Casual Wine-Racking Friday

Wine follows its own calendar. You can’t rush it. All you can hope is to avoid panic.

It has taken two months for it to settle, since I picked up vidal blanc grapes in October. I itch to bottle it. But last year, I rushed my vignoles, which taught me a lesson by turning into fizz and shooting corks and wine carpet-ward.

Older, wiser, and still worried, I check my vidal daily and rack it every few weeks.

Although the sediment seemed to have disappeared last week, new detritus has dusted the tank bottom, like a light snow, pretty, but one that isn’t enough to give you a day off from school (unless you’re from Oregon).

This fourth racking gives me a new chance to taste it.

Somehow, the fruit returned. When fermentation ended mid-November, all I could taste was water, acid, and alcohol. Yet now, it’s fine, mild, but fine. Why? Maybe it was in shock from the sulfuring and cold stabilizing. Maybe my palate is crap.

Either way this might turn out.