How long in the bottle?

[mancer62]

I made a 5 gallon solomn grundy cabernet sauvignon 5 weeks and 3 days.ago. I have tacked it twice. I plan to bottle it on Sunday which will be 5 weeks and 4 days since making it. It tastes quite nice and is certainly getting there clarity wise. How long from Sunday would.you recommend I leave in the bottle before drinking it?

 

[Dutto]

Welcome to the Forum! :thumb: :thumb:

A real "How long is a piece of string?" question; sorry.

For me, I hope to leave a red wine for up to six months and a white or rosé wine up to three months before even tasting it.

There are many on the Forum who will advise a much shorter time so we are back with "How long is a piece of string?"

It is very much a matter of taste (literally) and confidence that a particular wine will improve with age rather than deteriorate!

If it tastes nice enough to drink right now my advice is to start drinking it ...

... but put a quarter of the bottles to one side and taste them at fortnightly intervals to see if the wine improves; and if so at what stage it stops improving.

Either way, it is there to be enjoyed! :thumb: :thumb:

 

[engineer]

For me three months.
Why three months? primarily because its a reasonable cycle time to ensure a constant stock of around 20 litres without taking up to much space.

A secondary reason is that i used to store longer but found without good temperature control the wine can and does deteriorate. I made a very nice barolo which i stored and drunk over a period of a year unfortunately the last 5 litres were not at all nice and ended up as cooking fodder. Hence my focus today on a 3 month storage/consumption cycle.

 

[Gunge]

My missus wrestles the bottle from my hands before I've even applied the cap, so in our case about 15 seconds. But seriously.... once bottled it's good to go. The exception being the yearly elderberry/blackberry concoctions which get a necessary two years.

 

[Dutto]

Doing a bit of a tidy up in the garage today so I brought a couple of bottles of Grape and Mango Juice wine in for supper.

Bottled on 9th February this year I tasted it in June and decided that it would be worth brewing again; but with more Mango Juice.

Today's drink was just as "okay" as before so it's not deteriorated at all; but despite an ABV of 13.65% it was deceptively "light" on the palate so I will leave the remaining bottles until at least March/April next year. :thumb:

 

[Tau]

Doing a bit of a tidy up in the garage today so I brought a couple of bottles of Grape and Mango Juice wine in for supper.

Bottled on 9th February this year I tasted it in June and decided that it would be worth brewing again; but with more Mango Juice.

Today's drink was just as "okay" as before so it's not deteriorated at all; but despite an ABV of 13.65% it was deceptively "light" on the palate so I will leave the remaining bottles until at least March/April next year. :thumb:

Just noticed that in your calculations og 1.064 FG 0.960, you sure that Fg is correct and not 0.996 which would make it 8.93% abv which seems more realistic and around what you where aiming for. It would also mean that keeping it for another year might not be a good idea at that abv.

 

[Dutto]

Bugger!

The 4th June was a busy day as, on the same day, I bottled the Apple and Plum Jam wine.

It was about this time that I started taking photographs of the SGs and this is the Jam wine photograph with a FG of 0.996 ... :thumb: :thumb:

... on a hydrometer that only goes down to 0.990.

So, on recalculation, the Grape & Mango Wine will have an ABV of 8.93% ... :thumb: :thumb:

... always assuming that the OG of 1.064 was correct. :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

I must get back into the habit of photographing my SGs again. At the moment I am just writing them on the blackboard and then logging them in my Brewing Diary which gives me THREE points where errors can be made!

Thank's for the heads up! The G&M wine will now be finished by early in the New Year! :thumb: :thumb: