Small Batch Wine Experiments

Making small batches of wine at home can be a real labor of love. If you primarily make wine by the barrel it might be easy to take this idea for granted, but making really small batches (less than six gallons let’s say) can take a lot of effort for little gain. For the many amateur winemakers who work frequently with these small volumes even smaller experimental batches are often precisely what is needed. Bench trials might be familiar to some readers. An exercise in precise measuring and blending, bench trials are most often executed by winemakers determining a final blend. Bench trials do make a great deal of sense when thinking about the choices of how to finish or blend a wine, mead or even beer. As a metaphor it helps to understand the concept of small batches in the way I describe them in this article. My small batch experimentation is a form of bench trials on steroids, and could also be called recipe trials in some instances. I also think small batches are differentiated from bench trails