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 Welcome
to our column. We hope that you will return to
learn interesting notes on wine, and related
subjects. Wine is a great gift from God to be used
for the enjoyment of man. It is a food, and should
be treated as such. It is meant to lift up the body
and lighten the soul. 11/01/04 Break is over…time to get back to work. Well you should be happy with your wine. The young wine is like a young child, it needs care and guidance to mature. So here we are, all the fruit is turned into young wine. All the picking, crushing, pressing, and amelioration are finished. BUT, there is still work to be done. After the bubbles have stopped, it is time to rack the wine into a clean tank. It is not good to allow the young wine to rest on the lees (all the stuff that has fallen out of the working wine). All of these lees can provide growth nutrients for spoilage organisms. And we all know where that leads. It is important when racking to top off the tank with like wine. To leave an air space is asking for trouble. Racking the second time will really clean up your wine. The second racking can take place just a very few weeks after the first. Watch the wine and check to see how it is clearing up. There should be very few bubbles by this time. It is at the second racking that you need to add some KMS (potassium meta-sulfite) at a rate of 1 oz to 100 gallons. This will increase the sulfur dioxide content in the young wine by 20 to 30 ppm. We do this to help protect the young wine from spoilage microorganisms and oxidation. It is easy to get busy with life after the hard work of winemaking if finished. But, Now that we have, or are going to rack our wine in the days ahead, let us enjoy a bit of wine that we made in the past. After all, is not wine a gift from Our God ? ? ?
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