ARGH! Bottled wine re-fermenting...

[Brewgrrrl]

(also - I don't think that this is the same stabilizer that George sells - I won't say where I bought mine but I also won't be buying it again... grrr)

 

[AlFulchino]

BrewGirl....my apologies if you took my bonehead comment the wrong way..i use the term often...usually about myself..i FREQUENTLY make boneheaded moves..its just life...maybe its a northeast thing but from NYC up to Boston we all feely call names upon ourselves and its not anything more than admitting things about ourselves/myself....i do plenty of funny and stupid things.....and in the end...its time to laugh at myself and say what a bonehead i am...which I am.....i was not calling you this in any perjorative manner and apologize to you if that was how you took it

if your directions called for it then of course you are just following directions..my intent was not to connect but to speak of wine making mistakes, foibles errors in general ..in YOUR case the boneheaded move was by the supplier if in fact that agent has a sorbate product that does not perform..Rich spoke of it in his answer....and since i have not used the producti cannot speak of it..anyway just wanted to clear that up....

here is another bonehead move i have for...and its gonna make me some very good money....because i FORGOT TO DO ONE STEP in a wine blend i have accidentally come up w one of the MOST OUSTANDING dessert wines EVER made.....i ended up w a test batch and gave a tasting to the public on it this weekend.....what a bonehead i am...and yet now i am blessed to have this new item..i intend to name it Seta (say-ta) which means silk in italian because this new wine blend is liquid silk or velvet....

 

[Wade E]

Next time Id save a little money and just make a simple syrup which is all that product is and consists of 1 cup boiling water with 2 cups of sugar dissolved into the boiled water and then cooled down and added to your wine. I make a gallon jug of this usually and keep the extra in my fridge for either using to up the sg of a newly started wine or to sweeten a fermented wine after I have stabilized it.

 

[Brewgrrrl]

Yes, I will definitely do that. And Al - thanks for that. I'm not at all shy about sharing my own boneheaded stories about brewing and wine-making (which I have more than a few of). I just get really frustrated when something is *supposed* to work a certain way (oak chips, wine conditioner, etc.) but then *actually* works differently... especially when the difference between "supposed" and "actually" results in my having to unbottle, treat, re-age, and re-bottle a batch of wine. Maddening... also, I have now realized that at least one of my 1-gallon batches has the same problem (the peach chenin blanc was a 5-gallon batch in 25 regular wine bottles, the 1-gallon batches are in 20+ .137ml bottle). Ugh...

 

[Wade E]

I must say that at this point you are still lucky you dont also have to clean up exploded bottles in the cellar!

 

[robie]

It has already been mentioned but I'll remind you again that any sugar you added for sweetness has likely all fermented out in the bottle, so you will need to sweeten again.

 

[Brewgrrrl]

GOOD NEWS!!!

I dutifully dragged myself downstairs to save the peach chenin blanc... and I could only find a box with 8 bottles in it... hmmm... I thought I had over a full case left... did we really drink and give away that much??? Yes, yes we DID!!!

I had to really go through in my head how many parties and graduations I'd been to in the past month, but we really didn't have much left. Boy, that was a LOT easier to deal with - I threw the wine (well, gently poured the wine) into a gallon and a 1/2 gallon growler with a little simple syrup, K-meta, AND sorbate. It was so easy that I decided to deal with the gallon batch of blueberry that I'd bottled the same day (and which was also re-fermenting). SO - THE WINE IS SAVED!!!

There was also a gallon batch of blueberry pinot gris, but I decided to leave that alone and call it sparkling wine (it's bottled in those little .137's and capped so it should be fine).

WHEW! Thanks for all of the advice, everyone. And - CHEERS!