After Stabilizer Added - Next?

You didn't mention what type of juice but if you've added potassium metabisulfite and keep it topped up then another

6 months in the carboy wouldn't hurt. Your temp of 12C sounds better than the suggestion of 20-22C (room temp?). You might check the oak level before bulk aging. Rack it off any lees and perhaps give it another racking and 1/4 tsp of sulfite at 3 months.

Don

Thanks for the help.

The wines are actually juice (we *were* going to buy grapes this year but 2003 was absolutely horrible in Niagara. There were almost no grapes available to growers as the wineries bought whatever decent that was grown) Anyway, there's 1 carboy of inexpensive Zinfandel, and much better blends of Cab/Merlot (2:1) and Shiraz/Cab (2:1)

So the wines were racked for the first time, and the potassium metabisulfite added about 2-3 weeks ago. I am thinking of racking again (necessary?) before putting in the temperature-controlled cellar, and racking again in about 3 months, more depending on how clear the wine is.

The sulfite you mention adding is prior to and for bottling right? As a preservative for bottle ageing?

Peter

So I take it, it either was a good year in Niagara and producers brought up everything they could to make as much wine as possible or Ontario producers are selling way more than last year and are trying to keep up with demand. Either way, good for Ontario wines. Or perhaps kit makers were buying up the produce.

I would think the racking would be driven by the amount of lees and whether the wine would benefit from being in contact with it. I'm not enough of an expert to say. You'd have to research on your own or hope for other answers. You could try reading here:

The sulfite additions are added to keep the SO2 levels up. They are rough rule-of-thumb additions driven by the amount of racking, more racking means more oxygen and thus the need for more sulfite. A 1/4 tsp before bottling is probably not a bad idea but as everyone here keeps telling me, buying a tester is preferable. Jack Keller's site lists this:

Potassium metabisulfite, 1/4 teaspoon = 225 ppm in 1 gallon, 45 ppm in 5 gallons

Don

More of the latter; it was a terrible year and the Wineries bought all the decent grapes they could to supplement poor amounts of wine. (They're even supposedly being allowed to blend in wines from elsewhere I hear)

Sorry, I meant based on the amount of lees, determines how much racking (we don't filter)

For this year I'm going to lay off the sulfite; I'm too paranoid of messing it up. My plan is to do a little more reading in preparation for next year.

Again thanks for the advice

So wine kits based on ontario grapes may suffer. For instance my latest kit was a Kendall Ridge Showcase Merlot. I had a choice of Ontario or BC merlot. I chose the BC because, rightly or wrongly, I couldn't remember Ontario producing good merlots.

I don't believe they can blend in more than 10% and still be a VQA. Maybe we will see less VQA and more Meritage styles.

I think that's what I was answering.

Don

My understanding was that the vintage this year in Canda was bad enough that they relaxed the standards for VQA.

Can anyone up there confirm this?

Dave

**************************************************************************** Dave Breeden snipped-for-privacy@lightlink.com

AFAIK, that is the case. I know there was legislation and a push for it (obviously not everyone involved whats to see such a thing) but not sure if it's official. Obviously something kind of kept on the 'down-low' so to speak.

I'd be interested in knowing as well.

It would seem like a pretty dumb thing to do. The VQA standard wouldn't mean much in the end, people would be wondering if this was the good standard or the "watered down" standard and just give up on it.

Don

Yeah, but if the alternative is the LCBO not having any wine to sell (because their own regs require them to buy a certain percentage of VQA wines, and if there are no grapes, there can be no VQA wines), then you have to re-write the laws.

Silly Canadians.

Dave

**************************************************************************** Dave Breeden snipped-for-privacy@lightlink.com

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snipped-for-privacy@lightlink.com

... and they're a virtual monopoly in Ontario.

I'm also pretty sure that they absolutely hate the home brew businesses in Ontario but luckily there's not much they can do about them. The "enforcement arm" of the LCBO raided a number of businesses here in Ottawa about a year back and found that they were not having the customers do enough of the brew cycle. I think they fined the businesses.

My goal these days is to never in my life buy another case of beer or bottle of wine.

Don