Several questions

[wineview]

Rather than go to individual forums, it seemed more streamlined to ask all my questions at once. Here goes............

1) When you refer to a bottle of wine being two years old, what is your start date? The day you pitch your yeast? Your first racking into bulk? or the day you bottle the wine.

2) I've see sanitizing solution recipes as a combination of K-Meta and Citric Acid. Is it the same citric acid found in the canning section of a supermarket or acid blend from LD Carlson?

3) I've always been a bit shy about fermenting my reds to warm and have kept them around 75 F. I recently read that low fermenting temperatures for red wine gives you a lighter in color and body wine. It's absolutely true as my wines have been both light in color and body. How high do most of you ferment your reds to get a bold wine? I would like to move in that direction.

4) Today I pitched RC 212 into a Sonoma Forte FWK. Once SG hits 1.020 or so I will snap the lid shut. Normally I would rack in two weeks but I had a thought and wanted to run it past all of you. I will be going out of town returning at the end of March. Can I keep the lid snapped closed for an additional four weeks and rack when I get back? It makes no difference to me but was wondering if the additional time would be beneficial.

Thanks

 

[cmason1957]

I'll answer the ones I might have answers for, someone else might have answers for others. We will go off on tangents, so be ready.

1) My start date is when I pitch the yeast, or maybe when I bottle. It really, depends on which way I feel when I am asked. and I am consistently inconsistent in my answer and thinking.

2) yes I make sanitizing solution with Acid blend, although sometimes, if I have citric Acid, which most wine places sell, I'll use the citric acid. I don't know if it is the same as the canning, but my guess is yes.

3) red kits, particularly without skins, I don't worry about the temperature, what it gets to or what I ferment at. I figure all the color extraction has happened. With red grapes, I try to get the temp up above 80 at some point. I usually do that by putting them in the sun for a day while fermenting.

4) If it were me, I would rack it into a carboy before I left, knowing that buckets leak and you are talking a month or more. I would "rack dirty" as in get as much of the stuff at the bottom of the bucket fermenter as I could, just to make certain plenty of yeast makes it over.

 

[Rocky]

Rather than go to individual forums, it seemed more streamlined to ask all my questions at once. Here goes............

1) When you refer to a bottle of wine being two years old, what is your start date? The day you pitch your yeast? Your first racking into bulk? or the day you bottle the wine.
This has been discussed and there are varying views. Personally, I count the start of the aging date as either when I go into bulk aging in a carboy or barrel or bottle aging from the time the wine is bottled.
2) I've see sanitizing solution recipes as a combination of K-Meta and Citric Acid. Is it the same citric acid found in the canning section of a supermarket or acid blend from LD Carlson?
I don't use citric acid in my sanitizing solution. I mix 3 tablespoons of K-meta in one gallon of water and used that for all sanitizing. If I were to use Citric Acid, I would use the LD Carlson product.
3) I've always been a bit shy about fermenting my reds to warm and have kept them around 75 F. I recently read that low fermenting temperatures for red wine gives you a lighter in color and body wine. It's absolutely true as my wines have been both light in color and body. How high do most of you ferment your reds to get a bold wine? I would like to move in that direction.
I start my fermentation of all wines at ambient in my cellar which ranges from 67 to 69 degrees F. When a grape pack is involved, I manually squeeze the pack at least twice a day during the fermentation. I am pleased with the colors of my reds.
4) Today I pitched RC 212 into a Sonoma Forte FWK. Once SG hits 1.020 or so I will snap the lid shut. Normally I would rack in two weeks but I had a thought and wanted to run it past all of you. I will be going out of town returning at the end of March. Can I keep the lid snapped closed for an additional four weeks and rack when I get back? It makes no difference to me but was wondering if the additional time would be beneficial. Probably would not be a problem if you had the lid snapped down tightly and an airlock in place. I depart from the instructions on FWKs and ferment them to under SG 1.010 and rack them to a carboy. Just my way of doing it and I am pleased with the results.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

Thanks

 

[winemaker81]

1) I go by the day I start the wine, e.g. reconstitute a concentrate or crush grapes. It's an obvious date for every wine. I have bottled wines at the 1 month mark and at the 2.5 year mark ... using the bottling date is arbitrary and it doesn't convey the true age of the wine.

2) I made K-meta solution for decades with just water and K-meta. Currently I'm using acid blend to reduce the pH, as I'm not using it for anything else. Lower pH supposedly makes the K-meta more effective, but it works fine without.

3) I ferment at ambient temperature, and reds usually get into the upper 70's or 80's F. I agree with Craig that if there are no skins/solids, a higher temperature will produce no different results. I've also noticed that since adding ColorPro, color and body are not an issue. My suggestion is to ferment the wine dry before pressing, to get the most from the skins.

4) The short answer is "yes", you can do a 6 week EM. However, make sure that's what you want, as the wine will continue to extract tannin. I agree with Craig that a carboy is safer than a primary, and it should be noted that one potential drawback to EM is spoilage. Do the 14 day ferment, rack into a carboy, and you can rest assured the wine is as safe as can be while you're gone.

 

[Rice_Guy]

1) my start date is the year/month when the yeast is starting the fermentation. Logic; there are chemical changes which are started when sugar (high redox potential) is changed into alcohol (lower redox potential) and farther down the energy scale to acetaldehyde, acetic acid etc
2) grocery store is the same acid, legally if it only says citric it has to be citric. NOTE,, one could use any available acid as phosphoric or lactic or tartaric, you are only forcing a pH shift.
3) no real opinion, with apples the polyphenol concentration in the fruit determines the wine level
4) yes some commercial folks do, Note letting wine sit with gross lees is said to produce peutrification flavors. You should be reasonably safe from a spoilage point as long as CO2 is actively being produced. Snapping a lid implies a six gallon bucket. When trying to make a gas tight bucket with airlock I have had problems. It seems to work better with a narrow mouth.

 

[Rocky]

Regarding the age of the wine, in my simplistic reasoning, I feel an analogous situation is when a baby is born. That is the date we consider when determining how "old" a person is. I do not feel wine is wine until it has completed fermentation, and I respectfully must disagree with Bryan, Craig and Madison. Else we are all about 9 months older than we think we are!

 

[wineview]

Regarding the age of the wine, in my simplistic reasoning, I feel an analogous situation is when a baby is born. That is the date we consider when determining how "old" a person is. I do not feel wine is wine until it has completed fermentation, and I respectfully must disagree with Bryan, Craig and Madison. Else we are all about 9 months older than we think we are!

So your short answer is about two weeks after you pitch your yeast.

 

[winemaker81]

Regarding the age of the wine, in my simplistic reasoning, I feel an analogous situation is when a baby is born. That is the date we consider when determining how "old" a person is. I do not feel wine is wine until it has completed fermentation, and I respectfully must disagree with Bryan, Craig and Madison. Else we are all about 9 months older than we think we are!

There is just a bit of difference between making a baby and making wine. Has no one explained the birds-n-bees to you? Note that drinking wine and making a baby may have a relationship ....

All jokes aside, it doesn't make a lot of difference, e.g., start date, pitch date, fermentation complete date (assuming this is known) are all within ~2 weeks of each other. While I record the exact dates in my notes, when thinking about the age of a wine, I typically count by month, so month/year are what I'm thinking about.

 

[ChuckD]

I just bottles three wines I started in 2021. If I label them as a 2023 it doesn’t reflect the 1.5 years of bulk aging… and if I want to consult my notes I won’t find them in 2023.

The convention of naming for the harvest year also makes sense for fruits that vary a lot from year-to-year.

 

[winemaker81]

The convention of naming for the harvest year also makes sense for fruits that vary a lot from year-to-year.

Historically, labeling grapes by vintage year made sense, as Vinifera are generally harvested between September and November, and winemaking was a once-a-year thing. Country wines were also a once a year thing, e.g., Strawberry was May, etc., although country wines were typically consumed by the maker or within the community. AFAIK, there was no widespread market as there was for Claret and Port.

Fast forward to today and the recent past (~30 years). While we still have the once-per-year thing for fresh grapes and fruits, the rise of grape concentrates and readily available freezing has made wine a year-round thing for many folks.

My notes from the 80's show fruit wines from spring to late summer, while grape wines were fall. My 2022 notes show batches starting between March and November. It's a different world, so narrowing the "vintage" date makes sense.

 

[wineview]

I just bottles three wines I started in 2021. If I label them as a 2023 it doesn’t reflect the 1.5 years of bulk aging… and if I want to consult my notes I won’t find them in 2023.

The convention of naming for the harvest year also makes sense for fruits that vary a lot from year-to-year.

Precisely.

I know what I do and was just throwing the question to the group to get a feel of how all of you put an age to you're wines.

 

[Rocky]

So your short answer is about two weeks after you pitch your

I just bottles three wines I started in 2021. If I label them as a 2023 it doesn’t reflect the 1.5 years of bulk aging… and if I want to consult my notes I won’t find them in 2023.

The convention of naming for the harvest year also makes sense for fruits that vary a lot from year-to-year.

ChuckD, I differentiate between the vintage year and the age of the wine. I feel the vintage year is the year that the grapes are harvested and the wine ages after it is wine, i.e. complete. Rocky

Wineview, I would say whenever fermentation is complete and the wine is clear.

It is all right for us to disagree. This is the way I do it and at 81 years, and I am unlikely to change.

 

[cmason1957]

Wineview, I would say whenever fermentation is complete and the wine is clear.

It is all right for us to disagree. This is the way I do it and at 81 years, and I am unlikely to change.

And we are all correct with whatever method we use (and all wrong at the same time). It just isn't something to get real upset or concerned about, pick a system that works for you and stick with it. Or change it, if you think it isn't working any longer. Home Winemakers means we got no rules we have to follow about most things.

 

[Raptor99]

When I first started, I wanted to use the vintage/harvest date like traditional commercial wineries. But since I sometimes freeze fruit for 6 months or so, that gave a weird result. And what is the vintage date of a concentrate? So now I use the yeast pitch date. As @winemaker81 said, the dates of preparing the must, pitching the yeast, and finish of fermentation are all within about 2 weeks of one another, so it doesn't make much difference which of those you use.

 

[BernardSmith]

The date of a wine may be very important to the wine drinker if they are knowledgeable about the particular locale and the particulars of the weather etc of that harvest. If we are making country wines or making wines from kits, typically we have no real knowledge of the location where the fruit was grown, what the weather may have been during that growing season and that is doubly true of anyone making wines from kits. The bottom line is we really have no good way to talk about the "vintage" of our fruit or juice or concentrate, so a good solution is to refer to the date when we pitched the yeast. Doesn't tell anyone in the know whether the growing season was particularly dry or wet or warm or cold. But t does tell anyone whether this wine has aged or is likely to be more green than a kid in elementary school.