why so long?

[peevy213]

ok I am kind of a newbie. Why do you have to wait like 3 months for wine to finish? I made blackberry wine and it was down to below .995 in 4 weeks, I racked it twice,, and bottled it,, and It is great!!!! I added sugar to sweeten it,, and it is slighty dry but very good! Why should we let it sit for another 2 or 3 months???? I am very happy with the taste of mine. (just asking)

 

[dralarms]

Simply put, wine gets better with age. I've got some that was good at bottling ( I mean good enough to where I am proud to say I made it)
And at 1 year it is the most fantastic wine I ever drank. And at 2 years it's even better
Than before.

 

[seth8530]

Simply put, the wine is not ready that young for many reasons.

If you are putting wine into the bottle that early you are risking bottle bombs since their is not way it has had enough time to dissipate its CO2.

Second, the wine will continue to clear out in the bottle dropping sediment in it, which is ok but kind of gross. Plus, it could also lead to spoilage.

Third, the wine is not really mature at this point. It needs more time to develop prior to being drank. I am not the most patient of winemakers, but I age even my fruit wines for a year before I even think about getting them adjusted for bottling.

Keep these points in mind, and welcome to the forum.

 

[DoctorCAD]

Oh, and 3 months is nowhere long enough...you are going to need to wait 6 months at a minimum, and 6 months after that it might just then be ready for a sample tasting.

2 or 3 years makes a blackberry wine fantastic.

 

[bkisel]

Welcome to the forum!

Agree with what has been posted above.

I started this hobby about 18 months and have been slowly progressing to where I'm doing more bulk and bottle aging. Building an inventory is the key to always having something nice to drink while the more recent stuff is maturing.

 

[Turock]

When wine is still dropping sediment, it's not stable. Only when all the sediment has dropped out and the CO2 is off of the wine is it considered to be stable for bottling. It takes time for this to happen. And if you backsweeten, you have to use sorbate and sorbate cannot work with lots of yeast cells being present. Only when the bulk of the yeast cells are off a wine, will sorbate work to prevent the few remaining cells from using the sugar for backsweetening, as food, to referment.

 

[Tom_S]

As someone already stated, 3 months is not nearly long enough to wait before bottling. At least 6 months at a minimum, and a year is great. The wine needs time to drop sediment and degas CO2, not to mention time to age so that it tastes better. If you think your 3 month old wine tastes good now, wait another 3-6 months and try it then.

A couple years ago I drank one of my bottles from 2008. It was awesome. I've still got a couple left which I probably need to drink. They were put into a wooden box in a forgotten corner of my cellar.

 

[DoctorCAD]

And I had my last bottle of Cab Franc/Merlot from 2010 that wasn't very good until just this year. Wish I'd have saved some of it.

 

[Tom_S]

I've got some Moscato I made which accidentally went through a secondary fermentation so ended up a bit harsh with too high an alcohol level. I'm hoping it will mellow out in time. I know time did wonders for my 18% ABV experiment which started out pretty harsh and took the better part of two years or more to finally mellow out enough to where it didn't taste like rocket fuel any more.

Ah, I remember when I was new to winemaking and "hurry up and get it in the bottle" was my approach. How I've learned to slow down and let it do its thing. Like they say, time is an ingredient.