Final 2009 Blends

The group met and tried numerous blends for Magafique and Boisique. This year we tried more variations to try and hone in on our favorite. It's amazing how changing the blend a few percentage points will change the flavor.

 

We liked the "Right Bank" Bordeaux Blend again this year--pretty much the same blend as last year except no petit verdot (we'll hold the final gallon of Petit Verdot for the 2008 Cabernet Reserve Spring bottling).  I think we have the Right Bank Bordeaux blend figured out. lt would be interesting next year to change the Left Bank (cab based) Bordeaux to be more of a 70% Cab and 20% Merlot to see if we can find the sweet-spot for that blend.

 

2008 Magnafique

50% Merlot

40% Cab

10% Malbec

 

We started with standard 80%/20% merlot/malbec for Boisique and also tried 75%/25%. We liked the original 80/20 better. We tried increasing the merlot to 85%, but didn't like that as well. The sweet spot was somewhere in the 80-83% merlot range. We decided on:

 

2008 Boisique

82% Merlot

18% Malbec

 

Here is the gallons of wine we have to bottle (not counting the 60G hold-over for cabernet reserve to be bottled in the Spring). The blends turned out merlot heavy so we will have some extra cabernet and malbec. I suggest we do another cab/malbec blend with the leftovers.  Last year we had good luck with 60% cab and 40% malbec, we'll have to see how we like that but based on some earlier tasting trials I think we will.  We would each get 2 1/4 cases of that blend (Cab/Malbec) and we would have plenty of Malbec to hold over for next year (approx 20.5 G -- Enough for a 2009 Boisique and Magafique).

 

2008 Wine To Bottle

ID Cabernet: 38G

Merlot:  77G

ID Malbec: 32G

WA Malbec: 16G

 

Here are the expected gallons of each wine for the blends. We should double check the total gallons before starting to blend.  It wouldn't be a bad idea to double check the math too. :)

 

Magnafique

50% Merlot = 27G

40% Cab = 21.6

10% ID Malbec= 5.4G

Total = 54G (4.5 cases each)

 

Boisique

82% Merlot = 50G

18% ID Malbec = 11G

Total = 61G (5 cases each)

 

Cab/Malbec

60% Cab = 16.4G

40% ID Malbec = 10.9G

Total = 27.3 G (2.25 cases each)