Tasting young wine in carboy/barrel.

[verdot]

I’ve usually let carboys sit for a year before tasting at all, but I just sampled some Cabernet franc I made from my vineyard that was sitting in carboy since November and I really didn’t know what to make of it. It was pretty reduced and disjointed. Is that normal for wine at this point? How do you guys access wine in its early stages and is it even worth it at this point to judge it?

 

[BarrelMonkey]

I think it's hard to really know how red wine is going to turn out until at least 6 months from when you first move it to barrel/tank/carboy - maybe even longer if you're dealing with a big, tannic cabernet franc. Assuming harvest/fermentation in the September/October/November timeframe, that means I'd hope to get a handle on things around April/May of the following year.

That being said, it's worth tasting earlier to see if there are any flaws that can be corrected, as it's generally easier to do this early rather than late. I usually taste at least every two months or so. Here are my tasting notes for my 2023 Syrah. This was my first attempt at Syrah; harvest 9/20/23, fermentation complete 10/7 and racked to barrel/keg/carboy 10/9:

10/05/23 Near end of primary. Good fruit, bright acidity, grippy tannins.
11/29/23 Tasted samples from ML analysis. Bbl, keg and 3 gal taste good, robust tannin. 1 gal has very unpleasant mousy aftertaste*.
12/28/23 Sampled Bbl and keg. Bbl is remarkably smooth already. Keg more prominent tannins but still nice.
03/28/24 Bbl: dark magenta; sweet berry and a little oaky.
Keg: firmer tannins, more pronounced meatiness.
Carboy: similar to keg, a little peppery
04/06/24 Bbl Pretty purple; jammy berry and vanilla nose. Soft texture giving way to tannins
Keg: Similar color. Meatier on the nose, more lively/bright fruit on the palate and more prominent tannins
2:1 blend (Bbl/keg): Better than both barrel and keg; – almost floral nose, good berry flavors, bright and more grippy than Bbl alone
05/01/24 Tasted on topping barrel. Barrel smoother and more complex than keg.
05/30/24 Barrel showing clear oaky notes, time to rack out.
07/01/24(Pre-bottling) Press keg: fruity, meaty notes. FR kegs: richer than press, delicious, tannins still grippy but softening?
10/24/24 Opened bottle with dinner. Dark maroon/purple, young looking. Spicy nose. Taste meaty with dark berry, tannins much softer than at bottling, oak in the background

* The 'mousiness' was very prominent and very unpleasant, though fortunately only in that single 1-gal vessel. It went down the drain...

 

[winemaker81]

I’ve usually let carboys sit for a year before tasting at all

That's a mistake, for several reasons.

One is the longevity of wine. While my reds tend to be good for at least 3 years, whites vary a lot more. I typically bottle whites and light fruits at 4 to 7 months as they're ready earlier. Ditto for light reds.

More importantly, you're missing an opportunity to experience the aging of wines. We taste wines every time we touch them, which for barrels, is monthly. There is so much variation, and unless you taste it yourself, you'll never understand.

Plus it's fun.

 

[distancerunner]

If you’re moving wine, taste.
If you’re sampling for labs, taste.

 

[verdot]

That's a mistake, for several reasons.

One is the longevity of wine. While my reds tend to be good for at least 3 years, whites vary a lot more. I typically bottle whites and light fruits at 4 to 7 months as they're ready earlier. Ditto for light reds.

More importantly, you're missing an opportunity to experience the aging of wines. We taste wines every time we touch them, which for barrels, is monthly. There is so much variation, and unless you taste it yourself, you'll never understand.

Plus it's fun.

Oops. I should have said reds. Whites are done as soon as possible.

 

[Rice_Guy]

How do you guys access wine in its early stages and is it even worth it at this point to judge it?

I know people who do not do any lab testing but will adjust everything based on taste. Taste works. Taste is all grandpa had to work with. , , , , He was skilled in the art. ,,,
Practice. It may not mean anything today, but that mainly means you never got to ask grandpa what he was doing.
My look at the numbers is that they were good for the QA lab which was staffed with high school grads who didn’t know anything. The numbers were also good in figuring out what the old plant folks knew and then establishing sensors to run a PLC. I run enough that I go to contests and say this bottle is a 1.003 with pH 3.6 and soft tannin 2 out of 10 and bitter tannin of .5 out of 10 etc (some things I can’t measure)

 

[winemaker81]

Oops. I should have said reds. Whites are done as soon as possible.

Gotcha. The point still applies that you're missing an educational opportunity. Also, if you any problems with a wine, you won't know until that problem has had a year to fester.

 

[bstnh1]

I’ve usually let carboys sit for a year before tasting at all, but I just sampled some Cabernet franc I made from my vineyard that was sitting in carboy since November and I really didn’t know what to make of it. It was pretty reduced and disjointed. Is that normal for wine at this point? How do you guys access wine in its early stages and is it even worth it at this point to judge it?

Do you rack or add k-meta during that year or just let it sit?

 

[verdot]

Do you rack or add k-meta during that year or just let it sit?

It gets two rackings after fermentation then goes into a flextank, usually. I was short of 15 gallons this year so the wine is aging in glass.

 

[verdot]

I think it's hard to really know how red wine is going to turn out until at least 6 months from when you first move it to barrel/tank/carboy - maybe even longer if you're dealing with a big, tannic cabernet franc. Assuming harvest/fermentation in the September/October/November timeframe, that means I'd hope to get a handle on things around April/May of the following year.

That being said, it's worth tasting earlier to see if there are any flaws that can be corrected, as it's generally easier to do this early rather than late. I usually taste at least every two months or so. Here are my tasting notes for my 2023 Syrah. This was my first attempt at Syrah; harvest 9/20/23, fermentation complete 10/7 and racked to barrel/keg/carboy 10/9:

10/05/23 Near end of primary. Good fruit, bright acidity, grippy tannins.
11/29/23 Tasted samples from ML analysis. Bbl, keg and 3 gal taste good, robust tannin. 1 gal has very unpleasant mousy aftertaste*.
12/28/23 Sampled Bbl and keg. Bbl is remarkably smooth already. Keg more prominent tannins but still nice.
03/28/24 Bbl: dark magenta; sweet berry and a little oaky.
Keg: firmer tannins, more pronounced meatiness.
Carboy: similar to keg, a little peppery
04/06/24 Bbl Pretty purple; jammy berry and vanilla nose. Soft texture giving way to tannins
Keg: Similar color. Meatier on the nose, more lively/bright fruit on the palate and more prominent tannins
2:1 blend (Bbl/keg): Better than both barrel and keg; – almost floral nose, good berry flavors, bright and more grippy than Bbl alone
05/01/24 Tasted on topping barrel. Barrel smoother and more complex than keg.
05/30/24 Barrel showing clear oaky notes, time to rack out.
07/01/24(Pre-bottling) Press keg: fruity, meaty notes. FR kegs: richer than press, delicious, tannins still grippy but softening?
10/24/24 Opened bottle with dinner. Dark maroon/purple, young looking. Spicy nose. Taste meaty with dark berry, tannins much softer than at bottling, oak in the background

* The 'mousiness' was very prominent and very unpleasant, though fortunately only in that single 1-gal vessel. It went down the drain...

Good info, thanks! This is what I’m looking for. I was curious if you can tell a wines character or potential a couple months in barrel/carboy or if it takes time to “lock in.” I will check again at the six month point. I didn’t detect flaws more so than aroma not being very present and the oak (winestix in this case) not tasting fully integrated, yet.

 

[winemaker81]

I was curious if you can tell a wines character or potential a couple months in barrel/carboy or if it takes time to “lock in.”

Both.

The folks with the experience can often make a ballpark judgment on a wine post-fermentation.

Speaking solely for myself, early in the aging process, it's more of a pass/fail rating. My take on a wine being good (or not) is easy to judge -- for me.

As the wine ages, it becomes easier to hone in on how good it will be. Anything I judged as "good" is at least that, and sometime they're above average or (rarely) great. Note that on occasion things turn south and I'm wrong (1 batch in 7 years). I am many things -- infallible is not in the list.

Each time you taste a wine, record your impressions. Put those notes away and don't look at them. Three or 6 months after bottling, open a bottle, record your impressions, then read all your notes from first to last. You may be surprised.

 

[BarrelMonkey]

Good info, thanks! This is what I’m looking for. I was curious if you can tell a wines character or potential a couple months in barrel/carboy or if it takes time to “lock in.” I will check again at the six month point. I didn’t detect flaws more so than aroma not being very present and the oak (winestix in this case) not tasting fully integrated, yet.

As @winemaker81 noted, it's a great (and fun!) learning experience to taste often between end of fermentation and bottling. With experience (which I don't claim to have) I think you can get a general sense of how good a wine is going to be at an earlier stage, but it takes a while before it loses that disjointed feeling. Sometimes that lingers still after bottling - my aforementioned syrah is still a little bit 'chewy' (you'll note I mentioned tannin a lot in my tasting notes) and so IMO still going through its awkward teenage phase... But I think that same tannic character will soften over time and hopefully produce a delicious and age-worthy wine.

 

[winemaker81]

Four years ago my son & I conducted an experiment with an oak product. Unfortunately the vendor in question went out of business. Our experiment is documented here:

https://wine.bkfazekas.com/oak-stix-experiment/

It will take 20 minutes to read the tasting notes.

The important thing to note is how the wines changed over time, and that there were highs and lows. The recognition that wine may cycle between highs and lows taught me more about understanding how wine ages than anything else I've done.

 

[Christopher Anderson]

As a newbie, two years ago, I made a Tuscan blend. Racked it several times as it sat in a carboy for a year. The taste was just OK, I thought after a year, I thought it would be good. It was OK. I bottled it anyway. At 6 months it tasted better. a week ago, I opened another bottle and much better. IMHO, this is why we rarely find commercial bottles dated last year. many are 2022/23. They sit and age to be smoother and better.

 

[Shurt1073]

I read a thread on WMT about three years ago on tasting the juice along the way from fermentation, bulk aging, to bottling but didn't understand the importance of the tastings until two years ago. Let my wine sit bulk aging for a year and before bottling, I gave it a taste to discover in needed something. Oak, tannin, glycerin ..... it just needed something which put me back about 6-8 more weeks bottling.

Every time I rack or add Kmeta you can bet I'm taking about 4oz off and making notes. I look forward to it. You will get to open another bottle of wine to top the carboy off again. Win-Win