How to make Suss Reserve?

[Randoneur]

Planning ahead for next year - how do you make Suss Reserve. White wine, Vidal Blanc.
I think I need about a half gallon for a 5-6 gallon wine batch.
I would freeze it while the wine is fermenting, but what happens before and/or after freezing. Do you clarify it? Add sorbate and KMBS?
Add it back into the wine before bulk aging?

 

[Dean]

If you can't sterile filter it, then crush, and give it a high dose of k-meta and k-sorbate. Let clarify a few days to drop the gross lees, then freeze until needed.

 

[Randoneur]

Dean,
Let's say I think I will end up with 5 gallons of wine, would I be OK if I added enough KMBS and Sorbate for 1/2 of what would be needed in the 5 gallons? Then add the rest when I add the Suss Reserve.

 

[Ankita]

This will be the first time that I will try to make suss reserve and after reading this post I feel it requires a lot concentration. < id="gwProxy" ="">< ="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" =""><div id="ref">

 

[Dean]

You just need a high enough dose in the Suss Reserve itself to stop it from fermenting. You still need to dose your wine as well. Remember that grapes have a huge amount of native yeast on the skins, and that's what you are trying to stop in the reserve pack. Also, when you re-introduce the juice back in, you want to make sure the wine has had most of the yeast fallen out of solution, and the sorbate is going to assist with preventing the new yeast from replicating to restart a big colony.

 

[Dean]

Kartik, most suss reserves are not concentrated. Concentrating the juice, especially with heat, will lose the delicate floral aromas that a suss reserve tries to preserve.