wine diamonds

When I made the Rubicon a couple years ago I added 10% Cabernet Franc to mellow the blend, making the Rubicon the best tasting wine I ever had.  Because even a very dry Franc still has a most delicious flavor, I figured Franc should be my go to wine for the winter.  Last year I made 12 gallons of the stuff.

I bottled it in July, let it rest for a couple months, and by September it was ready to drink.

A few days ago I pulled a cork on a bottle of Franc and found wine diamonds on the cork.  Wine diamonds are crystallized tartaric acid or simply tartrates.  they're sometimes present in white wines but not so often in the reds due to the lower levels of tartaric acid.  To find them on a cork means the bottle was aged on its side or upside down to keep the cork wet.  It also means the presence of tartrate crystals is viewed by many winemakers, sommeliers and academics as a sign of quality, indicating that the wine was not overprocessed. Wine crystals never impart an unpleasant taste, so it's all good.

During storage, tartaric crystals could form if the temperature goes below 40F.  Not the case with this stuff.  Where I store the wine maintains a temp of 55F to 60F.  It's not only Franc that's stored here but cases of Rubicon, Sangiovese, Merlot, Petite Syra, Sauvignon Blanc, and a number of different blends, none of which have tartaric crystals.    

I look for these cork crystals whenever I pull a cork, and I pulled lots of corks in my lifetime.  Before the Franc, I was able to find only one cork that had crystals and that was from a bottle of Ergo Roja.  Apparently, wine crystals are somewhat rare.  All the more reason I got so excited when I found them in my wine.

Yesterday, I pulled a cork on another bottle of Franc and found some tiny crystals.  So far, four out of four bottles have cork crystals, making wine diamonds on the Cabernet Franc not a fluke but a consistent thing. That's four in a row and it's only aged for six months.  I'm betting the whole case is like this.  Not trying to brag but this proves my wines are not only exceptional but absolutely superior to anything else I've had in the last couple of decades.

I guess I do deserve bragging rights.