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Jal5

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I made up a 6 gal batch following all the kit directions and bottled it last November. I planned on letting it age until July or August of this year so a 8-9 month aging, but opened a bottle at the end of January. It tasted as I expected it like a "new" wine a kind of rough not smooth taste. I left about 1/3 bottle in the refrigerator while I was away for a month using a wine saver cork. fast forward until today about a month later and I tried that 1/3 bottle: it had smoothed out nicely and tasted fine! I don/t understand it. What does this tell me about the rest of the bottles aging in the cellar? my thought is that I should have paid more attention to degassing the 6 gal before bottling?

Any ideas would be helpful and thanks.

Joe
 
I made up a 6 gal batch following all the kit directions and bottled it last November. I planned on letting it age until July or August of this year so a 8-9 month aging, but opened a bottle at the end of January. It tasted as I expected it like a "new" wine a kind of rough not smooth taste. I left about 1/3 bottle in the refrigerator while I was away for a month using a wine saver cork. fast forward until today about a month later and I tried that 1/3 bottle: it had smoothed out nicely and tasted fine! I don/t understand it. What does this tell me about the rest of the bottles aging in the cellar? my thought is that I should have paid more attention to degassing the 6 gal before bottling?

Any ideas would be helpful and thanks.

Joe

Hi Joe - welcome to the party.

Check one of your bottled wines... hopefully you have a 375 taster of it. Pour a half glass and get a sense of how it tastes. Then, put your thumb over the opening of the wine and give it a vigorous 1-2-3 shake. If you get a foamy head on the wine and "poof" when you remove your thumb, you got gas.

If that's the case, give it another 1-2-3 shake, let the co2 dissipate a bit, put a wine saver on it and leave it be on the counter for an hour or so. Taste it again. Does it taste better? The answer is probably yes.

If the taste is markedly better, I say pour the wine back into a carboy, dose with Kmeta and degas the batch using whichever method you prefer. Degas over the course of a few days until the foaming is all but gone. Then, put your wine back in the bottle and let it nap.
 
When you degas be careful not to stir air into your wine.
 
Don't stir so hard that you create a vortex that pulls air into your wine.
 

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