I recently toured a winery and was told that they take the wine out of the
primary, then bottle it and let it finish aging in the bottles. I thought
you took it out of the primary and put it into a secondary before bottling
it.

I have a gallon of choke cherry wine that I put in to the primary for about
10 days, then squeezed it to remove the skins and seeds. Then I ran it
through a jelly juice filter several times. Then I put it back into the
gallon jug with an airlock. It seemed to quit working within a week or so.
I have left it alone for about 2 months now, and wonder if I could bottle
it.

I bought some corks that have a lid on them that you pull up and apparently
remove air and tighten up at the same time. Will this be enough, or will it
leave enough air in the bottle to cause my wine to turn to vinager? Will
filling the bottles nearly to the cork before putting it in do better? If I
would fill the bottles, then set them in a pan of hot water to expand the
wine, before corking it help me remove the air?

I would appreciate any help you can give. I have made several batches
before using concentrated grape juice and water, and put a balloon on the
gallon jugs, and did OK. This is the first time I have tried doing it with
real fruit.

Dwayne

On 11/25/03 10:36 PM, in article ,
"Dwayne" > wrote:

> I recently toured a winery and was told that they take the wine out of the
> primary, then bottle it and let it finish aging in the bottles. I thought
> you took it out of the primary and put it into a secondary before bottling
> it.
>
> I have a gallon of choke cherry wine that I put in to the primary for about
> 10 days, then squeezed it to remove the skins and seeds. Then I ran it
> through a jelly juice filter several times. Then I put it back into the
> gallon jug with an airlock. It seemed to quit working within a week or so.
> I have left it alone for about 2 months now, and wonder if I could bottle
> it.
>
> I bought some corks that have a lid on them that you pull up and apparently
> remove air and tighten up at the same time. Will this be enough, or will it
> leave enough air in the bottle to cause my wine to turn to vinager? Will
> filling the bottles nearly to the cork before putting it in do better? If I
> would fill the bottles, then set them in a pan of hot water to expand the
> wine, before corking it help me remove the air?
>
> I would appreciate any help you can give. I have made several batches
> before using concentrated grape juice and water, and put a balloon on the
> gallon jugs, and did OK. This is the first time I have tried doing it with
> real fruit.
>
> Dwayne
>
>


The terms "primary" and "secondary" actually have a couple of meanings and
they get mixed up sometimes. In one respect, primary fermentation is the
yeast conversion of sugar to alcohol and secondary fermentation is the
malolactic fermentation when a bacteria converts malic acid to lactic acid.
Most fruit wines and most white grape wines are not taken through a
secondary fermentation.

We often call the vessels we use for winemaking for initial vigorous
fermentation "the primary" and the carboys (or tanks) "the secondary". This
really has nothing to do with ML fermentation but stages of vigorous or slow
yeast fermentation.

This may be part of the confusion about what the winery did with their
wines.

--
Greg Cook
http://homepage.mac.com/gregcook/Wine

(remove spamblocker from my email)

On 11/25/03 10:36 PM, in article ,
"Dwayne" > wrote:

I suppose I forgot to address your other questions . . .

> I have a gallon of choke cherry wine that I put in to the primary for about
> 10 days, then squeezed it to remove the skins and seeds. Then I ran it
> through a jelly juice filter several times. Then I put it back into the
> gallon jug with an airlock. It seemed to quit working within a week or so.
> I have left it alone for about 2 months now, and wonder if I could bottle
> it.

If the wine is clear, you can bottle it. But be careful that "clear" is not
really brilliantly clear and may throw more sediment. I usually bulk age my
wines for 6 or more months with racking off the sediments a couple of times
until it is absolutely clear.

>
> I bought some corks that have a lid on them that you pull up and apparently
> remove air and tighten up at the same time. Will this be enough, or will it
> leave enough air in the bottle to cause my wine to turn to vinager? Will
> filling the bottles nearly to the cork before putting it in do better? If I
> would fill the bottles, then set them in a pan of hot water to expand the
> wine, before corking it help me remove the air?

I am not familiar with the corks you are describing but anything that will
seal your wine from the air would be best. The idea is to get the minimum
amount of air space. I would not recommend heating your wine at any time.

>
> I would appreciate any help you can give. I have made several batches
> before using concentrated grape juice and water, and put a balloon on the
> gallon jugs, and did OK. This is the first time I have tried doing it with
> real fruit.
>
> Dwayne


The nice thing about winemaking is it is rather forgiving. I'm sure your
wine will turn out fine. Let us know how it comes out.

--
Greg Cook
http://homepage.mac.com/gregcook/Wine

(remove spamblocker from my email)