Noobie with a silly question

[GranGreen]

I've come back to wine making after some 30 plus years and hope to be bottling my first cleared DJ's worth of effort next week. It's only a 6 bottle Munton's fruit kit so there's not much liquid to play with or waste.

I've also started a variation of WOW's which is still scarily active but I have high hopes for it.

Anyway - to my question. Many of the posts on here talk of sampling the finished product a few times after bottling. So - could fill, say, four or five full bottles and then fill a few small jars or bottles to use as tasters? Obviously, these would be sterilised as normal. What I don't want to do is bottle it all up then have a taster from a whole bottle thus wasting it if I find it needs a bit more time to mature.

Thanks for all and any advice.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

I wouldn't worry about maturing your WOW variants as they do not need much maturing, mine don't last long as we don't have a lot of storage space so start most within a week or two.

 

[GranGreen]

OK - I'll go with the flow for the WOW - it's for home consumption - but for the Muntons kit thing should I still fill a few taster samplers or is it just not worth the time and effort so long as it's edging towards OK when it's bottled? I'd like to give a couple as gifts come jolly old December but don't want to hand over a bottle of something nasty. I can use nasty wine up in a trice with cooking, or even start some MOV.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

If you are going to give it at Christmas I wouldn't bother with the sample bottles as its going to have had plenty of time to mature.

I have only made kits at the cheaper end of the market and IIRC non said they needed to mature.

 

[GranGreen]

Thanks, Chippy_Tea. I'll just wing it keep my fingers crossed then. :thumb:

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Keep us posted :wink:

 

[GranGreen]

Racked off my first version of WOW today. It's very dry .... and very cloudy. It seems I chose some difficult stuff but hey-ho ....

I used
Aldi Rio Doro Apple,
Aldi Rio Tropical,
Iceland 100% squeezed tropical.

Probably a wee bit tooooooo much juice in there? It went crazy for the first week or so then slowed down nicely. Anyway, what doesn't kill can't be bad (and I forgot to take the OG) so I've just stopped it after 12 days cos it almost took the enamel off my few remaining teeth and am leaving it to do its own thing for a while.

It has quite a nice crispy fruity tang but any suggestions how I can make it a wee bit less acidic, or have I borked the whole lot?

 

[Tau]

Add finnings you should be ok!

 

[GranGreen]

By the way .... I really don't like this Munton's Cherry stuff. Would probably be good for loo cleaner but the OH says he likes it! Wot! And I've been buying you nice stuff for years (wine, that is ...not loo cleaner ...) ...... pahhhhhhh! Think I might forget to seal it (the 'wine') and start some tarty MOV base.... he he he.