When to back sweeten?

[balatonwine]

It may not be within your planning horizon ow wine style preference, but I would consider giving the Cab Sauv some time and oak before making the decision to backsweeten.

Agreed.

Give the wine some time to "find itself" before rushing in to altering what it is.

Wine can take months or years to mature. Don't ruin it by impatience.

Fine wine making is the refined art of taking your time, and waiting.

 

[Michael Alspaugh]

When do you plan on bottling the wine? Most good wines, especially reds need plenty of aging and doing that in bulk is really the best way. By bulk aging you can wait until just before you bottle ( a week or two before) to back-sweeten and better avoid over sweetening. Once you've sweetened and bottled there's no going back and changing.

As mentioned by NorCal - Waiting to age that wine in bulk is a good decision you won't regret. Most wines lose that sharp edge and many end up not even needing any back-sweetening once that edge is gone.

Your K-Meta (campden tablets) one month ago have you covered for now - Normally a dose of campden tablets/K-Meta lasts about 3 months for an aging wine. So for now you are good to go. If you plan on bottling within the next month you should be fine with no further K-Meta. BUT really you will not regret waiting at least another 6-9 months before bottling - it makes that much difference to age that wine.
At the risk of being judgemental or overly opinionated...
At 1-6 months most wines are... well they are wine - an alcoholic beverage.
At 6-12 months most wines are certainly drinkable but have room for improvement - but bottling then is a safe bet.
At 12 months to 24 months those same wines are truly enjoyable.
For those wines allowed to age (Even in the bottle) more than 2 years... I have yet to hear anyone say the regretted that decision.

That wait is really really hard to do but once you've done it - I truly doubt you'll ever regret it. Yesterday we opened a bottle of my first Black Currant wine that was fermented in January of 2016. That wine has 15.5% ABV, it's sweet (Almost too sweet) and has a rock solid flavor and it is fantastic as a dessert wine. I would put it up against just about anything. (Sadly I think it's my last bottle from that batch)

Sorry for the long dissertation.

I use pears or peaches or apples to make my wine so no reds grapes they all get used for my jams and jellies here on my lil fruit farm. I bottle my wine around three-four months and let is age for another few months but I pull away a couple with each batch to test down the road one at six then twelve months and one at 18. I like the way my alcoholic drinks taste at most stages but I do detect changes as time goes by. When I back sweeten I use about 1 1/2 to two cups of pure cane unrefined "Morena" sugar from Aldi stores made into "simple syrup" in 5 gallons of my wines. It seems to just bring out the fruit flavor so you can taste what kind of fruit it is without that sickly sweet flavor of the store bought peach or apple "fruity" wines that have only 6% alcohol. Mine start around 1.110 and end around 0.990 Another thing I do is buy those wines to test them against mine to see what the differences are. Please tell me anything you want to... no problem with long "dissertations" in my classroom of wine making...I thank all of you that take the time to teach me new things along the way. Michael...

 

[NelsonC]

I have a Cabernet Sauvignon wine that has a S.G. of 0.992. It is approximately 1 month old and is very bitter. I have it bulk aging in the basement. It is nice clear red color but it is still shedding a slight sediment....

In my experience the sediment will give your wine an "off" smell depending on how much lies at the bottom and for how long. I would recommend to transfer the wine so you leave the sediment behind. The decision to transfer or not will depend on how much sediment and how long you want leave it to age. Also, in a 5-gal (23L) carboy do not let too much "head space". Top up your carboy with a similar wine and don't leave more that 3-4 in of space at the top.

 

[balatonwine]

In my experience the sediment will give your wine an "off" smell depending on how much lies at the bottom and for how long.

Yes, there is a difference between "sur lie" and "sure wish I had racked"....