Stephany and I proudly present our first bottling episode/party! All the experience in winemaking that we have you’ve seen in our previous 23 episodes, and to bottle one of our favorite varietals (malbec) in this show is a fun accomplishment and something that we’ll be able to appreciate over the next few years. We’ll hand out a few of these as gifts this Christmas 2008! Ok, on to the details:

With some extra toys, cleaning and sanitizing wasn’t so bad! First, we rinsed the bottles using an adapter for a normal faucet called “The Blast”; this would pressure wash the bottle upon application. After the bottled dried on a “tree”, we used the “Avinatore” to apply the sanitizing solution into the bottle. The bottles would then dry on the “tree” before filling…

Thanks again for coming back for another episode of TintoTV. In this episode we work with both of our bigger and grape-based batches, the Winexpert Malbec and the Mosti Mondiale Amarone. Previously, with the malbec, you saw us begin degassing and clarifying the wine; since then, the wine has been settling in the same six gallon carboy. With the Amarone, in the previous episode, we walked you along its primary fermentation…

In this episode we follow up on the days after pitching the yeast to the Corvina-dominant juice in our primary fermenter; this Amarone from Mosti Mondiale is quite aromatic, I can’t wait to try it out when this wine is peaking (though that is far away). When we initially pitched the yeast, the ambient temperature was relatively low, around 65 deg F or lower. Slower fizzing did start, but I was worried that the fermentation would become “stuck”. To prevent that…

Tinto TV, 21 episodes in, and we’re starting our 5th wine batch! After blackberry wine, strawberry wine, Welch’s frozen concentrate wine, and Winexpert Argentine Malbec (all of which are bulk aging in their carboys), we continue onto a very bold wine: Mosti Mondiale “Meglioli” AMARONE Limited Edition!

Amarone wine is big and dense! It is from northern Italy (Valpolicella area, “The Tre Venezie”), made primarily of a grape called corvina. These corvina grapes for Amarone are left…

We’re back and the Winexpert Selection International Argentine Malbec is tasting GOOD!!! In the episode above, we go through step 3 of the Winexpert instructions for our 6-gallon wine kit. These are the main steps:

• Add metabisulphite and sorbate
• Stir like crazy
• Add chitosan (clarifier)
• Stir like crazy
• Top up

The nice convenience of these wine kits is that a lot of these additions are pre-measured and leave small room for error…