How long do you?

[kendo]

Let your wine juice sit in carboys before bottling.?.. I have 2 carboys of juice from the juice buckets, do you bulk age just like juice from grapes or do you bottle sooner. Both carboys are reds.. Malbec and cab/ merlot blend.. What's the earliest you would bottle these? Thks

 

[salcoco]

three to six months., my concern would be the availability of tannins in a juice bucket wine. I would add some oak cubes to the wine and taste after about one month. rack when satified let sit another three months then bottle. let wine age in bottle for a year before drinking. ,longer if you have the patience.

 

[Turock]

I just don't like bottling anything that's less than a year old. You can often get surprised by how long it can take for the CO2 to come off the wine, especially if you're storing the wine in rather cool temps. Bulk aging does a lot of miraculous things for a wine. If you need the carboys--buy more carboys. It's a mistake to skip bulk aging, especially on big reds!

 

[tonyt]

6 months in glass carboy. Or three months in glass carboy followed by three months in small barrel.

 

[pjd]

I agree with Turock, 1 year minimum for red wines before bottling then 1 more year in the bottle before consuming.

 

[JohnT]

I like to bulk age between 18 months and 2 years.