Recorking wine question

[Tripled92]

So we are bringing some friends over to the house and wanted them to try our first wine ever made (which is our only wine that’s actually ready lol, have about 15 different type of wine now in production) unfortunately the wine has sediment in it since it was our first wine and didn’t know what we were doing (would say we are pretty good at winemaking now, stilll a lot to learn though)

Anyway we found when experiencing that we could uncork the bottle and pass the wine through a filter and it gets rid of the sediment. The question i have is if we do that and the re cork the wine with a new cork and floor corker will it still last a long or is it similar to once the bottle is open it’s on a 3-5 day timer?

 

[winemaker81]

I can rebottle the wine, although I'd add K-meta.

Another option is to simply decant the bottle prior to drinking it, which saves labor.

 

[Tripled92]

I can rebottle the wine, although I'd add K-meta.

Another option is to simply decant the bottle prior to drinking it, which saves labor.

So if i re bottle it and add k meta how long will it last?

 

[winemaker81]

So if i re bottle it and add k meta how long will it last?

I doubt rebottling will have much impact on shelf life, especially you add fresh K-meta. However, you'll lose volume due to sediment, so you'll want to do something like 6 bottles at a time, using #6 to top up #1-#5.

 

[Smoke]

Not to jump on and hijack this thread, but I bottled my first batch of wine March 13 of this year. It was also my first batch of homegrown grape wine, not sure of the varietal. I’m not planning on tasting the final product until next month and am planning on tastings every 2 months until it’s just right.

My question is, I didn’t back sweeten the wine before bottling, and am afraid it will be too dry for my taste, can I uncork the bottles I currently have aging, return the wine to a carboy, back sweeten to taste, let bulk age in the carboy for 30-45 days to ensure no renewed fermentation, then rebottle?

I believe I’ll have to add k-meta to the wine when I back sweeten at 1/4tsp per 5 gallons, right?

 

[cmason1957]

Not to jump on and hijack this thread, but I bottled my first batch of wine March 13 of this year. It was also my first batch of homegrown grape wine, not sure of the varietal. I’m not planning on tasting the final product until next month and am planning on tastings every 2 months until it’s just right.

My question is, I didn’t back sweeten the wine before bottling, and am afraid it will be too dry for my taste, can I uncork the bottles I currently have aging, return the wine to a carboy, back sweeten to taste, let bulk age in the carboy for 30-45 days to ensure no renewed fermentation, then rebottle?

I believe I’ll have to add k-meta to the wine when I back sweeten at 1/4tsp per 5 gallons, right?

If you follow the procedure you outlined, you would want to add Potassium Sorbate to the wine as well as the K-Meta. The K-Sorbate acts as birth control for yeast.

If the wine underwent Malolactic Fermentation (malic acid become Lactic acid, which is less harsh tasting) then adding the sorbate is potentially a bad thing, as the sorbate can interact with the Malolactic Bacteria and produce the wonderful odor of geraniums.

Another option is to do the backsweetening on each bottle as you open them to drink or add some sugar to each glass to taste. No further action is required if you go this route.

 

[Raptor99]

Another option is to do the backsweetening on each bottle as you open them to drink or add some sugar to each glass to taste. No further action is required if you go this route.

This is the simplest solution. Mix up some Simple Syrup and keep it in the fridge. That makes it easy to mix in a little sugar in each glass of wine.

 

[Rice_Guy]

@Tripled92 i have occasional opened siphoned into new bottles and entered into a contest. Normal is if I need it today i siphon today for using in the next few days.

@Smoke there is a shelf stable sugar and sorbate product called Wine Conditioner which is used to sweeten wine. Yes,, you could uncork remix and sweeten but working like champagne folks who uncork> then add a sorbate containing sweetener > recork, sounds faster.

 

[Smoke]

I think I’ll take test the first bottle at it’s2 month test interval, then if it needs sweetening, I’ll open one other, backsweeten then recork and let sit for another two months before testing again while the rest of the run ages. Then taste that sweetened and recorked one and make a decision for the other 24 bottles that are from that batch.

 

[BigDaveK]

My question is, I didn’t back sweeten the wine before bottling, and am afraid it will be too dry for my taste

Just curious, how did it taste when you bottled? Also, how old is this wine? How long was it in bulk?

 

[Smoke]

Just curious, how did it taste when you bottled? Also, how old is this wine? How long was it in bulk?

It had a very definite alcohol taste, and was a tad dry for my taste. Could definitely taste the grapes. Was told by a taster that it tasted like communion wine!

I started the wine in October transferred to secondary in November, 1st racked in January, then again in February. Did a cold crash for 15 days in the fridge, then bottled march 20th.