Wine life

[jerry]

I'm sure this was asked before, I couldn't find anything on the life of a bottle of wine after being bottled. I was told that after two years the wine starts to break down. So the answer I got was two years. If it makes a difference I always use a # 9 1 3/4 agglomerot cork .

 

[Tess]

What is your wine and when was it bottled?? Im as confused as you on this point. I was always told you should be drinking your parents wine and you should be saving your wine for your children. Then I got here and read reality!! Im confused. Im still learning too!

 

[Tess]

Maybe with kits is different??

 

[Deezil]

It's a little more complex than most really care for, but a lot of it comes down to how the wine is made..

Every batch is different, because of the different levels of flavor, alcohol, acidity, sweetness, tannins.. We strive to balance these different facets, but some batches, while 'balanced', are 'more' in every aspect than other wines (the ones with intense flavor make the best long-lived wines, imo).

Even though we may find a balance, and bottle the wine.. It's not truly done aging until you've opened a few bottles (spread usually month after month) and the just-opened bottle tastes like the last bottle did - and it's what you'd expect from that bottle. When you repeat that process a few times in a row, its safe to assume the wine is done aging.

From that point, however old it is, it's 'safe to assume' that the wine will keep for that-much longer.. So I opened my Peach at 18 months, and it was done aging, so I assumed that it would be alright until it was 3 years... It's now over 3 years old, and still decent

And then there's also corks & wax. Some corks - basic agglomerated corks, only hold up for so-long (18-24 months if i remember) because they allow O2 through faster than higher grade corks (1+1, or grade 3, 2 or 1).. Over longer periods, the lower-grade corks can also fall apart when uncorking, even if they've been waxed to save the wine. Wax will seal off the atmosphere but shouldnt be done until the wine has actually finished aging; prematurely waxing will stop the aging process

 

[Sammyk]

We are drinking Pear Kiwi which was an Island Mist wine that had extra sugar added upfront. The start date was June of 2012. At 15 months it is better now than when we had a bottle about a month ago. We have about a dozen bottles left now.

 

[Tess]

Deezil!! Chill! All I care about is that its good to me in the end!!

 

[Tess]

We are drinking Pear Kiwi which was an Island Mist wine that had extra sugar added upfront. The start date was June of 2012. At 15 months it is better now than when we had a bottle about a month ago. We have about a dozen bottles left now.[/QUOT


I have tried Sammyk, Im over it!! yuk.... I CAN NOT DO ANYMORE CHEAP KITS!! None of them beat dragons blood in the end!!!They to me are disgusting!! Just saying!! Im moving on to nothing but dragons blood, skeeter pee or high end kits

 

[Sammyk]

We have done about 15 of the mist type kits, maybe more I would have to through my excel spread sheet and count. Some we have made 2 times because we liked them so much. We have a Red Raspberry Pino Nero fermenting now and will most likely do that one again too. We don't drink them until they are at least 4 to 6 months in the bottle. All of our friends and family like them too. Some more are more liked than others but we have never had any of those type kits that no one liked.

All I can say is we both have acid reflux and no longer make the pee or dragon's blood. Shame too because our lemon trees produce 2 bushels of lemons every winter. And we get around a bushel of key limes every year too. We feed them to our koi who love the citrus fruits.

To each their own taste, right?

 

[Tess]

SammyK, My last cheap kit and it sucked!!! I will not buy anymore!! Ewwww! Im serious! Its so bad!!Just me maybe!! Ewwww!!

 

[Deezil]

Deezil!! Chill! All I care about is that its good to me in the end!!

Chill? Was it a little more complex than you bargained for?... It came with a warning

Doesnt change anything though, it's still a complex balancing act..

Cheap kits have their place - and they're for those with just a tad more patience than the DB/SP crowd but not enough for the 1-3 years for mid-high end kits..

If you didn't like ANY of the kits, I'd suspect you were low on the 'patience' part of this wine making endeavor
I cant be 100% though, I'm not a big kit maker, nor do I make much SP/DB..

 

[sour_grapes]

Deezil, thank you for that explanation. As a beginner, I found it useful. I have been experimenting with aging (relatively inexpensive) commercial wines, i.e., I have tried to guess which would benefit from aging, and then aged a case or so. Some are coming along nicely, some are probably not going to benefit much more.

I am new to kits, but I am making only big reds, and shooting to age about 1.5 years before drinking. After that, I plan to drink over the next 4 years or so. I am using "premium" corks (don't know the grade) and one extra 1/4 tsp of k-meta. Hope those steps are sufficient!!

 

[GreginND]

I just opened up a 7 year old bottle of black currant wine last night and it was delicious. Still plenty of life in it. I have many fruit wines that are 10-12 years old and still great. Whoever said fruit wines can't age was wrong.

 

[JEmesPA]

I'm a complete newcomer to wine in general , but I always assumed the more aged a wine the better it was....isn't that pretty much what ppl have been lead to believe??

 

[jswordy]

I'm a complete newcomer to wine in general , but I always assumed the more aged a wine the better it was....isn't that pretty much what ppl have been lead to believe??

Perhaps, but it is untrue. A lot can happen to a wine while it is aging, apart from the wine itself changing. It can oxidize, for example.

But the main point about wines and aging is that some wines are made to drink young and some to age. Typically, a really long aging wine will taste awful when young - highly tannic and sometimes acidic, and extremely dry. Some have overpowering oak notes, too. They are a bitter pill to swallow. But after, say, 10 years of bottle aging, if all goes well with the closure and the microclimate the bottle is in, all these harsh notes will have mellowed and blended into a fine, well structured wine.

If a wine made to drink young is aged, it will plateau within the first year or two and stay at that level for a period of time, then begin to decline. Most wines made for young consumption should be gone by 3 years.

Agglomerated corks are made to last about 2 years with certainty.

I agree, Greg, on fruit wines. I have some 2-year-old strawberry I am still drinking.

 

[wineforfun]

What kind of cork should be used to shoot for 5yrs +?

Greg,
What type of cork did you use with your 7 yr. old currant?

 

[jimmyjames23]

All natural longs.
Good for 10+ with moderate cellaring.

 

[bkisel]

In a conversation with RJS CS, with respect to VdV kits, I was told that drinking whites within a year or so of bottling and the reds within two years or so would be a good rule of thumb.

 

[jswordy]

Found this lil chart...

 

[jswordy]

Another...

 

[wineforfun]

All natural longs.
Good for 10+ with moderate cellaring.

All natural being the agglomerated corks?