halting fermentation

Would you mind sharing where you bought this juice? I don't like the idea of it coming with yeast added!

In regards to Tom S's solid advice, perhaps a wine shop in your area would be willing to rent a filter to you?

Don't know what Rick had, but if you don't want added yeast, don't buy Vin Bon. In fact, I wouldn't buy Vin Bon even if they didn't add yeast. Very thin, characterless wines.

Brian

it was a place in hamilton ontario... costas.... I'm not slamming them....some people may really enjoy this. My brother buys ONLY from them. some may not like it... I guess personal taste. they seem to do a very brisk business... but it is juice that is chilled until ready to be fermented or sold.... they do it on premises or they sell to customers such as me.

How about freezing a bit more and drawing off the concentrate as an icewine??

Why do you say he can't filter? It isn't that hard, and all it takes is a small pump and a 10" plastic housing and 0.45µ absolute cartridge. Failing that, it is feasible to simply rack, sulfite, bottle and keep the wine refrigerated. As long as you keep it cold it'll stay sweet for quite awhile - maybe a year or more.

The suggestion about omitting the yeast nutrient is a good one; I'd forgotten about that.

Tom S

That's a little too cold. You want to hold it at ~30°F and let it settle very well. (A little bentonite and isinglass would help with the settling.) Then you can rack it from the lees, sulfite and bottle it. As long as you keep the bottles cold it should be stable for a year or so.

Tom S

Hi Tom and all

The problem with this method is that the wine has to remain refrigerated right up until it is used. If one should forget this and move it to cellar, it could restart and become down right dangerous. This method of chilling the wine until it clears and then racking the clear wine away from the lees while it is still cold can still be used, but if the wine is to be cellared, it then must be sterile filtered or chemically stabilized. (Sorbate for commercial wines or alternatively, Benzoate for non-commercial wines)

I can see a further problem with doing it this way. If the Riesling juice had an original PA of ~11%ABV, stopping the ferment to retain sugar means that that sugar does not get converted to alcohol and you could end up with too little alcohol for the wine to be stable in the bottle. A serious consideration. HTH

cause he said he doesnt have one

I only say he can t filter because he said earlier that he didnt have one. I like the idea someone said about renting one though.

The only comment I would add is that all wine juice contains some level of wild (natural) yeast and some are actually very agressive. The first Chenin Blanc I ever made contained no cultivated yeast and did ferment to dryness. It was very good. That said, I would follow Tom's suggestion as to Epernay II next time. Cultivated yeast usually takes over from wild yeast, and is predictable to some extent.

That sulfite advice was just bad, I would just chalk it up to experience and move on. He might have been thinking that non-cultivated yeast is not sulfite resistant, as most cultivated yeast are. I'm not sure I buy that, yours was not that way.

A lot of residual sugar Riesling is low alcohol, so I would not be too concerned about that either, I have seen them as low as 8%. Sweet wines made this way are usually drunk up fresh anyway. I would fine it, let it settle, rack it and refrigerate or filter as you were advised and enjoy it now. We usually find a way to drink up 25 bottles of good wine in a year over here....

I used an aroma enhancing (AR2000) enzyme this year on all our whites. I can't believe how well the whites turned out and think it was directly related to that. I will use it from now on. It really does enhance the bouquet. If it smells good, it tastes good. I'm not telling you to go out and find some, I just mention it because we made Riesling again this year and it's very good.

We did not try the chilling route by the way. We fermented to dryness, fined, filtered and added 1.5% RS to balance out the acid. Most of it is already gone; it's well liked. It came from Regina juice.

Regards, Joe

I'm a little late to the party with this one, and pretty new to wine making, but here are my 2 cents:

Everyone is talking about how to halt fermentation, which is what the OP asked about, but isn't another possibility to ferment to dryness and then sweeten the wine?

Bruce.

Yes, that's one way of doing it, but the product isn't as good. Using a sussreserve (unfermented juice) is considered a "cheat" among quality producers of sweet wines.

Tom S