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Fizzy red wine ...

Nitrogen ? CO2 ?

Although I don't notice it my wife, and several others, have commented that my wine "tastes" fizzy. Looking at the bottle there are bubbles clinging to the glass on the surfce of the wine - that does not go away quickly. Tiny bubbles can be seen rising if looked at closely. If I pull a partial vacuum on the bottle - with one of those vacu-vin corks - larger bubbles are drawn out.

I keep my red wine in stainless 58 litre beer kegs. When wine is required I decant it from the keg for immediate use. Wine is decanted from the keg with nitrogen (not CO2 or beer-gas) running at about 5-10 lb.

Not knowing any better I have assumed the bubbles were nitrogen. Recently someone suggested the bubbles are CO2 and I should "degass". None of my books mention degassing.

I make my wine outside, from grapes, in October. After the primary the wine sits in a 200 litre blue plastic barrel (full) under an airlock. I rack three or four times with the final rack to the SS beer kegs in March. At that time the wine is still and clear.

Can anyone comment ? Anyone have this "fizzy" problem ?

Thanks

Roger

Reply to
RogerD
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I have run into some fizzy wine. One time I made some Shiraz with much gas in it. It is CO2 gas still desolved in your wine from the fermentation. You do need to degas your wine when you stabilize it. It merely consists of a good strring after you have put your stabilizing chemicals in. Some wine kit instructions suggest a vigorous stirring for 2 min, wait 15 minutes, and do it again. When you do it, it feels quite labor intensive. Also, you'll see a frothy foam as the gas comes out of solution. Other degas method involve a strirring device you can attach to a hand drill. Either way, try it on your batch and see if it helps.

Steve Lynchburg, VA

Reply to
Steve Leonard

commented that

It's CO2, either left over from the alcoholic fermentation or from your wine undergoing ML in the kegs. Do a chromatography test to check for the latter possibility.

Degassing is often required for wines fermented in colder temperatures and bottled relatively young. It's usually not a big issue for reds, but your procedure sounds like there is not enough time for the wine to degass on its own, so you might have to help it with some vigorous stirring in the drum.

Pp

Reply to
pp

You are bottling at only 6 months old. If you are not degassing it could be CO2 that is still dissolved. With 4 rakings I would think that it would clear up by then but maybe not. It could also be a MLF fermentation that is ongoing when you bottle. This is actually considered good for your wine but can cause the fizziness if it is still going on when you bottle. MLF will soften a rough wine. It is hard to detect except by paper chromatography. If you do not want to fool with the chromatography, which I do not do, you can wait longer to bottle if you want to let it go, then use a proper dose of sulfite and make sure the ph is at a level that will inhibit MLF before bottling.

Reply to
Ray Calvert

Thank you everyone.

CO2 huh ... I am located in Vancouver, Canada. Temperatures in the winter usually get down around freezing for a couple weeks My wine sits outside - for convenience and for cold stabilization before "bottling" in March.

2004 Lodi Merlot dropped out a lot of TA.

I will stir well before the final racking of my next wine (from frozen Yakima Cab left over from 2004 harvest).

Malolactic had not occured to me. I will get a kit and run the test.

Thanks again.

Roger

Reply to
RogerD

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