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Beet Wine issues

I just pulled out some beet wine I had put away in May of this year and was very disappointed with what I found. The color had changed from brilliant red to a somewhat brownish ruby. The flavor, originally on the sweet side with tones of beet and a rather interesting mix of other flavors has become something with an overwhelming taste of brown sugar and a hint of cheap port. The aroma is also overwhelmingly of brown sugar. The odd thing is that no brown sugar was used in making this wine.

Is this a result of oxidation or some sort of infection? The wine, other than its peculiar aroma and taste seems perfectly fine. It's beautifully clear, the bottles are sediment free, and has good body. It is a little more brown than red than I would like but otherwise seems normal. I just don't understand how I screwed this up this bad.

Reply to
TechnoShroom
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Sounds like oxidation to me, browning tends to be from too much O2

Reply to
Robert Lee

Sounds like a red beet wine on his way to becoming a gold coloured special treat (like it should become provided it had been given the time to mature). You have been to impatient. Let it rest and mature; waiting is half the fun. Ed

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Reply to
ed

Sounds like oxidation to me too.

What was your free SO2 at bottling, and what is it now? How about pH?

FWIW, if those numbers are reasonable, it's possible that it's just a bad closure on that one bottle, and the remainder of the batch will be okay.

Dave

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Reply to
David C Breeden

Beet is the only wine I ever made that just seemed to fall apart color wise. I chucked it. Tim

Reply to
Tim McNally

My first thought upon reading of your woes was, "What the hell is he doing pulling a bottle of beet that was only put away in May?" I make a beet, I put it away in a dark closet to protect that delicate color, and it doesn't come out for at least two years, and even then it is "young" in my book.

Beet wine changes dramatically as it ages, but not the way you have described. It sounds to me like it has oxidized, either from insufficient sulfite during fermentation and at bottling or from a bad closure. The color, on the other hand, WILL change to brown (and, at the same time, grow lighter) if not stored in a dark environment. I had two bottles of a seven-bottle batch that were laid down in a cabinet with louvered doors because the cubby-hole in the closet filled up when I put the other five bottles in there. The bottles in the closet, after nearly four years, were as deep ruby as the day they went in, but the two in the cabinet had both turned brown and were lighter that the others. They tasted okay, but not quite as good as the other five.

Whatever the cause (and by now you should have enough hints to diagnose what you may have done wrong), I wouldn't toss them out. They just might turn out okay if you leave them alone another 18 months. If the problem is oxidation, they just might turn into a good sherry (depending on alcohol) in another four-five years. All they will do until then is take up space, so why not wait it out? Unless you are in your 70s, why be impatient?

Just my two cents worth....

Jack Keller, The Winemaking Home Page

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Reply to
Jack Keller

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