Clueless human - can you sweeten a dry red wine?

[Jem10]

Hi there,

Hoping you guys might be able to help. I have never made my own wine so am utterly clueless. I get married in July and my wonderful mother in law has made us 25 bottles of bramble red wine. A lovely and time consuming gesture. She doesn't drink it herself. My bridesmaids and I decided to have a wee sample last night and while I'm obviously super grateful, it is extremely dry. We then got the neighbours involved who said the same thing. Lovely bramble flavour but insanely dry. This could be complete idiocy but I'm wondering if there is anything at all we can to sweeten the wine at this stage? Is it too late?

Any advice gratefully received. This wine would be going on the tables for our wedding meal,

Jem

 

[TheQuokka]

If you were extremely careful with sanitisation and avoiding oxygen, I suspect you could sweeten it with a sterile lactose solution - but dry wine is a style, usually improved by age, especially in oak.

 

[chewie]

If there screw top bottles pop a sweetener in, give it time to dissolve and taste it, if still on the dry side try another sweetener. Once you know how many you need per bottle then go with that and add it a day or two before you need them. That would be your quickest and easiest way, do make sure the bottles get sealed backup again tight to prevent oxidisation.

Without knowing if the wine has been stabilised i would not add sugar or anything else that is fermentable like honey, syrup, fruit or fruit juice as it could cause unopened bottles to explode.

 

[simon12]

You could try adding sugar to the glass before you drink it.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

I used to bottle into 2 litre PET bottles and I added a couple of teaspoons of sugar just before drinking it and shook the bottle until it dissolved​.