove it (including pressing, inoculating malolactic fermentation, or adding heavy doses of sulfites).

Desperate press.

So here I am, left to witness the gradual conversion of my wine to vinegar, but too heartbroken to put it out of its misery and pour it down the drain already.  Then suddenly, a new idea hit me – check back next year for the first annual Dry Run Winery Free Vinegar Giveaway!

Bacteria - bad.