Chancellor Final Came Around

Anyone have much experience with Chancellor? I made one back in '98 that is finally drinkable. It was black with tannins because I left it on the skins until they sank. That, along with too much acid made it virtually undrinkable until now.

Not that I mind waiting 8 years but this year I will make it again and was wondering what acid levels other shoot for with this hybrid. I bottled this at 7.5 g-l which just seems too high. I may shoot for 6.5-g-l this time; that's higher than I normally go but this grape makes good wine and I would expect those bottles to last 10-15 years that I made back in 98. I may actually pull of some for earlier drinking and leave some on the skins longer for laying down.

It was literally undrinkable to a novice until now, only someone who likes big, dry reds would appreciate this. As much as people say they like big dry reds in the US I don't buy that. It's usually an acquired taste and most people I know never get that far with wines.

I liked the heavy tannins. I make a lot of light reds from Regina juice and they are fine for everyday table wines but a big red is never a bad thing when the meal calls for it.

The only fault if you wanted to call it that was the acid level, it dropped a little in the sediment but it still had a lot in there. Next bottle I will test. I think the reason I left it that high was mostly inexperience along with the pH being at 3.5. I traded off and bottled it too tart for my tastes in the interest of the numbers. That is not something I would do now, the taste is my tie breaker.

I was thinking of following Tom S's regime of lowering pH to 3.3 no matter what it does to the TA pre-ferment but this wine is good without ML; I'm not sure I want to go that route. I may split the difference, crops in PA are never predictable anyway. You get what the weather provides and go from there. Northwestern PA almost always requires some intervention.

Joe