WineXpert bottles sweetness varies

[derunner]

I'm wondering what could have happened to my last Island Mist Peach Apricot Chardonnay. I had it in a 6 gal carboy aging for few months and even filtered it a week before bottling so I would have thought they would have been equally blended. However about half the bottles have had little to no sweetness. Others are sweet like normal.

I have made this kit before with great results, and I have another one ready to bottle that seems sweet. All of the bottles are clear in the "off" batch so it does not seem like some of them refermented. There is no fiz or sediment. I have a batch of afelwien where they started refermenting in the bottle and it is quite obvious with sediment and fiz.

This is not the case with the Island Mist kit, just some are sweet and some are not about 40% sweet and 60 unsweet.

Any ideas on what might have happened?

 

[vernsgal]

Are you sure it is done fermenting before adding sorbate? Is the sweeter bottles the ones you open 1st? I'm only asking because I have done these kits myself and the only cause I can see for your query is that it might still be fermenting after adding sorbate so the latter bottles are less sweet?

 

[derunner]

I would not think it was done as I check sg isbelow 1.0. Yeast was pitched 10/6, racked to secondary on 10/12, racked again at 11/23 when I degassed, added k-meta and sorbate packages, plus isinglass and f-pack.
1-18 I racked and filtered. It tasted fine then.
bottled 1/26.

So It was not aged as long as I normally do, but with a racking a filtering almost 2 months after stabalizing I would think the contents would be uniform at bottling. So it surprises me that the bottles have such different sweetness levels.

Is it possible to ferment to start up in some bottles without dropping more sediment?

 

[vernsgal]

to a degree I would think ( not sure, someone with more know how might help with that) I do know that sorbate doesn't stop an active ferment it only stops a new one from happening.Maybe the bottles weren't sterilized the same? Do the dryer ones seem like there's air in it? poor a little out of bottle, place your thumb/finger in and give it a shake.If it really fizzes that could be the issue.
honestly I'm just throwing maybe's out there. With wine making I have learned sometimes to expect the unexpectable.Something you could do is open a bottle and take the SG of a bottle and mark it down if you open another bottle and the taste is different test the SG of that finished wine. It won't tell you why it happened but it'll let you know if that's the difference in taste.
Always make sure though that fermenting has come to a stop before adding sorbate and clearing agents . They say to give it 3 consecutive days of the same SG , I alway give mine the week ( in the grand scheme of wine making, whats a few days )
Sorry I couldn't really answer the why's.