Hi all
I'm making wine for the first time. I'm using a Cabernet wine juice/ puree (from wineexperts.com). Last week (it's been 8 days), primary fermentation was completed and I siphoned it to a glass carboy. Now I'm a bit confused about the following:
1) The manual of the kit says that it should stay like quiet for about
14 days, and then I can rack it, bottle it and age it for at least 6 months, but another book says that I have to rack it about 4 times before bottling, and that whole process takes about 6 months. I'm thinking that perhaps it is because the grape juice that I bought didn't have any skins (to my big surprise!).
2) I would really prefer to age it in bottles than in the carboy since I live in Houston and it's hard to keep the carboy under 65F during the summer! (It's already expensive to keep my apartment at 80F when the outside temperature is 90-100F!) I'm currently keeping the carboy inside a rubbermaid receptacle full of chilled water where I constantly add ice to keep around 60-70F. The sooner I bottle the wine, the easier for me, since I can just put them in a wine chiller at the correct temperature for many months. I've been told that if the wine ages at a higher temperature it acquires a 'hot' disagreeable flavor, so I don't want that to happen. However, I don't want to spoil the wine by bottling prematurely.
I would really appreciate any input/suggestions that you may have.
Thanks!
Fernando