Corking question

[Richm]

Bottling went really well, quite hard work and a bit of a chore, although my 11 year old son loved the corking device and did all of them! 123 bottles from 147kg of Italian montepulciano d'abruzzo grapes. But the result was brilliant, the wine tastes really good, miles better than last year. Didn't sulphite, used the natural yeast present on the skins. Just kept everything clean, racked twice, or three times if you include bottling. Not too worried about sediment in the bottles, just being paranoid really. Had to use some screw top bottles, but no calamities yet, and will drink them first.

[rjb222]

Didn't sulphite, used the natural yeast present on the skins.

Unfortunately your wine probably will not taste good very long. With out using sulfite your wine is going to oxidize very quicly. Sulfites Protect your hard work and investment by helping to prevent oxidization. Sulfites if properly used will dissapate through the surface of your wine. This happens over time and through surface disturbance like when the wine is poured. Home made wines with proper sulfite levels are about 50 ppm when put into the bottle. When you pour the wine most of this will dissapate. Sulfite also dissapates through the surface of the wine while it rests so in less than a year your wine will be below 25ppm in the bottle when you pour this wine almost all of the sulfite is gone. To me it is just not worth the risk of loosing the investment of the fruit plus the work. Wild yeast is an unkown quanity in your ferment. The price of yeast is cheap all yeast is natrual whether packaged or wild with a packaged yeast you know which strain you have and what to expect.

[Cellar_Rat]

RJB is on the money here. I understand and have used your traditional method too. Proper yeast & sulphite will step up your wine.

[Emeraldclaire]

Agreed. I once tried to make a bilberry wine to a very old recipe, using cold water so as not to destroy the natural yeasts, etc. Didn't work and I had to rescue it. It was lovely in the end, but not a reliable method. Sometimes progress really is 'progress' and for the better. It was an interesting experiment though. My nan used to say they made wine in a bucket by the back door, covered with a tea towel, and used bread yeast. You can see why this was not a reliable method.
I always use sulphite when I first put the wine into storage. I am not a fan of chemicals, but, as said above, why risk all that investment of time and money?
By the way, doesn't wine oxidate, not oxidise? (Sorry, being pedantic??).

[Duffbeer]

By the way, doesn't wine oxidate, not oxidise? (Sorry, being pedantic??).

Without sulphite the wine will oxidise and the result then being oxidation

[lockwood1956]

Verb

1.

oxidate - enter into a combination with oxygen or become converted into an oxide; "This metal oxidises easily"

oxidisation (to oxidise) in winemaking terms is the effect oxygen has on the wine to change it, but it doesn't turn into an oxide (I think)

hope that helps

regards
bob

[Emeraldclaire]

I do wish I had paid attention in my science lessons at school!!!

[Cellar_Rat]

... is that the same as oxificationing then

[lockwood1956]

almost the same.....you just need to hang your coat on a higher peg!