# Sorbate and Barrel Aging



## Flame145 (Mar 27, 2011)

I plan on bottling a Brunnello wine that will be 1 year in the barrel come this September. I was wondering if I still need to sorbate this prior to bottling even after aging for 1 year. If so I would like to sorbate at my next racking.
Just tasted it yesterday while topping off. Tastes great and don't want to screw anything up. Wine is also nice and clear and wasn't planning to add any fining agents, as I think time is taking care of it.


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## Wade E (Mar 27, 2011)

If you are not sweetening this wine there is no need to use sorbate, do you mean sulfite instead?


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## Flame145 (Mar 27, 2011)

Wade E said:


> If you are not sweetening this wine there is no need to use sorbate, do you mean sulfite instead?



No I'm not going to back sweeten. Didn't know if sorbate was used as a precaution also. Just wanted to make sure I was going along correctly


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## Wade E (Mar 27, 2011)

It does have anti microbial properties to it so it wouldnt hurt but I wouldnt use it in a barrel as you may want to do some wine from juice or grapes in there and do MLF and Im not sure if using it in there could cause a future problem.


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## Flame145 (Mar 27, 2011)

Wade E said:


> It does have anti microbial properties to it so it wouldnt hurt but I wouldnt use it in a barrel as you may want to do some wine from juice or grapes in there and do MLF and Im not sure if using it in there could cause a future problem.



Ok. I wasn't sure if adding sorbate was a step I could skip. Just was thinking I didn't want corks popping. But yeah that was a good point about the mlf. Although this batch was not put through mlf, but the future reds will be. Thanks
So in other words I should be able to bottle without having done sorbate.


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## Wade E (Mar 27, 2011)

Not sure since you didnt state but dont do MLF on kits if you didnt know. The way the are processed it would hurt the end product.


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## Flame145 (Mar 28, 2011)

Wade E said:


> Not sure since you didnt state but dont do MLF on kits if you didnt know. The way the are processed it would hurt the end product.



No I didn't know that. I do all my wines from grapes. Thanks for the info though.


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## bruno31 (Apr 7, 2011)

Sorbate should be used only on sweet wines.

For red dry wines, sorbate is useless, and can even be detrimental if you have some bacterial development (sorbate only inhibits yeast, not bacteria), leading to bad flavors.

It is even more risky in your case if you don't do the malolactic fermentation, since bacteria can "wake up" at any moment! What is approriate here is sulfite (which is a much more efficient bacteria inhibitor).


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## Wade E (Apr 7, 2011)

Well not exactly true, sorbate does have anti microbial properties to it but I do agree that I dont and wouldnt add it if I werent sweetening the wine anymore. I used to use it when making a kit either way but that was before I knew better. They include it in their kits as an extra precaution against refermentation in the bottle of a beginner who didnt let their wine ferment all the way due to one reason or another.


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