Yesterday was the 3rd annual J 2 Steakers race here in Sacramento. It went well, we ate steakers (steak tacos), and we had an actual trophy for the winner for the first time.
Author: Chris Minnick
Chris Minnick is an author, trainer, web developer and co-founder of WatzThis? (www.watzthis.com).
He has authored and co-authored books and articles on a wide range of Internet-related topics. His published books include: JavaScript All-in-One For Dummies, Coding All-in-One For Dummies, Mastodon For Dummies, Beginning ReactJS Foundations, Adventures in Coding, JavaScript For Kids For Dummies, Coding with JavaScript For Dummies, Beginning HTML5 and CSS3 For Dummies, Webkit For Dummies, CIW eCommerce Certification Bible, and XHTML.
In addition to his role with WatzThis?, Chris is a winemaker, painter, novelist, swimmer, cook, and musician.
Chinotto and Exciting News
Here’s the quick version of my biggest winemaking triumph to date:
I brought bottle of my cidrata (limoncello made from citrons) to Darrell Corti on Saturday, because he’s been giving me advice about things to make and so I’ve been bringing him things I make to get his feedback.
He appreciated it and said he would bringing it to an orthodox easter dinner on Sunday. He also asked if I had seen Bob Sylva’s article about limoncello in the Sacramento Bee. He said I should send a sample of my limoncello to the Bee (note to self: do this!), and that he would get “Sylva” to interview me.
I mentioned during our conversation that I was making some meyer lemon wine. He asked how I was making it, and I told him. He said he’d be interested in tasting it.
He then told me about chinotto, which is a type of orange that’s pretty bitter and is only used to make some candy and a soda that people in parts of Italy like to drink before dinner.
He said that I should come back on Monday (yesterday) and he would bring in some of the fruit from his tree. In the meantime, he recommended that I get this soda. Interesting stuff.
I went home after this and bottled the lemon wine. It’s actually pretty nice.
Monday, I went to Corti Bros and tracked down Darrell. He said that he liked my limoncello better and that the cidratta separated (alcohol from the fruit, I guess). I asked if he knew why and he said no, then he repeated that the limoncello I had brought him several weeks earlier was very good.
I had brought along a split of the of the Meyer lemon wine and gave that to him. Darrell had forgotten to bring in the chinotti (he said to come back tuesday), but he looked at the bottle of wine and seemed impressed. THEN, he put it on his desk and said that he would put it in the tasting on Thursday.
Tastings at Corti Brothers are legendary. I’m sure there are thousands of winemakers who would give anything to have their wine in a Corti Brothers tasting. This is a very big deal! Even though I know that mine is just going to be curiousity at a tasting of over 100 great wines that are all competing to be carried at the store, I’m still extremely excited.
I went back today and told the person in the wine department that Darrell was going to leave something for me. He said “citrus?” and handed me a pretty big bag of chinotti…maybe 25 of them. They look like tiny dry oranges and taste bitter.
It’s pretty clear to me that I’ve been given a challenge. I brought them home and juiced and zested them and put it all in the freezer until I get back from L.A. this weekend and can think about what to make.
In the meantime, I’m not going to be able to sleep until I hear about what happens at the tasting Thursday.
Lemon Wine!
My neighbor has a Meyer lemon tree. They mentioned to me last fall that they don’t know what to do with the fruits and don’t particularly like the taste of them. So, back in March, I grabbed a bunch of the lemons, did some research, and made a gallon of wine out of them. I mostly followed a mixture of the recipes on Jack Keller’s web site, with a few modifications I thought were necessary because I was using Meyer lemons rather than Eureka lemons.
Saturday morning, I went to Corti Bros and mentioned to Darrell Corti that I was making Meyer lemon wine. He said he’d be interested in tasting it. So, I went home and checked out the wine and bottled it. It’s actually pretty good.
Help! I’m running out of ideas!
It turns out that writing a weekly article is difficult….mostly just because I have to keep coming up with new stuff–even when everyone in the world is visiting, I have a million appointments, and I’m furiously working to get the winery insulated and fully functional before the hot weather arrives (I’ll post pictures soon!).
So, I thought I’d list the things I’ve already written about and see if any of you can suggest some topics I’ve yet to explore. I try to write articles that might make someone mad and that aren’t overly technical. I also don’t like to talk about politics. Here are some of the topics I’ve covered already:
* Religion and the Internet
* Porn and the Internet
* Gambling and the Internet
* Drinking and the Internet
* Parental Control Software (and the Internet)
* Plagiarism and the Internet
* The Semantic Web
* Single sign-on
If you have any ideas, please let me know. If your idea also turns out to be easy to write about, you’ll be my hero and I’ll write another article all about how great you are.
-Chris
Grapefruit Wine Update!
I pulled a sample from each of the two kegs today and brought it home for testing. The wine in both was pretty clear, but one is noticeably darker than the other as a result of the miracle we performed after the last racking.
Here are the results of the tests:
Keg 1 (the darker one): pH 3.43, 50ppm free SO2
Keg 2 (the lighter one): pH 3.40, 50ppm free SO2
These numbers are good.
Both taste about the same, although the lighter colored one tastes a bit thinner…which might be good, because both still have a very abrasive grapefruit finish. The sugar we add before bottling and 4-6 months of bottle aging mellowed it out last year, and I’m sure it will be the same this time. There’s nothing “wrong” with the wine right now, and so I’m happy!
One thing I’m going to experiment with this weekend is trying to smooth out the bitterness and clarify the wine by fining it with skim milk or egg whites. Here’s a short article about how this works.
At this point, I’m thinking we’re going to bottle in April or early May
Online Gambling: Just Legalize It Already!
Check out my latest column on InternetEvolution.com and post lots of comments. Thanks!
Announcing the 2007 Comet Colombard!
Jeff, Margaret, and I bottled the 2007 French Colombard on Saturday. Sam came by and cheered us on too. This is the white that Margaret and I bought as grape juice from Delicato Winery back in the fall. We had 17 gallons, which ended up being 6.5 cases of wine (78 bottles). And, it’s really good.
It’s unfiltered, but very clear due to the cold weather we’ve been having, which causes the wine to clarify naturally. If you put it next to a white wine that’s been filtered, you’ll see that it’s hazier, but you’ll still be amazed at how pretty this wine is.
Sunday, we took a bottle down to John Carvalho at Carvalho Family Winery in Clarksburg. He was impressed with it, and said it has a nice nose, good acidity, apple and melon flavors, and that the mid-palate was surprisingly and pleasantly smooth.
Later on that evening, we took a bottle to Revolution Winery and had the winemaker there, Jason Fernandez, try it. He also had very nice things to say about it. Since this was my first non-fruit white wine, I was extremely thrilled to be getting such a glowing review.
Bad Astronauts Announce Comet Colombard!
Over at the Bad Astronauts Winery Blog, I just posted something about our latest release, Comet Colombard.