2012 Tasting

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Published: Friday, 04 October 2013 12:31

Written by David DeCiero

Last week, I tasted my 2012 Rhode Island wines.  I also did a comparison with my 2012 Carneros wine, just to see the differences.  One of the problems I had with the 2011 Rhode Island wines was color.  I did not use any enzymes, so I ended up with a rose.  I did not plan to do that, but it just picked up almost no color.  The alcohol was also pretty low due to the starting Brix of the grapes.  I didn’t have any problems besides that, so those were things I wanted to rectify.  In terms of color, I used Lallzyme EX and FT Rouge to help fix the color.  It definitely helped.  I had a rich color in the 2012’s, and it is light years ahead of the 2011.  In terms of the alcohol, we got better ripeness than last year on the grapes, but I still decided to boost the Brix by a small amount.  I figured this would help with the “oomph” of the wine.  It did, as there is more body to the wine.  So, I would consider the two changes I made to be a success.  Additionally, I decided to do a blind tasting of the Carneros Merlot versus the Rhode Island Merlot.  The Carneros wine had deeper color and more fruitiness on the aroma.  Both are still very young, but it is clear that the Carneros wine is a better wine.  I followed the same winemaking process for both grapes, so the difference was inherent in the grapes.