Restoring vintage home made wines

[bg7mm]

a better explaination is in order, years ago, before my father passed away he played abit in home made wines, likely 5 different fruit varieties, the bottles date from 1979 to 1983, all bottled in glass jugs of asstorted shapes, i guess they used what ever was avalible and empty? i've tasted some over the past few years, i have about 20 gallons total. the wines are strong in alcohol and flavor, much to strong. some of you old timers might understand the wwwwwhhhhhooooo affect i'm talking about when taking a sip. i'm wondering is theres any way to restore these old wines . dilution? filtering? then rebottle? . i'm not really interested in using the wines as a comfort drink or table fare but more a preservation and memory to my dad. better bottles and preserving what he tried his hand at would be a pleasure for me to be able to add these bottles to my wine racks. a label printed in his memory are my thoughts, something i can leave to the kids and grand kids in the future. i've had my turn at the holy #$&*@! affect, would like to let them see what grandpa made years from now

any and all suggestions, a helping hand from you guys would be greatly appreciated

 

[joeswine]

old lang zine

The first item of business is constructing a great label in tribute to him ,once that is conquered,the next is easy ,YES,OPEN AND RE FILTER THROUGH CHEESE CLOTH,QUICKEST WAY TO CLARIFY THE WINE ,ESPECIALLY IF YOUR REALLY NOT GOING TO DRINK IT,FRUIT WINES THAT OLD USUALL DON'T HOLD THEIR FLAVOR TO MUST AND GIVE WAY TO ALCOHOL,,RE-BOTTLE AND SAVE HIS HERITAGE,GREAT IDEA YOU HAVE ,FOLLOW THROUGH.

 

[JohnT]

An alternate view would be to expose the old wine to as little air as possible. The one thing that you do NOT want to do is leave a big gap of air in the wine jug (as a result of you drinking some). I would suggest that you remove the wine to smaller 750ml bottles. This way, you can enjoy the wine 750 mls at a time without leaving an air pocket in a larger jug.

Before bottling, I would stand the wine jug upright to settle for a number of days, and syphon the wine into each bottle leaving any sediment behind in the bigger jugs. In the process, I would also recomend that you add some k=meta to help protect the wine going foward.

As for taste. I would take some an do some bench trials to know what tastes good. I would then blend the wine in a carraff just prior to drinking it (750ml at a time). This way you do not make a blending mistake and ruin a whole jug of wine.

I make the above recomendation thinking that (this comming from your father) the wine is sacred to you. I think that this would be the lowest risk approach. I would not recomend that you blend with water as this will alter the PH of the wine and really put it at risk. Try blending with a good store bought wine instead. This might thin out the strong flavor whilt still protecting the wine.

 

[wvbrewer]

Can we have some pics?