Stirring on the fine lees question

I stir the wine on it's _gross_ lees, but aside from that there's no difference. The presence of sulfite makes no difference either. Stir every

3-4 months, but don't whip air into the wine. Also, keep the free SO2 where it should be for the wine's pH.

Tom S

Jim,

Yes that's fine. Scroll down to "Stirring Schedules" at

for some common regimes.

Tom,

Using that terminology can be confusing given that you do some serious juice settling resulting in essentially "fine lees" (by definition) in what would normally be regarded as "gross" or (perhaps better put as) "bulk" lees. (This confusion arose earlier in the recent "Forgot to Cold Settle - Advice?" thread.)

Ben

Hey Tom,

Did you really mean stir every 3-4 MONTHS? Did you mean every week for 3-4 months, maybe?

Dave

**************************************************************************** Dave Breeden snipped-for-privacy@lightlink.com

No, I meant what I said (wrote). After ML is complete there's no need to stir so frequently, and I age on the lees for a year or so - stirring every few months.

Tom S

Hmm. Interesting. How often do you stir DURING M-L? I normally don't stir during ML, so as to avoid the intoduction of oxygen, and then stir bi-weekly for a couple of months after ML.

Dave

**************************************************************************** Dave Breeden snipped-for-privacy@lightlink.com

Two or three times a week is good, but with a well behaved strain of yeast plus adequate nutrients I've gotten away with once a week. I don't worry about aeration during stirring while ML is rolling along; the CO2 gassing off keeps air purged pretty well.

Tom S