# Pros and Cons of sweetening before bulk aging?



## Polarhug (Mar 22, 2013)

I've heard it both ways. 

1. Stabilize, Sorbate, sweeten then bulk age?

2. Stabilize, bulk age a dry wine. Only sorbate near bottling?

Would love to hear input on both camps!


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## dangerdave (Mar 22, 2013)

I am in the "sweeten then bulk age" camp. IMO, this gives the wine time to meld it's flavors and attain a desirable balance. The sugars are great for enhancing and bringing forth the character of the fruits used---be they grape or otherwise.


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## saramc (Mar 22, 2013)

I bulk age before opting to stabilize with KMS/sorbate and backsweetening simply because I have had many wines improve to the point that I opted not to backsweeten; or not backsweeten as much as I would have if I had acted sooner instead of bulk aging. Plus, anything I backsweeten sits for another 1-2 months before I bottle anyway. But as I bulk age I definitely dose with KMS on a quarterly basis.


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## Abrnth3 (Mar 22, 2013)

I used to sweetin b4 bulk aging but now I am with Sara," because I have had many wines improve to the point that I opted not to backsweeten" let the true flavors come out.


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## Runningwolf (Mar 22, 2013)

I bulk age dry. This leaves options open if I decide to blend before bottling. I sugar, meta and sorbate then bottle anywhere from 3 days to whenever I get to it. This is also what wineries do.


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## dangerdave (Mar 23, 2013)

Ah, the three above are correct. I am yet to backsweeten a wine I had not planned to at the beginning. In my personal wine making method, I plot out a recipe and follow it to the (hopefully not bitter!) end. I very rarely tweak a recipe in mid process. So, having said that, if I plan to back sweeten, I do it before aging.

However, I clearly see the method to their madness above. They make a good point for letting the wine age, then back sweeten if necessary.


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## Arne (Mar 23, 2013)

I tend to bulk age dry. I usually sweeten my wines, but some of them lately have not needed sweetening after bulk aging. Arne.


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## GreginND (Mar 23, 2013)

Age dry and sweeten later. I want the flavors to develop as much as possible before I do any sweetening trials. If the wine is still young and "raw" and I sweeten it to taste then, it may be completely different and out of balance by the time it would be bottled.


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## Arne (Mar 24, 2013)

Greg, you did a lot better job of explaining why I age dry than I did. Thank you. Arne.


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## Turock (Mar 24, 2013)

I agree with the bulk aging then sweetening and the reasons everyone stated. But another reason is that sugar should not be added to a wine until it is completely done clearing out the wine yeast. You want the wine to to drop out as many yeast cells as possible. Then you rack off the yeast cells, and this will prevent refermentation when sugar and sorbate is added. It's also very important to be sure that the sugar and sorbate is evenly distributed thruout the wine.

E C Kraus has a very nice discussion of this subject on their site under blog/ wine-yeast.


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## GreginND (Mar 24, 2013)

Turock said:


> I agree with the bulk aging then sweetening and the reasons everyone stated. But another reason is that sugar should not be added to a wine until it is completely done clearing out the wine yeast. You want the wine to to drop out as many yeast cells as possible. Then you rack off the yeast cells, and this will prevent refermentation when sugar and sorbate is added. It's also very important to be sure that the sugar and sorbate is evenly distributed thruout the wine.
> 
> E C Kraus has a very nice discussion of this subject on their site under blog/ wine-yeast.




+++ YES

I would never add anything before at least 6 months. I always cringe when I read instructions suggesting to transfer from primary, add stabilizers and sweeteners. WAY TOO EARLY.


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## Turock (Mar 24, 2013)

YES Greg--I totally agree with you. That is NOT "best practice" and anyone who tells a new winemaker to do such a thing should get 100 lashes.


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## kryptonitewine (Mar 24, 2013)

So should we not stabilize either? I thought it needed to be stabilized before aging.


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## GreginND (Mar 24, 2013)

kryptonitewine said:


> So should we not stabilize either? I thought it needed to be stabilized before aging.



What do you mean by stabilize? After fermentation you want to keep the SO2 at a protective level. Since there is no sugar, there is no need to stabilize for fermentation - so no sorbate needed. You only need to add sorbate if and when you add sugar to sweeten.


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## kryptonitewine (Mar 24, 2013)

As I'm new it was just me not understanding.


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## Turock (Mar 25, 2013)

Kryptonite---The way this works for NON-kit wines is that once you rack to the secondary, the next procedure is to wait until you have lots of sediment in the bottom---these are the gross lees which are the products from fermentation. Rack those off. No need to rack again unless you have quite a bit of lees again. Let the wine sit and age undisturbed---we like to let them age at least 9 months unless we
are talking about big reds like Cab, Pinot noir,etc.

In this time frame, all the CO2 will be gone and the wine aged up, and also cleared. The rule here is that you cannot stabilize an uncleared wine. You have to have most of the yeast cells cleared from the wine and no remaining CO2 in order to bottle---whether you add sugar and sorbate or not.


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## Stressbaby (Mar 25, 2013)

What happens if you stabilize a wine which is degassed but not cleared? I'm not talking about sweetening, just adding the sorbate. I've done this recently to a couple of wines...hope I didn't screw them up...

It seems logical to me that if anything, stabilizing would HELP with clearing.


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## GreginND (Mar 25, 2013)

Sorbate doesn't do anything for clearing and it doesn't kill yeast. If there is no sugar to ferment, there is no need to add any sorbate. Adding it won't necessarily hurt but it is not doing anything.

The danger comes in when you sweeten and sorbate if it is still cloudy. There is still a large population of yeast present. Again, sorbate won't kill yeast, it will only prevent reproduction. So if there is yeast present it will start fermenting the sugar. That's why you want it as clear of yeast as possible before sweetening.

Sorbate does nothing for clearing.


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## dangerdave (Mar 25, 2013)

GreginND said:


> Age dry and sweeten later. I want the flavors to develop as much as possible before I do any sweetening trials. If the wine is still young and "raw" and I sweeten it to taste then, it may be completely different and out of balance by the time it would be bottled.


 
Ok, _OK_! I get it! LOL!

I guess I just haven't made a dry wine I needed to sweeten or a back sweetened wine I liked dry.

You all make very good points. Thank you.


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## Polarhug (Mar 25, 2013)

On the point of balancing with sugar at the end, wouldn't the wine *again* change characteristics after sweetening then bottling? It has to interact with the other chemical compounds in the wine one would think?

I'm just trying to figure out how much my sweetened wine will differ say 10 months - 2 years down the road from the day I bottled. They seem to be changing a lot. 

I guess in a perfectly patient world, one would bulk age dry. Then sweeten, then bulk age again and then any miniscule tweaks before bottling?


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## Noontime (Mar 25, 2013)

Polarhug- great name by the way... all wines are always changing. Every wine that was ever made tasted different a month after fermentation, and a year later, and 2 years later, and so on. There is constant chemical interactions going on even in the bottle...so yes, the wine will change again with the addition of sugar.

The difference is once its in the bottle, you're done monkeying with it...it's going to develop in the bottle and be what it will be. If you bulk age, the wine will be a better representation of itself at the end than at the beginning, so any tweaking you do at the beginning could be heavy handed (or less than required as well).

In addition to all the wonderful reasons already given, one other reason to wait would be spoilage organisms...why give them the sugar to eat and potentially spoil your wine.


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## Polarhug (Mar 25, 2013)

But, but, but, you mean I can't CONTROL it 110%?!?! Waaahh

This is a tiny death to the perfectionist side of me


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## Noontime (Mar 25, 2013)

Polarhug said:


> But, but, but, you mean I can't CONTROL it 110%?!?! Waaahh
> 
> This is a tiny death to the perfectionist side of me


 Ha ha!
Alas...such is the life of a winemaker.


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