Bottling white wines

im a fairly new winemaker , so correct me if im wrong. you can keep storing it in the carboy for a long time if you fill it up allmost all the way , so not much air doesnt sit on it. or you can bottle it and store it that way. some monks in germany used to store wine in bulk ,,barrels .they would siphon off what was needed and then put in round stones to get the air out of the barrell . they understood 1000 years ago that air deteriorated wine in storage. lucas

Not so much for storing for consumption, but will it improve any better in the carboy as opposed to a bottle?

snipped-for-privacy@webtv.net wrote:

Many whites are better drunk young. Many reach their prime within 6 mo. to a year and may decline after that. I find this is especially true with kit wines.

Reds are much more complex than whites. When young they tend to be fruity. After a year or more they lose their fruitiness but about that time or a little later the tannins contributed by the skins and stems start adding complexity. The wine goes into a very different mode. Many reds will go through a good fruity period, then a blah period, and then complexity kicks in and they become good but different.

White usually are fermented without their skins so they never go into this final mode. When they loose their fruitiness they tend to just go down hill.

Some kit whites I like best between 3 and 6 months. But remember, what ever the wine it needs to be in bottle for at least 3 or 4 weeks to get over bottle shock.

None of the stuff above is 100% and there are exceptions but in general it is more are less correct.

Ray

I usually bottle Chardonnay after almost a year in barrel (225 liter).

Tom S

I bottle Riesling after about 6 months in glass.

RD