I found the following information:

" ... don't go out and buy commercial wine to top up your carboy (it will
probably contaminate it anyway) ... "


Is this true, will commercial wine contaminate ?????


(I apologize if this has already been discussed.)

"Matt A" > wrote:

> I found the following information:
>
> " ... don't go out and buy commercial wine to top up your carboy (it will
> probably contaminate it anyway) ... "
>
> Is this true, will commercial wine contaminate ?????

It depends on your definition of contaminate. Commercial wine has probably
been sterile filtered, and pasteurized or sulfited, thus the chances of
microbial contamination are small. If you added a heavily-sulfited wine to a
fermenting wine, it could cause problems, but I wouldn't describe them as
contamination. But if you try to add Ripple to your Chardonnay or Cabernet,
that would certainly be contamination in my book.

An English tourist entered a small tienda in Catalonia, where he purchased a
bota (a small leather wine flask made of goat skin). As he started to leave
the shop, he turned to the proprietor and queried, "It's ok to use water,
isn't it?" The proprietor's face turned ashen. "¡No, señor!", he exclaimed.
"Water will completely destroy the insides!" The customer rejoined, "Are you
quite certain? I don't see how water could hurt the flask." The proprietor's
face returned to its normal colour. "¡Ai! la bota. I thought that you
intended to drink it".

After doing this on a a number of wines, I'd say there's no problem - in
fact it's a lot better than the alternatives of adding water or leaving too
much head space. Your other options are to add sterilized marbles (a bit of
a pain, but workable if you're topping up a wine that's hard to match, like
an ice wine), or rack into a smaller container.

Ed

"Matt A" > wrote in message
...
> I found the following information:
>
> " ... don't go out and buy commercial wine to top up your carboy (it will
> probably contaminate it anyway) ... "
>
>
> Is this true, will commercial wine contaminate ?????
>
>
> (I apologize if this has already been discussed.)
>

"Ed Marks" > wrote in message >...
> After doing this on a a number of wines, I'd say there's no problem - in
> fact it's a lot better than the alternatives of adding water or leaving too
> much head space. Your other options are to add sterilized marbles (a bit of
> a pain, but workable if you're topping up a wine that's hard to match, like
> an ice wine), or rack into a smaller container.
>
> Ed

That's pretty clever, sterilized marbles. I never heard of that one
before. I'll have to store that in the 'ol noggin for later
forgetfullness and eventual rememberance.

Thanks,

Deadend