sloanfamilydsm

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I have a World Vinyard Riesling kit and was wanting to back sweeten using the german practice of adding unfermented must after fermentation before bottling. My question is that I bulk age and will be needing to keep this must for up to 24mo. Is freezing some of the must an option or do I use a canning method to preserve? Second idea is should I chaptalisation to get the initial SG up so the wine has enough alcohol to safely age and balance out?

novalou

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I am working on something similar. I have some juice for back sweetening. So far I have added potassium sorbate to keep it from fermenting. I plan on adding it to the wine once it clears, then bulk age.

sloanfamilydsm

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Thank you for chiming in on this. It'll be my first time back sweetening using the must to do it. I think you're right that using sorbate will be mandatory for this as I don't have the capability to filter. I hate adding chemicals to my wines. The one article I was able to find on this procedure added the sweetener at the end of aging. Won't this procedure effect the aging ability of the wine?

novalou

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Even if you pasteurize your juice won't survive on it's own for two years. The wine has alcohol to help preserve it.

sloanfamilydsm

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I love to age wine. Just seems to taste better to me & I got the time. Good call on the juice not surviving that long. What would the shelf life be using this method? Do you raise the starting gravity knowing you'll be diluting it later?

novalou

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The shelf life of juice or wine? I plan on using my juice after my wine clears, which should be a few months. You'll have to calculate how much juice you plan to add to determine your alcohol content.

sloanfamilydsm

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[QUOTE=novalou;4481559]The shelf life of juice or wine?

The shelf life of the wine. I will heed your advice on the juice not making it as long as I would like it to.

saramc

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If you plan to backsweeten with a fermentable sugar source you must have adequate k-meta and sorbate on board to prevent refermention in a dry wine. Only exception, if yeast are killed off due to alcohol toxicity, you choose to pasteurize or can successfully sterile filter(but even that is not failsafe).

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sloanfamilydsm

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If I were able to bulk age first, is freezing some of the must an option or do I use a canning method to preserve? Second idea is should I chaptalisation to get the initial SG up so the wine has enough alcohol to safely age and balance out?

WilliamSlayer

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Every time I have used the Sussreserve method I have added my must within 3 months of fermentation. As long as you have FIRST used kmeta and sorbate, adding it now should work just fine, and your only maintenance will be some kmeta every year or so for preservation. The sweetness will remain and begin to also age and become more complex. The great thing about rieslings is their higher acidity also lends itself to ageability. A 10% Riesling can age just like a 14% Cabernet.

A second option is to not hang onto the must. Two years down the road, you could just get more juice and perform the Sussreserve then!

Good luck! Let us know what you decide!