Blending Question

Making a 50/50 Cab/Zin again this year, picking up grapes this Friday. Last year we crushed and fermented the varieties separately and blended after racking and storage in plastic barrels. The wine then spent 3 months in a French oak barrel. Results were good.

Here's the question: Thinking of blending 50/50 during primary fermentation so that the entire batch will be ready for pressing at one time instead of waiting for each variety to stop working (they were only a few days apart last year).

What do you think?

Thanks, Steve

Making a 50/50 Cab/Zin again this year, picking up grapes this Friday. Last year we crushed and fermented the varieties separately and blended after racking and storage in plastic barrels. The wine then spent 3 months in a French oak barrel. Results were good.

Here's the question: Thinking of blending 50/50 during primary fermentation so that the entire batch will be ready for pressing at one time instead of waiting for each variety to stop working (they were only a few days apart last year).

What do you think?

Thanks, Steve

Unless you are positive that a 50/50 blend is the best, why not ferment seperately and try different ratios. You might like the results.

I think you posted this same question too many times. ;^)

I also think that blending at crush removes options you may want to preserve, such as bottling one or the other separately or varying the mixture somewhat.

Whenever possible, it's a good idea to preserve your options for as long as possible.

Tom S

Yeah, I canceled two of them when I realized what happened. Only one shows up now using my newsgroups reader but Google still shows all three.

I agree, but I was wondering if there were any technical, chemical, etc reasons pro or con.

Thanks, Steve

There's no technical reason not to, but frankly I wouldn't blend those two together.

I'm more traditional though, and it's _your_ wine after all, but I'd blend Petite Syrah into Zin and Merlot into Cabernet.

Tom S

Cofermentation has it's supporters too. If you're just going to blend the two wines at the end no matter what, than you may want to try it.

The article at

talks about some of the benefits.

It doesn't specifically talk about Zin and Cab, but that's not really a classic blend.

Andy