Cellar Craft Decided to gamble...well, not really

[Boatboy24]

I've been feeling like early in my wines' lives I can taste sorbate. I racked and stabilized my Red Mountain Cabernet yesterday. Seeing as it had fermented all the way to 0.992, I figured this would be a good wine to skip the sorbate on. Otherwise, everything else as "normal", though I'm skipping the oak during clearing since this one will be going into the Vadai soon. Fingers crossed...

 

[rob]

What does Sorbate taste like?

 

[Boatboy24]

What I get is a sweet, almost bubble gum flavor - reminds me of some artificial sweeteners. That may be "kit taste", but it does remind me of the scent I get from a small jar of K Sorbate I have.

 

[GreginND]

Sorbate has sort of a bubble gum flavor. If you can taste it in your wine then you have too much in there.

 

[robie]

Yes, sorbate has a sickening bubble gum flavor. I say sickening because that flavor just doesn't go well with wine.

I never ever use sorbate in a wine that fermented to dry, and I am not going to back sweeten. I have never had a problem, as there is nothing left in the wine to restart fermentation.

 

[ibglowin]

Sorbate also helps to inhibit other "bugs" as well, not just to keep fermentation from starting back up. So remember if you omit it you should be practicing good sanitization habits in the winery. Some people can taste it others can't. I am a "taster" big time so have left it out after seeing what it does to alter the taste of a batch of wine. It does go away...... in about a year.....

That said I have never had any problems in almost 4 years with leaving out sorbate in a fermented to dry wine.

 

[Bartman]

Ix-nay on the orbate-say!

I don't use it either, except in the rare case that I make a semi-sweet wine.