Welcome to my blog. I’ve been making wine for many years — it’s a passion that I enjoy sharing with friends and everyone with an interest in this wonderful art!
In the late 1980’s to early 1990’s there was some “stir” over the Bordeaux wines which are made in France. A Bordeaux or a Bordeaux-style wine is a blend of 3 or more of the 5 noble grapes; Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Malbec and Petit Verdot. This delicious blend of wine is made by many winemakers across the world but it can only be called a Bordeaux on the wine label if it is made in the Bordeaux region of France.
One of the key principles in winemaking is to take your time. Don’t make any snap decisions. If you are not sure about adding something or if the wine may not be ready to bottle, top up, close the barrel, and come back later to start the decision-making process over again. This push of decisions or tasks downstream is called ‘procrastination’ and in most worlds it’s a bad thing. Fortunately for me, it seems to work in my winery.
Wine is technically called “Bone Dry” if the sugar measures less than 1 g/l (gram per liter) of wine. “Dry” wine is 1 to 10 g/l, “Off-dry” wine is 10 to 35 g/l, “Sweet” wine is 35 – 120 g/l, and “Very sweet” wine is anything over 120 g/l of sugar in wine. This article is not about the levels of sugar, though. It is about the dry conversation surrounding the level of complications which can arise when becoming a legal winery.
