Colin Perry's Homemade Wines

Now known as

Petaluma Cellar

Having a glass of wine in my cellar under construction

Finely another  wine The 2008 Zinfandel

Some of the wine in my cellar

My Homemade Wines

1990

Merlot

This is our first wine and we purchased it at Great Fermentations in San Rafael, Ca. We only purchased 100 lbs. of grapes so it was a very limited amount of wine. It came out good and I now have one bottle left that is mixed with 40% Cabernet.

Chardonnay

second picking from Napa. It was kinda limited, as my partner broke the water bottle it was in.

Cabernet

This wine came from the Napa Valley and was also a second picking. It was allright and is all gone.

1991

Cabernet

this was picked by two of us on I think the hottest day of the year. Also a second picking (from in in front of the Conn Creek Winery) This was a very limited wine, as we only picked 135 pounds of grapes. The wine came out great and I only have about three bottles left. The berries were small and in very small clusters, so it took us a while to pick it, but it was well worth the effort.

Merlot

This was picked from in front of The Clos Pegas winery and is also a second picking. Also a very limited amount (150 lbs.) It came out exellent and even the winemaker at Clos Pegas liked it. I might have two bottles left.

Sauvignon Blanc

This wine was also picked from the Clos Pegas vineyards in the Napa Valley. It was from a vinyard that is now gone, as it was infested with Philoxora. We got about 400 lbs out of it and it was a drinkable wine but not great. I think we still have about two cases of it.

1992

Chardonnay

Another second picking, this one from the Shellville area of Sonoma County. It ended up no good as it got over oxidized during bottling

Pinot Noir

picked from the same place as the Chardonnay, but it had a problem so bad we had to pour it out. So far the only wine that we had to dump. Kinda a funny thing about this wine, was that we made a Pinot Blanc from it and it came out drinkable, but we don't drink that kind of wine very often. Most of that was drunk by freinds.

Cabernet Sauvignon

Our first wine of a decent amount, 500lbs. We purchased this wine from a Man in the Kenwood area of Sonoma County . (Gino Voltatorni) It came out quite good and we still have a good amount of this.

Zinfandel

I found this in the Want ads of the local paper. We purchased this from a Man named Henry Garcia of the Dry Creek area of Sonoma. It came out great and we still have about 4 cases of it left.

1993

Chardonnay

Click here to view a labelWe purchased 1000 lbs. of this from someone in the Dry Creek area just off West Side Rd. It was kinda low in surgar and also high in acidity, but once you are there to pick with everyone, it's kinda hard to go home empty handed. So we went ahead and picked. The wine came out way too acidic, so I brought down the acid level to an aceptable level with acidex (an acid neturalizer) and it became a very good wine. We bottled it about September of 1995 and it is now in My new cellar. We will be entering this in the Sonoma Harvest Fair. I found My notes on this wine and a couple others. So here are a few of the specifics.Picked on 9/3/93, Sugar 22 degrees Brix, T.A. at harvest .93%

Zinfandel

Another Zin. from Henry Garcia of Dry Creek Rd. in Sonoma County. We Liked the Zin from 92 so well that we needed to go back and get more this year. I now have two years of Zinfandel from Henry in our cellar and all of it is great to my taste. This was also our biggest vintage (1200 lbs.) which produced close to 85 gallons of wine. We bottled this wine last year about the same time as the 93 Chardonnay. We will be entering this in the Sonoma Harvest Fair as well. Picked 9/17/93 sugar was 21.7 degrees Brix, T.A. at crush .915% Pitched with Montracet Yeast, Malo-lactic culture added on 9/22 and added cane sugar to bring beginning gravity to 23.1 degrees brix. T.A. 9/23/93 .8175% Pressed on 9/25/93, 10/7/93 Racked and added 30 ppm sulfite and 1.25 lbs med toasted oak chips. 8/11/94 T.A. .675% 11/12/94 another 1.75 lbs. med toasted oak chips.

1994

Cabernet Sauvignon

This was purchased with another friend than I started making wine with. Anyway again (as in 1992) it was from Gino Volatorni of the Kenwood area. This time 1000 lbs. it came out allright, but some of the bottles have a bit too much sulfite in them. We washed all the bottles in a sulfite soultion just before bottling to sterlize them and to add just a touch of sulfite to the wine for storage purposes. My guess is that some of the bottles didn't get drained well. Anyway a good amount of it is quite good and it will also be entered in the Sonoma County Harvest Fair this year. Picked 10/23/94 23.5 degrees brix at crush, T.A. at crush .615 to .6675% Pitched with K-1 yeast and MCW malo-lactic culture Pressed on 10/29/94 and left 20 gal. of must un-pressed in 4 5 gal. coke cylinders. left the unpressed wine in the coke cylinders (sealed up with built up CO2) for about a year. All got blended before bottling in our new cellar in May of 1996.

1996

So far 1996 looks to be a tough year to get grapes as we had late spring rains that cut the crop yield about 30%. But I did find something for a 1996 vintage.

Zinfandel,

"crush District 11"
click here to view progress on my 1996 Zinfandel

Cabernet Sauvignon

"Rancho Salina"
View the Label
click here to view progress on my 1996 Cabernet Sauvignon

1997

1998

Other Winemakers

Informal monthly tastings. Each participant supplies a bottle of wine.
Click here for info

This page is still in construction, so check back again to view all the different wines I have made. I will be adding to the list at my usual slow pace, so check back often.We will be making wine this year and I will try and keep this page updated with all the details about how our 1996 and 1997 vintagages are going.

Here are my other pages at the Petaluma Cellar

1. My Home Page

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