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Need some advice

I recently toured a winery and was told that they take the wine out of the primary, then bottle it and let it finish aging in the bottles. I thought you took it out of the primary and put it into a secondary before bottling it.

I have a gallon of choke cherry wine that I put in to the primary for about

10 days, then squeezed it to remove the skins and seeds. Then I ran it through a jelly juice filter several times. Then I put it back into the gallon jug with an airlock. It seemed to quit working within a week or so. I have left it alone for about 2 months now, and wonder if I could bottle it.

I bought some corks that have a lid on them that you pull up and apparently remove air and tighten up at the same time. Will this be enough, or will it leave enough air in the bottle to cause my wine to turn to vinager? Will filling the bottles nearly to the cork before putting it in do better? If I would fill the bottles, then set them in a pan of hot water to expand the wine, before corking it help me remove the air?

I would appreciate any help you can give. I have made several batches before using concentrated grape juice and water, and put a balloon on the gallon jugs, and did OK. This is the first time I have tried doing it with real fruit.

Dwayne

Reply to
Dwayne
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The terms "primary" and "secondary" actually have a couple of meanings and they get mixed up sometimes. In one respect, primary fermentation is the yeast conversion of sugar to alcohol and secondary fermentation is the malolactic fermentation when a bacteria converts malic acid to lactic acid. Most fruit wines and most white grape wines are not taken through a secondary fermentation.

We often call the vessels we use for winemaking for initial vigorous fermentation "the primary" and the carboys (or tanks) "the secondary". This really has nothing to do with ML fermentation but stages of vigorous or slow yeast fermentation.

This may be part of the confusion about what the winery did with their wines.

Reply to
Greg Cook

I suppose I forgot to address your other questions . . .

If the wine is clear, you can bottle it. But be careful that "clear" is not really brilliantly clear and may throw more sediment. I usually bulk age my wines for 6 or more months with racking off the sediments a couple of times until it is absolutely clear.

I am not familiar with the corks you are describing but anything that will seal your wine from the air would be best. The idea is to get the minimum amount of air space. I would not recommend heating your wine at any time.

The nice thing about winemaking is it is rather forgiving. I'm sure your wine will turn out fine. Let us know how it comes out.

Reply to
Greg Cook

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