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November 29, 2005
Disappearing wine
For weeks I’ve been wondering what I’m going to do when I have to top up the Viognier barrels.
We have a small Viognier vineyard at Stormhoek and we make 3 barrels of wine from the grapes.
Less than a month ago the barrels were completely full.
Now at least 5% of the wine has gone. It evaporates through the oak. It mostly leaves a vacuum, but if you just leave it and don’t do anything about replacing the continually vanishing wine, you’ll have some damage from oxygen contact.
A wine will be ruined by long-term contact with air, so we have to top up the barrels.
But we only have 3 barrels of this variety. I can use one barrel to top up the other two, but then I’m left with a bigger problem in one barrel.
I can buy some Viognier wine from a neighbour who has a lot or I can add some Chenin Blanc, of which we have plenty.
I’ll let you know what I did, next week.
Posted by graham knox at November 29, 2005 10:09 AM
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Comments
So you've left me wondering... what did you do in the end?
Posted by: cyphunk at January 11, 2006 11:44 AM
