Could it be? Could our wine actually taste like...wine?

The wine has been aging for almost four months now, in 2 five gallon carboys; and we have an extra 1 gallon of wine also aging. Today was the day for us to "rack" the wine, the second time that we've racked the wine in the aging process. When you rack the wine, the goal is to siphon the good wine off of all the sediment that settles to the bottom throughout the aging process. The remaining sediment is called the "gross lees" and gross it is. It's a thick and sludge-like.

Look what a wealth of knowledge I am these days, huh?



Being that this was our second time doing it, Tom and I had our routine down and it was relatively stress-free. The big revelation for us was when we sampled a glass of each batch (we call each separate container it's own batch.) Now, the first time we did this and sampled the wine, it was cause for concern. the juice was cloudy, it had a slight smell of sulfur, and there was still a lot of fermenting still to take place. We were worried that the whole batch might be bad.

This time was way different. And waaay better. Each batch of wine tasted better than the one before it. Even our one-gallon jug of wine, which would be used to top off the big carboys; tasted sweet and reminded me off blackberries.

We also started to nail down the name of the wine, and what the label is going to look like. But I'll keep that one a surprise for now...