Hi Nick, I’m sorry to hear that things are tasting a bit off. If the wine sat in a carboy for six months that isn’t necessarily bad, however, you may have picked up off flavors from decaying yeast if it threw any sediment while in the carboy.

Another possibility is that it could have come into contact with some sort of spoilage micro-organism. Was there any hint of sulfur (burnt match or bad eggs)? Did you pick up any vinegar flavors or something akin to bad fruit?

The foaming and carbonation after that amount of time is what’s concerning me. Spoilage micro-organisms do a fermentation of sorts and will produce carbon dioxide so when a still wine starts bubbling again something may indeed be off.

You might find some answers by taking a small sample to a local winemaking supply shop to see if they can identify any off odors.

Let me know what you think is going on.

-Matt

My Riesling White wine is amber and
carbonated? A little off tasting? Is it bad? I let it go 6 months before 2nd
racking… I racked it a month ago and put in isinglass and I just racked it now,
put a little potassium metabisulfate in there…

And while I was
transferring,, it foamed like crazy… its just a bit dark?

Please advise?

Thanks, Nick

Hi Andre, degassing is a challenge and it can certainly be laborious. The trick to it though is making sure your wine is in the 72-75F temperature range. Any cooler and your wine will really hang on to that suspended carbon dioxide. In warmer temperatures it readily lets it go.

Using a spoon or an actual drill attachment (like this one: http://winemakersacademy.org/wine-whip) is a great way to speed up the process. I get the best results by reversing the drill direction every 30 seconds. Let the drill stop spinning but not the wine before reversing. This ensures maximum agitation in the wine but without burning out your drill motor. Also, keep the agitation below the free surface of the wine to avoid taking on oxygen.

Lastly, I’ve always found that whatever goes into the bottle stays in the bottle. So if you bottle a wine with sediment or carbon dioxide in it you’ll find that it’s still there even after a couple years in the bottle. I have a shiraz that I didn’t degas all the way and to date it is still bubbly and doesn’t taste all that great.

Your wine can degas naturally over time, however, the storage temperature makes a big big difference. I hope this helps Andre!

-Matt

Hi John, yes the carbon dioxide will leave over time. Be careful with your screw tops loosened as you don’t want to get into trouble with oxidation and spoilage micro organisms. They do make drilled plugs that will fit a wine bottle so you could put an airlock on the bottle. This may or may not be feasible depending upon how many bottles you have.

I would suggest holding off on bottling next time until the wine is completely clear and degassed. In general what goes into the bottle stays in the bottle until you pour a glass.

I hope this helps John! Cheers!
-Matt

i have added the clarifier but still have co2….will the co2 go over time…it is bottled and i have loosened the scew tops to allow gas to escape……thanks john

Thank you very much

Great question brycek!

Typically degassing in kit wines is done after fermentation has completed. At that point a clarifier is added and you run the degassing tool to both degas the wine and ensure that your clarifier is thoroughly mixed in.

If you’re not working with a kit you can certainly follow the same process or you could wait until the wine is clear, rack it off the sediment and then fire up the degassing tool. Alternatively you could let your wine degas naturally. This takes three to six months though which is a long time, especially if this is one of your first wines.

Let me know if there’s anything else I can do to help!

-Matt Williams