The Finger Lakes International Wine Competition judging is complete and now I am waiting for the results.  I have been checking their website 3 or 4 times a day.  I feel anxious and have a purposefully muted excitability about it right now.  

I drove 5 wines up to the Finger Lakes.  My Serendipity, Gaffer, Syrah, Sangiovese Rosé, and my Cabernet Sauvignon.  While I am almost sold out of all of them, my fall blends are dependent upon how the Serendipity places. 

In my opinion, blending takes several tastings of the same combination of wines, over the course of many months, to find the right balance and mouthfeel.  Unless going with a standard blend, such as a Bordeaux blend, or following a recipe of a previous blend it is time consuming, pleasurable, fun and somewhat stressful.  Some wines then need age to round out the flavors but when blending for early to drink wines, the perfect taste combination is key. 

Serendipity earned her name when we blended a bunch of wines into one barrel just willy-nilly and it turned out to be one of my favorites.  If it places in the Finger Lakes, I will make it again.  If it does not place, I will be making a different blend. 

Larger wineries have barrels and barrels of the wines they have entered and if they place, they use the results of the competition to market and sell these wines.  This year’s results for me are a confirmation that my blending, tasting, and understanding of balance and mouthfeel are on par with some of the best in the industry and since my Serendipity is a unique blend, a good result will encourage me to blend more.   

In other Le Garage holding patterns, I have 55-gallons of newly made Chilean Merlot and have 59-gallon barrels which means I will need to juggle some wine around to age this Merlot on something other than American Oak.  It’s probably good that I have this problem to solve right now because it will keep my mind off the competition results, or quite honestly, just scramble my thinking a little more. 

Cheers!

Sharon