Hi all a couple of questions on a Zinfandel port I made from last
years harvest (grapes were 31 Brix when I started!)

So, I now have 4 gallons of Zin port at 20% alcohol that I need to age
appropriately. It's currently sitting in a 3 gallon carboy and a 1
gallon jug. While I would love to put it into a barrel, at 4 gallons
that's problematic given that the smallest barrel I can find is 5
gallons.

I'm looking to end up with a late bottled vintage style port, so I
need to see some oxidation, but nowhere near the level of that a tawny
would see, so I'm expecting to leave this bulk aging for 3+ years
before bottling.

Some of my thoughts are to:
Leave the wine where it is and use very limited SO2 to allow for some
oxidation to occur and use Stavin cubes for oak flavor.

Move the wine into a plastic container that has some (low) oxygen
permeability to give it the chance to oxidise a little more in line
with what a barrel would provide, again using Stavin, but with higher
SO2 to compensate for the higher oxidation rate.

Buy a 5 gallon barrel, and blanket regularly with Argon to reduce the
oxidation rate due to the partial fill and again more aggressively use
SO2.

TIA.
Alastair

>Buy a 5 gallon barrel, and blanket regularly with Argon to reduce the
>oxidation rate due to the partial fill and again more aggressively use
>SO2

I would imagine that you've already fortified your port with brandy to get it
up to 20% alcohol, so why not just get a few bottles of commercially made zin,
and add a little bit more brandy, to bring your volume up to 5 gal, and then
use a barrel? In spite of everything I've read about the shortcomings of small
barrels, some of my best wines are from 6 or 8 gallon barrels.

Lee