Help Please: How do you let wine age?

[nlreinke]

Greetings,

New to the hobby here and have only made 2 batches so far, first is gone and second has been aging for close to 5 months. I would have done more since then but I am currently deployed and the military frowns on that sort of thing.

My question is how am I supposed to let my wine age when all I want to do is drink it? I am guessing the best answer is to make as much as you can to make a base supply and then let it even out from there.

But that is hard to sell to the bride when I keep telling her she can't touch what has already been made... Any advice regarding patience and building up your supply without consuming it?

Thanks,
Nate

 

[vacuumpumpman]

Greetings,

New to the hobby here and have only made 2 batches so far, first is gone and second has been aging for close to 5 months. I would have done more since then but I am currently deployed and the military frowns on that sort of thing.

My question is how am I supposed to let my wine age when all I want to do is drink it? I am guessing the best answer is to make as much as you can to make a base supply and then let it even out from there.

But that is hard to sell to the bride when I keep telling her she can't touch what has already been made... Any advice regarding patience and building up your supply without consuming it?

Thanks,
Nate

Welcome to the forum !

Keep the bride happy - ALWAYS !

Just make several large batches the first 3-5 years and you will have enough that you can start aging.
We all have been there - well I should just talk for myself - making it during the early fall and drinking it by the New Year -

 

[Boatboy24]

Volume, volume, volume. That, and make some early drinkers like Dragon Blood. White wines and Rose that isn't sweetened tend to be ready after just a few months as well. Hopefully, you don't come home from your deployment to find an empty wine stash. It is hard to not want to sample your work to see how it changes even week to week. But patience pays, and lack of it tends to bring regret.

 

[BernardSmith]

Hi Nate - and welcome. Low ABV meads (honey wines) and ciders (around 5-6% alcohol by volume (ABV)) don't need to age for any significant length of time. The higher the ABV the longer a wine needs to age. The thing is that drinking a wine when it's green (young) will highlight all kinds of imperfections that aging removes. There is no harm in drinking a green wine. It's just that it won't taste as good as wine that has matured over months. So can you share a bottle of young wine with your bride? Sure. Will taste better as it ages? Certainly. So, just be sure to hold back a few bottles - and when your deployment ends you may want to work on creating a pipeline that will allow you and your bride to enjoy your wines.
And thank you for your service

 

[Scooter68]

Tell her for now she needs to go to the Class 6 store for her wine. Tell her the wait will be worth it. In the meantime she can try commercial wines similar to what you are making.

Patience is a tough thing to learn.

 

[Mismost]

i am into a cheap fast early drinking kit and then a bigger kit that needs more time to age rotation. My hope is I'll have the faster early drinking kits so the better stuff has a chance to get some age on it. Not my idea, I read it here and it made sense to me.

So far so good.

 

[GaDawg]

Nate, thank you for your service!
I try to alternate between early drinkers and wine to age. It's important to have drinkable wine on hand.

 

[montanaWineGuy]

Just drink it. Unless you are some famous French wine maker, there's no benefit to storing the stuff for years.

 

[NorCal]

Just make more than you can possibly drink. That is when the carboys start multiplying as you make your way to a barrel.

 

[nlreinke]

NorCal,

That is an awesome pic, I hope to get there one day!

 

[nlreinke]

Thank you all for the advice. Everyone confirmed what I was already thinking... Make a lot, find something that drinks quickly to mix in with bigger reds, and don't get hung up on aging this early in... and keep the wife happy!

 

[Scooter68]

Just drink it. Unless you are some famous French wine maker, there's no benefit to storing the stuff for years.

I would disagree - Some wines benefit GREATLY from at least 9-12 months aging. Serving an immature wine, even to your own family is not going to impress them a great deal. That same wine at 12-18 months will be way better. DB and some other wines are more forgiving, but classic grape wines and fruit wines definitely benefit from aging.

I agree that my wines are not going to sit on my shelf for more than 2-3 years but that's more to make sure they don't turn on me. All my wines are fruit (Peach, Blueberry, Blackberry etc) vs grape wines

 

[Mismost]

Just drink it. Unless you are some famous French wine maker, there's no benefit to storing the stuff for years.

GOODNESS MAN! That statement flies in the face of all that is sacred to serious wine makers. I like the way you think!

 

[mainshipfred]

Norcal, from what I remember you need to build a larger cold box. I think you are out of room.

 

[montanaWineGuy]

GOODNESS MAN! That statement flies in the face of all that is sacred to serious wine makers. I like the way you think!

My wine making is now down to just over 30c a bottle. 20c sugar, 9c cork, 1c yeast, tannin+pectinEnzyme+YeastNutrient+AcidBlend is another couple of pennies.

Elderberries, Rhubarb, and Apples, etc. are free to pick over the area I live.

With that in mind, just drink it. If it was several $s a bottle then fussing over details to maximize my investment would then make good sense.

 

[NorCal]

NorCal,

That is an awesome pic, I hope to get there one day!

Norcal, from what I remember you need to build a larger cold box. I think you are out of room.

I have the opposite problem of @nlreinke, I have too much wine right now. The size of the box is my self imposed limiter to keep me in check. However, I have to admit that I'm moving a dozen or so cases to someone with a nice wine storage room.

 

[jgmann67]

I have the opposite problem of @nlreinke, I have too much wine right now. The size of the box is my self imposed limiter to keep me in check. However, I have to admit that I'm moving a dozen or so cases to someone with a nice wine storage room.

I may be able to help a brother out for a nominal bailment fee.

 

[Frosty]

In aditition to having some kits quicker to mature bulk aging in a carboy can help with the discipline. Also I find most newbies give a lot of wine away. While being generous is a virtue I have found many people really don't appreciate homemade wine either due to a prejudice or believing it is dirt cheap to make. Giving away green wine probably contributes to a prejudice.

 

[Scooter68]

In aditition to having some kits quicker to mature bulk aging in a carboy can help with the discipline. Also I find most newbies give a lot of wine away. While being generous is a virtue I have found many people really don't appreciate homemade wine either due to a prejudice or believing it is dirt cheap to make. Giving away green wine probably contributes to a prejudice.

Definitely agree on that. Only at this for 2 years now I've made a few mistakes in letting people taste test wine very early on and giving away and serving wine before it aged properly. I've stopped doing either of those. Folks who haven't made wine as a hobby have no idea how wines change, cannot taste the potential and in the end you wind up looking like a clueless incompetent. Friends may not really say anything but when they turn down a bottle the next time you realize the mistake.

Especially true when you taste a bottle of that same wine you served at 6 months with the same wine at 18-24 months when it has totally changed.

It doesn't matter if the wine costs 10 cents a bottle of 10 dollars a bottle. I don't drink or serve "Ripple" to friends knowingly and I don't want to make it either. If I'm that desperate for a drink either I can get a decent bottle of wine at the local bottle shop.

 

[GaDawg]

For about $50 you can get Vintners Reserve Gewurztraminer 10L Wine Kit. It should be drinkable in 6 mo.