27 November 2023
by wpAdmin
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The wine I was working on around the beginning of October has been sitting quietly in its demijohns, both inside cardboard boxes to exclude most of the light. I’ve been doing a bit more reading on how to proceed and got round to the next stage today.
Both started at a gravity of about 1.056 and both were sitting bang on 1.000. That suggests an ABV of about 7.35% which is rather low for a wine. I wonder if I should have added extra sugar to start with? Being weaker is not a bad thing in some ways but it does mean it won’t have the alcohol levels to help protect it over time. On the other hand my beer, typically a fair degree weaker, can last for months in the bottle so it isn’t the end of the world.
The two batches are quite different. The first is a very rich red but quite sharp and acerbic in taste with just a hint of fruit. The second is a pinker colour, less sharp but with a touch of buzziness. The trouble is that I’ve no idea what that might translate to in terms of mature flavour. I know that beer is drinkable just after brewing but a lot better after at least a month of bottle conditioning.
What I’ve done is rack each batch off into a fresh demijohn, along with half a Campden tablet and 0.5g potassium sorbate. The former should sterilise the wine in its current form and the latter should stop the yeast reigniting in the bottle. Unlike beer, you don’t want additional carbonation in the bottle for typical wine styles although, again, that’s another factor which means I am voyaging into the unknown.
I’ll give it a few days and then look at bottling. One factor I want to read up on is sweetening. Because the yeast should now be inactive, I can add sugar but what kind, how much and simply, should I? I’m also thinking of bottling in beer bottles (I’ve got lots of crown caps) rather than wine bottles. That will let me test smaller samples rather than having to open up a 750ml bottle each time. I reckon I’ve got about 2.5l in each one so, allowing for wastage about 6 regular bottles or perhaps three times that number if I use the smaller ones I’ve got saved. Crown caps aren’t recommended for long-term storage or for laying the bottles on their side but for what I expect needs to be drunk before the next grape season rolls around, I think it might be just what I require.