Other Major _ u _ k Up

[Boatboy24]

Last Wednesday, I racked my Shiraz Viognier out of the Vadai and into a 6 gallon BB. It was tasting great and I was really excited about it. Just now, I ran down to the winery to hide a couple presents that arrived today. Imagine my horror when I looked over to see the SV sitting there with no bung or airlock!!!

I grabbed the wine thief and pulled a sample. Amazingly, it tastes exactly as I remember with no hint of oxidation. I added a pinch of SO2, just to be safe, stirred it in and capped that bad boy. I plan to bottle next week. I think I dodged a bullet here.

 

[Floandgary]

Yes,,,,,Yes you are!!! A bullet dodger that is.. I would think that the exposure would have been minimal (presuming you topped properly). My money is down that you are not anywhere near the first to have a brain freeze. That's why it's a good idea to start this hobby when you're young enough to catch the slips and train yourself to not forget....

 

[roger80465]

Last Wednesday, I racked my Shiraz Viognier out of the Vadai and into a 6 gallon BB. It was tasting great and I was really excited about it. Just now, I ran down to the winery to hide a couple presents that arrived today. Imagine my horror when I looked over to see the SV sitting there with no bung or airlock!!!

I grabbed the wine thief and pulled a sample. Amazingly, it tastes exactly as I remember with no hint of oxidation. I added a pinch of SO2, just to be safe, stirred it in and capped that bad boy. I plan to bottle next week. I think I dodged a bullet here.

I hope you're right Jim! That is one of my favorite wines in my cellar right now.

 

[ceeaton]

Jim, in the Spring a church buddy of mine had me over and we were looking at some of his grapes (Concord and Niagara). He had made a batch of wine a few years before, but had forgotten about it. Both airlocks were dry when he found them (one was actually off and beside the carboy on the floor). He never had learned proper usage of Kmeta, and believe it or not the one with the airlock still on it (sans liquid) tasted fine. The other tasted like a really nice sherry wine, but dang I got one heck of a headache from a small sample!

I think your pinch on Kmeta and finding it so quickly adverted any problems, IMHO.

 

[Runningwolf]

My guess is you'll be fine. Minimize oxygen contact time when bottling.

 

[volldez]

I'm sure you will be fine! Just bottled 2 batches of these the last couple weeks....I agree these are very good wines and will only get better.
Rob

 

[4score]

Norcal and I were recently talking about the topic of O2 exposure, comparing an open carboy (filled to the neck) to say, an open half-filled 750 ml bottle. We looked at the ratio of exposure to total volume. I can't remember the numbers, but it was far less exposure and risk to the carboy. Also, when you think of a 60-gallon barrel that is down about a bottle's worth of wine, the exposure area is still quite minimal compared to a part-filled 750 ml bottle. You need more calculus than I can remember to calculate the exposed area under the hole of the barrel, but approximations were still far less than the bottle's exposure.