Tag: tasting

Kviek Cider Notes

stoutmakerLeave a comment

These are my taste notes on the Kviek Cider. Its now been two weeks now since I bottled it.

The quick rundown of where we are now. 3 gallons Walmart Great Value apple juice, 1lb brown sugar, 1 pkt Voss Kviek DRY yeast, 2 tsp nutrient at pitch. Fermented at 60F. Bottled, no priming. I wanted to keep it as simple as I could to get the best profile of what this yeast will do. I added ALL of the nutrients at pitch, since this yeast works so fast the normal staggered dosage would not work.

The first time I tasted the cider was two weeks after pitch. It was done probably 2-3 days after pitch, but because this yeast doesnt like to drop I let it sit as long as I could.

What I initially was getting from it at bottling day was a semi sweet cider with little apple character left. Not much for apple, but there was a bit of nectarine. And what I take as residual sweetness. But at .996 i find that hard to believe,, but it even has a little body to it.
I wasnt surprised that the apple wasnt there because this was a violent 2ish day ferment, and that drives off a lot of the character of the fruit.
Aroma is somewhere between a cider, and a blast of Kviek yeast cake. Mostly because there is still a bit of yeast in suspension.
Very slight Alcohol burn,, but so little you might almost miss it unless you were looking for it. But at the 10% that it finished at,, I was sorta expecting some heat. But a lot more than this.  

At bottling day, two weeks after pitch. It was a very drinkable cider. As far as 10% goes.

So here we are now 2 week after bottling. 4 weeks since pitch. It has really cleared up. But very little sediment. Seems quite compact for how long it takes to flocc out. 

Now it smells like a cider. Not a big apple bomb, but apple for sure, plus some of that nectarine. Nothing for yeast like before. Taste is pretty much the same thing, but more apple now and more of that nectarine or peach maybe now.
The alcohol burn has mellowed, making this a pretty easy drinker. But at the 10% it jumps on ya pretty quick.

The dryness is now a bit more noticeable, but I don’t think I would call it dry. There is a sweetness there and it still has an OK body to it. This certainly does not feel like a 0.996 finish at all. 

So I think this cider combo was a complete success. Getting a drinkable 10% cider thats not gasoline would have been fine. Getting one that tastes as good as this is unbelievable. 

None of the flavors are overpowering, so this will be the perfect candidate for adding flavor to. I don’t think I would have thought peach would go well in a cider, so maybe we should get on that wagon next.. After all, peaches are at the farmers markets right now. We will see

Tasting the Evanta Malbec after a year

stoutmakerLeave a comment

I’m ready to get the second tasting of the 2019 Evanta Malbec under way. Bought this wine last April from Aldis and stored it in the basement for a year.

Here is a link to the tasting notes from last April when it first came out. But to give a quick run down.. I thought it was a decent wine, but very new tasting. And thought that another year would help it alot.

I’m out here in the garage studio where we drank the first bottle, and I even have the same “glass”. My pickle jar. so lets go.

Got the cork pulled, and wow. Concord grape all up at you. In the glass its very dark, beyond red.
The Concord is quite strong yet, and also a chocolate note, like dark chocolate. these two aromas really play good together. A couple of swirls and a bit of horseyness is coming through. This wine just smells fantastic.

Ok getting into the taste. The first thing that grabs you by the face is the tannins. Omg. That is no doubt the most tannic wine that I ever had. So much so that it really is difficult to concentrate on anything else.

But, behind that is a bit of those Concord grape notes, but not nearly as much that there is in the nose. and none of that awesome chocolate or the barnyard stuff. The taste is completely different than the aromas.

The biggest taste I get is Bing Cherry. Not black cherry, or tart cherry. Bing cherry. and that wouldnt  be so bad, if the tannis didnt take over so bad.

Its not dry, in fact the body is quite nice. More than medium for sure. But its not sweet either. I’m not sure if its oxidation, but it has something not right with it.
All of the flavors are muted, or missing, but yet has a taste of fusels or something near that.. that was not there in the first tasting last year.

I’m just gonna come out and say it, I’m not a fan of this. its smells great, but between the cottonball tannin and the lack of any substantial taste, I could not recommend this to any one. I would have given a nod to the fresh batch tho.

Well, this did not come out anything like how I expected it to. Pretty dissapointing. I dont think it was a product of poor aging conditions. Its been in the dark and around the mid 50sF..

I do have one more Aldi wine aging yet. How ever, I do not have any notes on it. So it will be more of a straight up tasting review. but that will be further down the road,, I need to regrow my tastebuds after this one.

Evanta Malbec aging

stoutmaker1 Comment

We do some wine tasting too!

Last year in April (2020) we did a short run of reviewing some Aldi wines. For those who don’t know, Aldis has a pretty respectable selection of wines at Aldi’s prices.

I kept a few notes on a few tastings because we were planning on possibly doing some recordings or video shoots with them.

One of the first wines we had was a 2018 Argentinian Malbec from Evanta. This one had a year of aging on it already. (2018 grapes, released in 2019) We thought this was a very good wine, and at the $5.00 point.. Great choice we thought. At this point I just have some small notes written for the 2018..

Good body. Smells like black cherry. Plums. Is that strawberry?
Not much there, but we did like this one.  

We also found that the 2019 version was also just released, so we picked that up as well. This version was fresh. 2019 grapes and released in early 2020. It was good, but very “new” tasting. So we decided to go back and get another bottle to keep for a year and see what happens when you give a $5 bottle of new wine some time to develop.

Here is the notes that I took drinking fresh 2019 Evanta Malbec from Aldis..

First aromas are very one-sided. Concord grape, with a bit of alcohol.  Thats it.
 I expected to have far more taste. the aromas were just one note,, the tastes were also somewhat weak.
Anyone who has made their own wine will recognize the taste here. New..very new wine. It even has that particulate feel of a new wine.

Very tannic and oakey with the thinner body makes it feel a bit harsh,, but not offensive.
While on the dry side, I would not consider this a dry wine at all. It stops short of that, but the tannin makes it feel dryer

Everything about this wine is one dimentional.. But because it feels so new, I suspect that will change over the next year or so.

The warmer i let my glass get the more that subtle tastes start to emerge,, but only slightly.
I smell a bit of green banana now,, but tastes of plums a bit. But they never get more than just hints.

I think i’ll have to go get a second bottle of this and set it aside till next year. Its a decent wine now but after that oak fades and it get a bit of age to mellow things,, this may be a really good Malbec, like the 2018 was

So sounds like it was a decent wine,, just too new. Well I’m getting ready to open the bottle this week that I have been saving since last April. I will find the same glass, and I’ll even head out to the garage studio for the same ambiance. 

There is time to hit up Aldi’s for a bottle of the 2019 Evanta Malbec in a blue bottle if they still have it. Then you can taste along with me in a few days.