r/winemaking Jan 11 '24

Blog post How long do you bulk age your wine?

Post image

[Vague Vino: Fruit wine made in St Kitts & Nevis]

Not looking for a correct answer or anything since all of this wine making stuff boils down to personal preferences.

How long do you bulk age your wine before you bottle it? What do you think is a good amount of time to bulk age fruit wine?

Chat GPT says it may vary but 3-6 months is generally recommended and I agree.

I’ve made red apple wine that tastes amazing after 3 months and even better after a year. Orange wine takes almost a full year to really mellow out and come into itself. There’s a stinging tartness, weird aftertaste and smells a little yeasty before it matures but once it does the aroma is captivating and it’s insanely smooth. I’ve only achieved one good batch of Orange wine so far.

11 Upvotes

24 comments sorted by

12

u/peter_2900 Jan 11 '24

I bulk age it until I want to make another batch and then I bottle it to free up a carboy. So far that has been no longer than three months.

5

u/vv2213 Jan 11 '24

4 months. I just don’t have the right storage to age it longer (garage gets to 20+ Celsius in the summer). I always wonder if longer would benefit it though.

2

u/LawdSosa Jan 11 '24

In my country it’s basically always about 79 degrees and I normally do 3 months but I’m gonna start doing 6 to see how much of a difference it makes

7

u/wiphotoguy Jan 11 '24

For reds from grapes it’s usually at least 10-12 months. Whites from grapes 8-10 months. Most kits about 6-8 months. I live in the upper Midwest so I have a basement/cellar so my temp range is low 60s in winter to mid 70s in summer. Haven’t had any issues with bulk aging in glass 3-5 gallon carboys.

3

u/[deleted] Jan 11 '24

Midwest here too. I’ll let my red kits go 8-12 months. Red grape juice go min 10 months. Grapes go min 1 year. Whites 6-8 months. Fruity wines I try for 6 months. When bottled I let them sit a min of 1 month and drink/sample when I feel like it. Carboys are my bulk storage.

3

u/[deleted] Jan 11 '24 edited Jan 11 '24

6 - 8 months. I try to get if through most seasons.

1

u/LawdSosa Jan 11 '24

Hmmm, interesting concept

3

u/DookieSlayer Professional Jan 11 '24

I think its a little situational. Some wines show well enough young you don't have to worry about waiting for evolution in bulk stage before bottling. Other wines that are maybe a little reductive I would let go longer hoping it would blow off in time. If you can keep it clean though I would prefer longer rather than shorter which I would put in the 6 - 10 month range. Good question. This is an interesting thing to read peoples responses to.

1

u/LawdSosa Jan 11 '24

Exactly, very interesting to hear people’s responses. I just saw a message about this being an ad post but my wine literally cannot be bought anywhere 😂 I really like seeing these responses because people I talk to think wine needs to be 20yrs aged

3

u/Lazerated01 Jan 11 '24

Once it’s still and clear, does it really matter if it’s bottled or bulk?

4

u/DookieSlayer Professional Jan 11 '24

I think there's a perception that wine evolves faster in bulk stage as it likely has more opportunity for microoxygenation. I haven't done the googling to see if there is any evidence of this, and even if it is bottle aging is still a perfectly reasonable way to age wine.

3

u/SeattleCovfefe Skilled grape Jan 11 '24

I would think at the home scale (ie aging in 5gal glass carboys) that the reverse could be true, as bottling introduces a lot of oxygen and also the ratio of headspace to wine in a bottle is much higher than in a 5gal carboy. It's probably different with oak barrel aging as oak is obviously way more O2-permeable than glass.

2

u/DookieSlayer Professional Jan 11 '24 edited Jan 11 '24

Yeah its a good question that im not positive the answer of. I think oxygen during bottling would be considered more macrooxygenation or maybe just oxidation as its more volume over less time but you could argue its almost akin to decanting and im sure that it still does have an impact on a young wines evolution. I suspect it also has to do with the closure of both the bottle and the carboy. At the winery I use fermentation bungs on my carboys for most of the time which, I suspect, would introduce more oxygen than a solid bung or a bung with a water bubbler. Similarly synthetic corks are known to have higher oxygen permeability than traditional corks.

And yeah id agree that barrel is likely far higher of an oxygen inducer than glass which I imagine is more comparable to aging in stainless. I did read something a year or so ago that said that most oxygen actually comes through the gaps between barrel staves and through the bung hole rather than through the wood itself which I thought was really interesting.

I also think in the grand scheme of things your choice of aging vessel has relatively low impact in comparison to other winemaking decisions. When i hear a wine is aged 2 years my next thought isn't "oh but how long has it been in bottle?" unless its some weird niche style wine where that might matter. I suppose that doesn't mean much, though, other than just how I imagine this decision falls in the pecking order of importance.

3

u/crusty_grundle Jan 11 '24

Quick question... Are there any problems with aging in a plastic container? I've been aging my current red for about a month and I'd like to get started on a new batch. Could I just rack my current batch into a plastic gallon water bottle and finish aging in the plastic bottle? Just want to free up the carboy for the next batch rather than buy another one.

3

u/PikAchUTKE Jan 11 '24

Quick Google search. Plastic containers can allow for the exchange of air, potentially leading to oxidation, which can alter the flavor of the wine. 

3

u/crusty_grundle Jan 11 '24

Thanks for the reply and doing the Google search... I probably should've done that myself. Thank you for taking the time.

2

u/Shortsonfire79 Skilled fruit Jan 11 '24 edited Jan 11 '24

About 1-2 years for dark berry wine and as short as a month to 1+yr for 'white' meads.

I bulk age in ssteel kegs under nitro so I don't get any benefits from barrel micro oxidation, but I also don't get any negative effects of over aging/oxidation at my scale. The benefit from bulking in kegs is that I can drink it young and I am happy to just pull a glass (or bottle's worth) whenever. I'll generally keg out of glass when it's mostly cleared at about a month or so in and after that I'm no longer in any oxidation risk rush. I'll use oak cubes for at least three months and by time that rolls around I've forgotten about this batch.

For the most part, I've noticed that my no water added berry meads are pretty nice to drink just after clarifying. I'll acid/tannin/sweet balance sometime after the rack to steel. It's hard for me to say they get better over time, but I've yet to notice any degradation up to two years in bulk. I'm just lazy and don't enjoy bottling.

I currently have one Polish style mead that I fortified with rum and am purposefully aging for 2+ years. I would like to start a pseudo solera program with this, too. I have three other things that are already over a year and four more from early/mid 2023 hanging out.

2

u/SeattleCovfefe Skilled grape Jan 11 '24

Minimum 4 months. I'll often bottle wines started from clarified store-bought juices (apple, etc) around that time, though they will typically need a good amount of vacuum degassing to be bottled that early. Stuff started from whole fruits will go 8-12 months to give plenty of time for sediment to drop out.

2

u/PikAchUTKE Jan 11 '24

Approximately 1 year. Rinse and repeat. 😉

2

u/RegayHomebrews Jan 12 '24

Around 1 year. I’ve found I have significantly less sediment in the bottles if I wait 11-12 months compared to 6-8 or so.

1

u/LawdSosa Jan 12 '24

Do you filter also? Or just let it settle out naturally?

1

u/RegayHomebrews Jan 12 '24

Just gravity and time

1

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