If the wine was fermenting fairly vigorously when put in the secondary and
IF you do not open it to check it for any reason, it should be just fine.
However, you do need to protect the wine form air. If you have several
inches of head space when you put the wine in secondary, that is filled with
air and will damage the wine. If the ferment was going strongly the air
will quickly be purged from the carboy by CO2 and the airlock will protect
it. But every time you open it new air comes in and it can and will damage
the wine.

Best be safe. Rack to smaller carboys or top up with something.

Ray

"Tim Wisniewski" > wrote in message
...
> Folks,
>
> I'm a 'newbie' at making wine and at this stage am using wine kits that
> allow me to mix the ingredients like a soup mix.
>
> A question.....once the wine is racked off the primary fermentor to the
> secondary........is there a negative effect of 'headspace' in the carboy.
I
> left the wine in a carboy of generous size, but with an airlock in place.
> Seems as though the airlock will take care of oxygen issues, even though
the
> fermentation had stopped, for the most part.
>
> Advise, please...
>
> TIA..
>
> Tim
>
>
>