Blending at home...

Living in the Pacific Northwest, and with family in Santa Rosa, I enjoy visiting tasting rooms. A few weeks ago, we visited some wineries in the Sonoma valley near Kenwood, California. At Landmark Vineyards, they were pouring some very nice syrah, pinot noir, chardonnay and grenache when I had a moment of inspiration. I asked the server to pour a bit of grenache into my glass with some syrah already in it, just to see what would happen. She asked me to tell her when to stop and I kept it to about 2 parts syrah and 1 part grenache. It was astonishing how the whole was greater than the sum of its parts!

A little later that day, at Kunde Family Estate Winery, they had some nice 2007 Syrah on close-out sale, so I picked up a case for $120.00 and took it home. With the idea in mind that I want to repeat the experiment, I found some inexpensive French grenache at my local wine department, and I've been playing with it (at various ratios) and enjoying that immensely. There's something special about the Southern Rhone blends.

I want to take it a little further and find some mourvedre to add to the mix. That's not so easy to find as a varietal, but I'll find it eventually and I expect that the three-way blend will be even more fun than the two-way.

I've got a bit of a logistical problem. My wife drinks very little, so it's mostly for my consumption. Using the refrigerator, I can usually keep a single bottle drinkable for 2-3 days, but to be a blendmeister, I'll need to have 2 or 3 bottles open at a time, which is much more wine than I can drink before it goes over the hill. My idea is to make my blend, fill up some screwtop bottles to almost the top, cap them off and open them later. I need some advice. Is this going to work, or once I've poured the wine out of its original bottle does it start going downhill no matter what I do? How much time can I expect re-bottled wine to stay intact?

Any of you wine lovers have any ideas?

Thanks,
Marc

Many years ago I had this experience with a Catena Malbec and Cabernet at a Catena tasting dinner. Blending the two produced a wine that was much better than the two individual wines that night.

That said, I'm not sure I would recommend developing a new hobby around this idea. I think you hit the nail on the head that its going to be logistically difficult and the wines may go downhill quickly.

[David M. Bueker]

I've had decent luck freezing wine for a few weeks. Screw top bottles work well for that.

I am not sure how good of a seal you get with a screw cap once opened. When you blend and bottle you are going to introduce some air but I am guessing that if you can get a good seal that the little air introduced wont be a significant issue. If you are serious about this and willing to spend a few dollars, I would get an inexpensive hand corker (about $25), a bag of cheap corks (about $5 for 25), and a can of gas. Sparge the bottle with the gas to displace as much air as possible before blending, add wine, and cork it. The cheap corks should last 2 years without problem and probably longer while giving a much better seal than a previously opened screwcap. You can skip the gas if you want. I mention it as a good idea since you are working with bottled wine that is generally older and more prone to O2 pickup than a younger wine.

Do stand up the recently corked wine for 3-5 days before laying down to allow any air to escape and the corks to fully seal. Laying down early can result in leakage.

Because of the storage problems we have only done the home blending once, and that was for a group of four. Many years ago we were fond of a Cab/Syrah from Oz. My bother came by on a business trip and we shared a bottle with him. He liked it very much. A few months later he came back with an associate. I couldn't find the wine he liked, but did get a Cab and a Syrah from the same producer, and mixed them. My brother said it was better than the last one! Four of us killed the mixed two bottles.

I'll blend sometime when I open a bottle and think it needs a little something to elevate it from ordinary to very good. I'll store in .375's with cork for a long time with no degradation of the wine.

Drew

A progress report:

In the past month and a half, I've been having some fun with my home blending project. I've settled on a 50% syrah / 25% grenache / 25% monastrell mixture. I looked for mourvedre, but found that when it was available as a varietal it was pretty expensive. My favorite wine merchant told me that monastrell comes from the same grape variety; it's just a Spanish name instead of a French one.

I'm pretty happy with the taste of my product and truly believe that there is something magical in the way those Rhone varieties blend. They complement each other very nicely. I found some petit verdot and will do some experimenting to see if that will fit it somehow.

The logistical problem of storing wine which has been opened seems to be a non-issue. I'm using screw-top bottles (from the grenache that I've been getting) and storing them totally full in the refrigerator on their side. So far, I've not seen any leaks and the wine seems to still taste "fresh", even after a couple of weeks of storage.

[David M. Bueker]

Indeed monastrell and mourvedre (and mataro) are the same grape.