Sulfite / Campden Tablets Quantity At Final Rack Of Elderberry Blackberry / Summer Fruits Wine

Dec 02, 2009 5 Replies

Hi.



I made three batches (15 gallons each) of dried elderberry / blackberry / summer fruits wine (some oaked with oak dust/granules, some with oak cubes and some with oak staves) with a six month interval between each batch. I have now racked the first batch 4 times (since it entered the primary fermentation container) over the last 2 years. It has been sitting in better bottles since and is looking, smelling and tasting quite good.



I now plan to bottle the first batch faily soon (the subsequent two batches will follow at 6 month intervals). I planned to rack a final time before bottling and am beginning to consider how much sulfite or campden tablets (if any) I should add in this last rack - per 5 (UK) gallon batch. I added some (I think a campden per gallon) at must stage and I think the same quantity again after about a year but I confess I have lost the paperwork. (I also have no access to sulfite tests that I know of).



I invite suggestions of a suitable addition per 5 gallon batch to help this wine age. The wine is medium heavy with dried elderberries and other fruit and I plan to age it in bottle at least a further year before drinking any more - it is still pretty tannic (as an ex-smoker and tannin lover that is perfect - I like that in a wine), but I would like the wine to survive at least a further 3 years in bottle after that - preferably more. I plan to bottle some with high end colmated cork, some with natural cork and some with synthetic seals as an experiment unless anyone has definitive arguments for a single high quality and sourceable seal for my recycled bottles.



Suggestions please and thank you :)


It really all depends on the seal of the bottle. If you used screw tops, I would just sulfite at 1 campden per gallon and bottle being that no air would probably seep into the bottle, If your going to use corks , if it was my wine, I would use all synthetic corks and sulfite at 2 campden tablets per gallon.. That should give you 100ppm and the synthetic corks should keep a good seal. I wouldn't use real cork. Cork is only a tradition and there is no advantages of using it unless you want to impress your friends with the unexpected elderberry/ blackberry sherry every once in a while.

Thanks very much for the advice. I was planning to go all synthetic, but then I had so much counter advice bemoaning the problems of having a complete seal so I started to feel that maybe the best quality cork was the way forward. Synthetic cork is far easier to source at a fair price here. The best quality cork my most local wine-supplies store sells are colmated. He said he trusts them far more than the natural cork he can stock.

I tend to leave more ullage in bottles sealed synthetically as I have had problems at corking with the seal being so airtight that the cork pops back as the gas fights the compression! I guess that's less of a problem than failed corks.

Jim

Sure, thanks. (in case I was ambiguous) the gas I referred to was just the gas (air) above the wine - point taken on the need to degass though...

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