Alan,
There's two types of aging a wine. One is bulk aging in a carboy, and the
other is bottle aging. I think both are important and contribute different
things to a wine. We all have to decide how long we can bulk age a wine. I
started with bulk aging until 7 months, I'm trying to let the wines bulk age
to 8 months now - I'd like to go longer, but I was working on building up my
stock. It took four years, but I now have enough wine on hand so that I
don't run out, and I can allow certain wines to age the proper amount of
time. I still probably don't bulk age as much as I should. It depends on the
wine - strawberry wine is better at a young age and loses something by 1
year, so I won't bulk age that wine that long. Pumpkin wine is better at 2
years, so that could bulk age longer, but it does fine in the bottle from 7
months old to aging to two years. Each wine is different and I would check
Jack's site for his suggestions on which wines benefit from aging longer.
Some on this site bulk age for years.... Anyway, it is up to you...my only
concern is that if you bottle too soon sometimes you can end up with bottle
bombs - the wine might be quiet now but sometimes things change. And I do
get concerned when beginner winemakers get discouraged after bottling to
early and then they end up with 1/2 inch of sediment in their bottles. The
wine is still drinkable after you decant, but the wine could be much better.
Hope this helps.
Darlene

"Alan Gould" > wrote in message
...
> In article >, Dar V
> > writes
>>Hello,
>> Your wine is very young, and you're fine. I've made plum wine, and you
>>need to give it more time to clear on its own. I usually don't bottle my
>>wine until it is about 8 months old - which might include 2-4 rackings in
>>that 8 months depending on how cloudy the wine is. Yes, it sounds like you
>>have too much head space in your carboy and that would be a concern. You
>>need to get your wine in 1 or more carboys with bungs and airlocks with
>>very
>>little head room. I do 1 gallon batches and there is barely 1 inch of
>>headspace between the wine and the bung. Do keep some wine back for
>>top-up -
>>when you rack the wine off the sediment (which will continue to drop over
>>the next few months). I like to keep all my wine in the dark as much as
>>possible, especially when you're aging it. I wait until the wine is clear
>>before bottling. If you bottle a young cloudy wine, you'll get sediment in
>>your bottles, so you need to decide if that's acceptable or not. The most
>>I
>>get in my bottles is a dusting of sediment. I let time do its work - I've
>>only had to fine with bentonite 2 or three wines in the 4 years I've been
>>making wine. Good-luck. Plum wine is a yummy wine.
>
> Dar, if a finished wine is in its 1 gallon storage vessel, cleared and
> fermentation ceased, is it beneficial to leave it in there to mature, or
> will it do that better after it has been bottled? I have two or three
> now at that stage and I am not sure whether to bottle them yet.
> --
> Alan Gould. North Lincolnshire, UK.