I think I killed my wine. I did five gallons of merlot using concentrate. My starting sg was1.080. After I racked, there was about 1/2 gallon headspace. I top it off with 2 quarts of grape juice and now my sg reading is 1.0. I added 5 crushed campden tabs. With this reading does this mean 0 alcohol content or can I save it?
You may be missing a digit, but if you went from 1.080 to 1.0 (assuming 1.000) then your ABV should be around 10.5%. Still assuming you meant 1.000, then your ABV would be even higher than that since you topped off with grape juice and then took the reading. I'm guessing your reading before the addition was 0.990 with a .5 gallon addition of 1.080 juice to bring it to 1.000 gravity in the end. That would mean that before the addition, you were at 11.8%ABV.
--Jeff
Wayne,
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Assuming the wine was dry when you racked, it would have contained about 10.6%ABV. Adding the grape juice would have caused about a 10% dilution leaving you with about 9.5%ABV presently in the wine. Barely adequate. The added sugar may cause the ferment to restart, so leave it under airlock for a while to see.
I'm not quite sure why you added grape juice to Merlot, if it was Concord juice the taste of the Merlot will be altered. It's not good practice to add sugar (from the grape juice) and sulfite and the same time IF you want the grape juice to ferment out also. If you do and it isn't active try racking with splashing, it will get some oxygen to the wine and reduce the sulfite level. If you like it as is leave it alone. I would agree that a little less than 10% alcohol is not a good place to be for stability also.
Next time consider topping with wine, store bought if necessary. There are box wine out there that are not awful.
The wine isn't ruined but it has been altered, taste it and repost if you don't like it.
Joe
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