Oops, I see lees in my bottles...

I would not recommend that you dump it out of the bottles. Just live with it. Keep a bottle or two sitting upright so you will always have some that the sediment has settled to the bottom. Then when you are going to drink it be gentle so as not to disturb the sediment and decant carefully when pouring. If you are careful you will not lose more than a half inch in each bottle. It is not really that unusual of an occurrence and it is not the end of the world.

Ray

Nathan,

I'd suggest letting it go. The work and risk involved in decanting all of your bottles and fining or aging further probably will exceed the impact to your presentation of a small amount of lees in the bottle. And your peach wine will _taste_ just fine regardless of a small amount of lees in the bottle. In the future you might bulk age a bit longer, I usually go 9-12 months before bottling. Some wines, especially whites, seem to appear crystal but will continue to throw lees in the bottle. Racking a month or so before bottling will help you judge how much lees remain, as racking seems to instigate some immediate lees production in a wine that still has lees left to throw. Just remember that every wine will throw some amount of lees unless filtered, and don't worry about a small amount of lees.

Thanks all, I'll live with it for now.

So longer than 6 months in the secondary? Hmmm. I've been working out of just one simple book that only suggested longer for meads...

Thanks again!!! Nate

I wouldn't rebottle. I do get from time to time a little dusting of lees in my bottles - and this is from 7 months of bulk aging before bottling. As others pointed out, if you let your wine age more in the bulk container, and then rack again this should help decrease the amount. As an example, I did receive a bottle of homemade grape wine for Christmas with about 1/2 inch of lees. Later on I found out the wine had been bottled at 3 months or earlier. Naturally, the wine didn't have time to age and drop enough sediment. However, the giver of the wine didn't care, so whom am I to complain - I am thinking of decanting the bottle, topping up with red wine, bottling it again and letting it sit. Darlene

I'd just let it age out the way it is and decant it just before serving. The extra handling wouldn't likely do it any good.

Tom S

Really Tom...? I've left it alone, because I really didn't want to mess with it. But I was thinking about it. Wouldn't that much lees give it some off-tastes? This bottle of wine was made from actual grapes, and it is a red. Thanks in advance. Darlene

If it hasn't already gone reductive it probably won't. Still, it's _your_ bottle...

BTW, you should try to edjumicate those dudes on the finer points of racking! ;^D

Tom S

Thanks. I'm so busy with my own batches, that I'm not worrying to much about this particular bottle. As to passing on some of the finer points of racking, well, I'm working on it discreetly. I sent a subscription of Winemaker to him for Christmas. And I'm hoping that once he sees how much sediment is in the rest of his bottles, he'll figure it out.... ;o) Darlene

I know very little about all this, but seems to me the goal is to make something drinkable. who cares what it looks like. If it's safe and tastes ok to YOU, that's all that counts.

put the effort you would spend bottling twice into something more useful. start another batch or something.

I really don't think it will hurt it to re-rack, settle and re-bottle as long as you don't do a lot of splashing. I had a Riesling that I wanted to give mostly a gifts that I did this exact thing to and it still got great reviews.

I should point out that I didn't redo the bottles I planned to drink myself. I don't think a little bit of sediment will be a problem if the appearance doesn't bother you or your giftees.

I appreciate all the input on the gift bottle of red wine I received. I think it is always a matter of a person's preference - I would not give a bottle of wine with 1/2 inch of sediment in it. Call it a quirk, but if I'm going to give a gift of wine to someone, I want it to taste good and look good. I can live with a dusting of sediment, but a whole bunch bothers me. It bothers me, because the wine would be much better without it, and I would really like to taste & appreciate this homemade grape wine which was given to me. I also hate to waste stuff too. I've made wine which I don't like, or doesn't come out maybe the way I want it too, but at least I took the time to rack and age, and try to do produce an enjoyable wine to drink. That's not to say, that this wine won't taste good either. I'll probably just open the bottle, decant it, and try it. Darlene