I just received a large 5 gallon jug of very excellent 1996 wine made by a friend before his passing. Going to the local wine specialist store, I bought 24 bottles and corks, a cork press, sanitizer and gained just enough knowledge to be dangerous. After sanitizing and preparring, I plunged the siphon down into the brew (and some of you can see this coming already) and began siphoning via la`pump. SO now as you can guess I have sediment in each and every one of the bottles from the mother jug. Is it practical or even adisable to open all the bottles again and filter the wine before re-bottleing? I don't mind the process so much, but I don't want to damage the wine. Now I read where potassium sorbate should be added before bottling to stabilize it, but how much for 5 gallons?
One fella I talked to said he would *cut* his home brew with white grape juice (not canned) to sweetin it if it was too tart. Is that like cheating?
Hello, Just out of curiosity, did the 5 gallon jug have a bung and airlock on it, and did you notice if it was bubbling or not? Sounds like the wine was being bulk aged for a number of years, it is hard to say if the wine was stable or not. One would think it would be after that long, but who knows.... You could leave the bottles as is, but watch them for any signs of fermentation (bubbles in the bottles). When you decide you'd like to serve the wine, let the bottle sit upright for a day or so to let the sediment settle, and then decant the wine before serving. If you notice fermentation in the bottles, then you need to be concerned about the corks popping & bottles exploding, and this can be a mess as well as dangerous. At that point, you could put the bottles in a fridge to slow down the process, while you decide what you'd like to do. If you'd like a sweeter wine or you decide you don't want the bottles with sediment in them, then you could uncork them, and siphon the wine off the sediment into a 5 gallon jug. If you like the wine as is, then you could let the wine sit, add 1 crushed campden tablet per gallon, and stabilize it (potassium sorbate or sodium benzoate/ 1/2 tsp per gallon), wait 10 days for sediment to drop, and then rebottle. Or you could sweeten, add 1 crushed campden tablet per gallon, stabilize (potassium sorbate or sodium benzoate/ 1/2 tsp per gallon), and wait 10 days or more for the sediment to fall out, and then rebottle. These are just my suggestions, I would suggest you check out Jack's wine site
formatting link
. I don't have any wine that old, so maybe some others will have better insight into dealing with it. Good-luck. Darlene
"*Popa Cork*" wrote in message news:YE23e.9751$ snipped-for-privacy@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net...
If you are thinking of picking up where your friend left of and taking up his hobby, that is one thing. If you are just trying to salvage what you can of this 5 gal. batch of wine that he left you, that is another.
First. I the wine evidently has been bulk aged for many years. It should have been racked several times during that time and should not have had any significant sediment. There is nothing wrong with bulk aging that long but good practice would not have wine sitting on sediment that long. Maybe your friend just could not take care of this wine properly during this time.
You did say it was very excellent wine. Did you taste it or are you taking someone else's word for this? If you liked it then it was good wine. My experience has been that you can leave the sediment in the bottles and decant the wine off the sediment as suggested above but it is not going to keep well and will eventually go bad. In general, sediment is not good for wine. If you are planning to keep it for a long time then I would suggest you open the bottles, carefully pour them back into 4, one gallon jugs (not the 5 gallon carboy). Fill them very full, crush a campden tablet and add to each and cork tightly with a rubber bung or use an airlock if you have one. Let these clear for a month or two. It should not take more time than that. Then rack the clear wine off the top of each and bottle. You can then pour all the remaining sediment and wine into one container and let it clear and tray to salvage a bit more wine from the remainder but plane to drink that wine right away as it will have had a lot of air contact.
After bottling these do not plan to drink any of them for at least one or two months as they will all have a bad case of bottle shock.
Good luck with your friends wine. I am sure it is something that you want to save and drink on occasion in remembrance of him.
Oh, you asked about sweetening the wine. No this is not cheating. At this point you are acting in your friends stead as a home winemaker. You are not cheating, you are crafting a wine. That means you are doing what is necessary to make it taste line what you and your loved ones like. You may add grape concentrate or honey or sugar or what ever you like to it. Have a party with your friend's friends and experiment with different mixtures to see what people like. Open some bottles and let people add different amounts of melted frozen Welch's concentrate and/or honey and/or sugar and see what people like. It can be fun and a fun remembrance of your friend. Heck, you may find that there is none of the wine left to worry about after the party!
I will tell you what. The wine may really have gone bad. So what. Believe me, if your friend made wine, he would not want you to be drinking bad wine in his memory so throw it out. You have the 5 gal jug. So in remembrance of your friend, get a 5 gal. wine kit and in 4 months your friends can be toasting your friends remembrance again with a great batch of wine. The Kits are easy, we will help you and your friend would love it.
After 9 years (!!??!!) in carboy, the wine should be stable just as it is. IF you decide to open the bottles and allow the sediment to settle out again before re-bottling, and IF you decide you really want to add some sweetening THEN you do need to add some sobate to prevent renewed fermentation. If the wine tastes decent at all, at this point, I wouldn't add anything! Red wines rarely need any sweetening, and a white wine that still tastes decent after 9 years in bulk storage is probably just fine as-is.
If you do decide to add some sugar / honey / whatever, Jack Keller's site recommends 1 to 1 1/4 grams sorbate per gallon; if you buy a small package from your local homebrew supply store, it will often have directions for equivalent measurements in teaspoons, etc. (in case you don't have a gram scale handy).
Taste a bottle, if it's good do not add sugar. You only need sorbate if it's going to be made sweet, is it? Is this white or red and did you add or check sulfite? How long do you want it to last?
You did two things less well than you might have.
You should have been more careful with the siphon tube, but I don't understand how you ended up with sediment in all the bottles if the tube stayed put. Usually it sucks up the surrounding crud and the rest of the bottling stays reasonably clean. Next time watch as you lower it and keep it in the exact same place more or less. Some start the siphoning only halfway down.
The sulfite level could have been low if your freind had not worked on it for over a year. That may or may not be an issue. If you intend to drink it in less than a year it may be ok to let things be and just set the bottle upright a few hours before drinking and decanting off the sediment. If you want to keep it longer you need to check the sulfite level, your freind probably has titrettes he used to check that, or the winemaking shop can do it for you.
If you supply more details we may be able to give more relevent advice.
DrinksForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.