I normally let my wine sit in the secondary fermentor (with several rackings) until about March, then rack into nitrogen charged 54 litre stainless beer kegs and set aside in my cellar for a year or two to mature.
Recently an experienced fellow at a wine club told me that it would be better to age wine in bottles rather than large containers.
Comments are appreciated.
Roger
I believe bottle aging and bulk aging are both important in helping a wine mature. Because I'm relatively new at this, I have not had a chance to bulk age as much as I would like to. Usually after 7-9 months of aging in bulk, I bottle, and then hope the wines age nicely. As soon as I build up my cellar, I would like to bulk age more (that's a goal). Anyway, I opened a bottle of raspberry and cherry this weekend. Both should either be at or very close to their proper age to enjoy. Since I had tried them out about 6 months ago, and they tasted good, I had hopes of improvement. Anyway, the raspberry seems to have gotten more tart, while the cherry taste seemed to have diminished. Both improved after sweetening, which made me feel a little bit better. I don't know that I would replace bulk aging with bottle aging. Both are important. Darlene
It's interesting because I took out "Hugh Johnson's Modern Enclyclopedia of Wine" from the library and he had some interesting charts of aging and maturity and how it affected various wines.
He had several charts, eg one for Beujolais, one for Burundy one for bordeau, all from a particular year. One type of wine for say a particular year would show a curve indicating fiarily rapid diminshment in quality over a short period, while anohter shows continue quality growth for a number of years and then a decline.
Seems to me that not all wines show continous improvement just by aging them. I have read messages about home made wines aged 20 years that were still good, and some were aged 2 or 3 years and went downhill quickly.
Oh well, I guess that's why we experiment in the first place. Wine is to be enjoyed sometimes and if it all works in your favour, so much the better.
Thanks everyone. I see that the question was asked, and dealt with very well, just a few posts up. Thanks again. Roger
I think at minimum bulk aging is convenient. Mostly I bottle according to my cellar needs. If I need car boys or DJs for a new batch then I bottle. I prefer to bulk age until I have developed the wine as much as possible. It is a risk but for me bulk aged wines have always improved. Even the acid levels have improved.
I have bulked aged in carboys and I think It made the wine smoother.
John
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