Maturing Wines In Separate Stocks
18008
Food & Beverage > Wine & Spirits
Nov 30, 1999
Maturing Wines In Separate Stocks
I am afraid I always have to suppress a grin when people ask me how long a wine needs to mature because I know that all they really want to know is how soon they can drink it. It is surprising the number of people who simply will not believe that wines improve with age. They set about making wines possessed of an urgency which should not exist and an impatience that is hard to believe. They really believe that wine can be made, matured and drunk in six or seven weeks. With luck, you might get fermentation over and done with and your wines clear and bottled in that time, and truly they are drinkable even so young, but and it is an enormous 'but' wine tasted at that tender age cannot be compared with the same wine tasted a year later. It is impossible to describe the changes that take place, but take place they do. Chemical changes are taking place constantly, so that one batch of wine does not taste the same when sampled at intervals of six weeks. I know full well that you will be itching to get your teeth into these wines and I cannot blame you for that I'm the same myself, always anxious to sample the latest batch to be bottled off. And it is a waste of time for me to tell you to keep it at least a year before drinking because I know you'll never manage it; especially after you had a taste of it when siphoning it into bottles. But please do this for your own sake. At bottling time, put, say, two bottles in the attic or some place where they cannot be reached easily send them to me if you like. Seriously, those two bottles of each lot made will soon mount up to a nice little stock. The remaining four bottles from each gallon may be used as required. The whole secret of building up a stock is to make several lots at the same time and when a jar is emptied at bottling time, start again with another lot. In this way you will always have a few gallons fermenting, several dozen bottles for use as required and a dozen or so slowly growing into a nice reserve. Then, when the first two bottles put away are a year or two old you may sample them. These will have become such magnificent wines in that time that your lesson will have been well and truly learned and the vow taken that henceforth half of all that is bottled is going to the attic. I hope it does, and I hope even more that you will be able to keep some of it for five years at least. For at five years it is better than age four and at three years old it is better than age two. I have proved all this to myself and have a few bottles of wine that I made over fifteen years ago. Must see what they're like, soon.
Learn The Secret To Making Wines So Incredibly Flavorsome & Delightful That No-One Could Resist A Second Glass - Right From The Comfort Of Your Own Home! Click here for FREE online ebook! http://www.makingwine.net/
Write a Review
Add to My Favorite
Refer it to Friend
Report Article
Other links at Food & Beverage > Wine & Spirits
Red wine is excellent with foods that include pasta and red sauce, such as Italian food. Red wine also goes great with beef and chocolate. Likewise, some red wines, such as Pinot noir, go great with pork. Considering there are a few types of red wine,
Category:
a description of Vouvray wine perfect to share on Valentine's Day
Category:
Wine reviews are not like any other reviews, the reader often listens and respects the differences of opinion presented by the critic.
Category:
Tonight?s the night. You?ve got that special dinner party with friends and you want it to be perfect. You?ve got the menu completed but the question is which wine will compliment the meal best? Here are some tips for choosing fine
Category:
There is already a stigma attached to wine of being a high class beverage and above the ordinary citizen without the added feeling of ignorance when trying to understand and comprehend what the terminology on the labels means.
Category:
Site Sponsor
Directory Statistics
Articles: 68228
Categories: 501
Yahoo Entertainment
